hishamaamir

This is an account of a group of men all from a single town, in fact most from a single newspaper office, who volunteer for the British Arm at the outbreak of World War I. It is sort of a companion piece to Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front similar account from the perspective of German soldier. The story is told in first person narrative by one of the British soldiers in “Kirchner's Army.” The overwhelming tedium and drudgery that occupies most of the soldiers life is well accounted and contrasted to the few minutes of death and horror. This may make much of the novel appear to be slow going, but this only enhances the authors point when the climatic disastrous and futile attempt to charge across 'No Man's Land' on the first day of the Battle of the Somme is recounted. As the author put it: “Two years in the making. Ten minutes in the destroying. That was our history”

2022-11-14 17:22