Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

Our May / June nonfiction read will be Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves in honor of V-E Day (May 8th, 1945) & D-Day (June 6th, 1944). May 31st is also Memorial Day in the USA for all the veterans we have lost in general.

This nonfiction title has potential to appeal to our history buffs, as Robert Graves focuses in part on his time on the Western Front of World War I. Enjoy!

From GR: An autobiographical work that describes firsthand the great tectonic shifts in English society following the First World War, Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That is a matchless evocation of the Great War's haunting legacy, published in Penguin Modern Classics.

In 1929 Robert Graves went to live abroad permanently, vowing 'never to make England my home again'. This is his superb account of his life up until that 'bitter leave-taking': from his childhood and desperately unhappy school days at Charterhouse, to his time serving as a young officer in the First World War that was to haunt him throughout his life. It also contains memorable encounters with fellow writers and poets, including Siegfried Sassoon and Thomas Hardy, and looks at his increasingly unhappy marriage to Nancy Nicholson. Goodbye to All That, with its vivid, harrowing descriptions of the Western Front, is a classic war document, and also has immense value as one of the most candid self-portraits of an artist ever written.From GR: An autobiographical work that describes firsthand the great tectonic shifts in English society following the First World War, Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That is a matchless evocation of the Great War's haunting legacy, published in Penguin Modern Classics.

I recommend this book highly. It is well written and the content stays with you. He doesn't mince words!

I will definitely be joining you for this one, and have had this book a little while. I'm going to try and read a few lighter books first as I seem to have read a few recently with rather depressing stories and need a bit of a pick me up before I jump back into stories from the war and it's repurcussions.

Has anyone gotten the chance to start this one yet? I’d love to hear some thoughts on it!

I haven't started this yet, Samantha. Probably in June.

No problem, Kathy. So many great reads in the group and so little time to read all to my tastes, for sure.

I read this almost exactly one year ago. While his war memories are well done, I found his depiction of the schoolboy attachment practices at his public school so disturbing that it is always that part which comes to mind when I think about the book.
Due to my feeling on this, the highest rating I could award the book was 3 stars. However, the average rating of my GR friends is 4.25 and my 2 real life friends who read it also enjoyed it, so I think I'm alone in letting my problem with Graves attitude toward his schoolboy experience color my rating.

This is my review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Samantha wrote: "Our May / June nonfiction read will be Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves in honor of V-E Day (May 8th, 1945) & D-Day (June 6th, 1944). May 31st is also Memorial Day..."

I read parts of this for English GCSE - it is extremely poignant poetry and I will love this excuse to refresh my memory. Robert Graves lived near me in Wimbledon and I pass the plaque on his house almost every day.

Hilary that is pretty neat to be able to have the daily experience on your walk!

Thanks for sharing that anecdote about Graves's house, Hilary. That's pretty cool.

This book does have that heavier wartime undertone, based on the description, so I don't blame anyone after this crazy pandemic year or so to be cautious in jumping in here without some lighter reads first.

I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this book from reading it last year, Brian.

That's cool about walking by Graves's house, Hilary. I feel like I know the young Robert Graves after reading this memoir. The war scenes were compelling and I can see why Graves came to think WWI was a waste of young men. I'd heard the name Siegfried Sassoon but learned he has written memoirs of the war also, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man.

Graves's stories about meeting Thomas Hardy and other authors were interesting also.

I checked the book out from the local library but forgot it at home so I won't be able to start until the end of the month. :-(
Plan on still reading it but after the fact.

And if anyone is interested, I found on youtube an audio clip (about an hour long) of a lecture on Robert Graves by Dr. Jean Moorcroft Wilson, who also wrote a biography on him.

That’s cool, Mikiko. Feel free to post the lecture link here.

Does anyone have anything more to say about Graves's work?

Here is the link to the youtube lecture by Dr. Moorcroft Wilson on the book, if anyone is interested...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Poz...

I am still yet to start, I may have overcommitted myself last month. I will hopefully get round to starting it soon.

Thanks for the link, Mikiko!

And that’s alright, Georgina. This is why we keep our archived discussions open for comments.