[lit-ideas] Re: The Black Day of the German Army
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 20:27:06 -0700
David Ritchie wonders where I saw Fussell, and I've been trying to remember.
It had to be something on CSPAN. That's just about the only thing I watch
on TV. Perhaps it was one of those programs where they deal with a
writer's whole corpus. I vaguely remember his talking about uniforms or
being interested in the minutiae of something I didn't find especially
interesting. Maybe I didn't watch the whole program. This book was written
back in the 70s so perhaps the moderator referred to it as a classic -
something that enticed me into buying it, but I bought a very very used
copy, so I must have had doubts about its value. I have but vague
impressions and am not sure what I am saying is correct.
I find Fussell entertaining, but his generalization from comments by Rudolf
Binding is off putting. However, it will be a few days before I receive
Rick Atkinson's The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944;
so I'll plow ahead.
Lawrence Helm
-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Robert Paul
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 7:18 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Black Day of the German Army
David Ritchie wrote
>> *Comment: * But Paul Fussell, whose expertise seems to be English
>> Literature, provides us with a provocative interpretation of these
>> matters.
> Fussell has written extensively about warfare, in part because he was a
> lieutenant in the 103 rd Infantry Division in W.W.2. You'll have seen
> him speaking in Ken Burns' "The War" perhaps?
I was about to mention Fussell's wartime service and call attention to
his memoir, Doing Battle: the Making of a Skeptic, which describes his
rapid disillusionment with the military and with the very idea that war
is ever noble or rational. Despite this, though, I trust his candor and
judgment in The Great War and Modern Memory. World War I addicts might
enjoy Pat Barker's trilogy: Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The
Ghost Road. I just finished reading Regeneration, for the second time, a
couple of weeks ago.
Robert Paul
Other related posts:
