Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

I spent this Memorial Day reading about war; specifically, about the “Great War,” the First World War.

One hundred years ago, Robert Graves, fresh from school, left his home in Great Britain and went to war in France. He recounts his experiences and observations in Good-Bye to All That, lauded as one of the best memoirs of the Great War. Graves, if you don’t know of him, is best known for his biographical novel, I, Claudius (or, as we pronounce it in this house, “Eye Clav Divs,” because of the Imperial Roman font used on the BBC dramatization). If you haven’t read I, Claudius, put it on your TBR list, as it’s well worth reading.

But my intention here is not to write a review, because in reading Graves’s memoir, the thing that struck me most was how much the nature of war has changed, just in my lifetime. The public’s attitudes have changed as well, but not always for the better. (more…)

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