Customer Reviews
Simply brilliant - By: Dark Jimbo, 27 Aug 2006 
This really is one of the best accounts of the Great War that I've read. Given all that I've heard about this book, that wasn't so much of a surprise - what was, however, was that well before Graves joined the army about mid-way through the book I was already solidly engrossed.
Robert Graves writes with a real charm & gentle humour, belying an often quite scathing satirical leaning, & his account of his early home life & upbringing is beautiful, a real evocation of a time now lost forever. The fact that he's half-german heartbreakingly foreshadows later events, as he spends childhood holidays playingin fairytale German castles with German uncles & nephews, men he is destined one day to try to kill on the battlefields of France. It's a pertinent reminder of how close Britain & England werein the late 1800's, which makes the war all the more tragic.
The account of his timein France during the conflict, the greater part of the book, is simply brilliant - & considering what he goes through, it's hard to keepin mind that he was onlyin his early twenties, as I suppose so many of the soldiers were. The other reviews have covered thisin more detail, so I'll skip on.
Once the war ends the book does lose drive & focus, but I get a sense that by this point Graves was simply weary of England & lifein general - it must have been hard to find much that matched the passion & drama of the battlefield, where a generation faced things we can hardly imagine today. It does all evoke an interesting picture of how a country tries to adjust to life after such a war, however, before it starts becoming simply a list of which famous writers Graves met.
Allin all, this is probably one of the best first-hand accounts of World War One that we're lucky enough to have - & if you have any interest at allin the subject, you simply owe it to yourself to read it at least once.
Oh, & I recommend reading itin conjunction with Seigfreid Sassoon's 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'. The stories overlap & parallel each other several times, & it's fascinating to read differing accounts of the same crucial eventsin the lives of these two men. Each book gives a whole new spin on the other - get the best of each by reading them together.
required reading for all - By: , 06 Sep 2004 Goodbye to All That is as important to the canon of Great War literature as Schindler's List is to the Holocaust. Honest, stark & shocking at times, it is all pulled together with wonderful skill by Robert Graves who seemed to have such natural skill as a writer. My abiding memory of the book, which I have read several times, is the sheer sense of duty, so indicitative of the age, displayed by Graves & his fellow soldiers.
A briliant place to start reading about the Great War & one you will return to again & again.
It is worth reading alone for the narrative structure & the demonstration of writing craft which is of a quality not found anywhere today.
Outstanding WWI -period memoirs - By: , 10 Feb 2002 Was Robert Graves' early life so remarkable that simply recording the facts was sufficient to create a classic? Or do his skills as a writer make the careful construction & delivery of this memoir seem effortless? Either way, the status of this work as a singularly powerful historical record is well deserved.
Graves' life, from middle class public school, to an officerin the trenches of WWI, & then an impoverished radical poetin post-war Oxford, seems like another world. Seemingly trivial details now seem bizarre, & lifein the trenches under enemy fire (or gas attack) is hell on earth. Graves takes a factual, analytical, almost objective approach, recording public opinion & sentiment, & giving well-argued reasons for what now seems like military madness. This has the effect of hiding his own personal drama from the reader, so his anti-war feelings & eventual nervous collapse come as something of a surprise.
The book is not without its weaknesses. His time after the war seems to consist largely of name-dropping famous poets & encounters with Lawrence of Arabia, but seventy five years on there is limited interestin these figures, & instead we yearn for more characters such as Daisy, the daughter of a down-and-out who the Graveses temporarily adopted & gives us an insight unto life at the other end of the social spectrum, & regret that Graves did not record more of the social consequences of the radical socialism & feminism he & his wife adoptedin what was still a conservative & socially claustrophobic society.
Graves toyed with turning his experiences into a novel. Ford Madox Ford did just that with the Parades End series. Some may find this allows a more considered approach of the same period, & where Graves gives us anecdote Ford leaves the reader with a deeper understanding. None of this, however, challenges the status of Goodbye to all That as an outstanding historical document of lifein another age.
The War to end all wars . . . - By: W. Weinstein, 08 Mar 2001 With the increase of interestin the First World War recently it is to this book that many people should turn for a gripping, factual account of life before, during & after the Great War. Mr Graves documents the pastoral quiet of Englandin the early part of the twentieth century & abruptly descends to recounting,in cold detail, the dreadful slaughter of the trenches. Through some of the most famous battlesin history he survives, physically more or less intact but from the dry words; modest, English, reserved, we glimpse the true weight of the burden that such memories impose on their carriers & understand better the terrible toll that the War levied on all the nations of Europe.
