Excerpts from The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell - week 4
I haven't been keeping up with this blog. From now on I will. I decided to create this blog (and keep it up) because at the end of the quarter I'm turning in a paper on my thoughts and comments of all the readings in this seminar. So, if I want to have anything to write about I need to keep up with this blog (or at least write about the articles SOMEWHERE).So, for Monday I'm reading a couple of different things. The reading I just finished is about the Great War (World War I), page 7-18 and 69-74 from Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory. Something I've learned very quickly in this seminar is that I don't like reading about war. I know there are tons of people who like it, well maybe not like but enjoying finding out about history through readings about war, but I just don't like it. Hmm why don't I? I guess I don't because most of the time I don't know who is who (who is whom?), I can't keep track of which side is winning or being written about that moment, and most of all I just hate war. I can't figure out which side is the "good side" because there is never a clear answer because there are bad (and good) parts of every group. The first part of this reading was about the major "battles" in the War and the significance of each. Much of the descriptions of each battle was about how many men died on both sides (Germany vs. Britain, France, and at the end the US). In Fussell's explanations the number of deaths were very important. Something I thought Fussell did very well was including real thoughts from men during the war. After reading some of the personal thoughts of people in the war I could understand what was happening a whole lot more. I remember Barbara Tuchman said that she never ever used long words in her books. I notice that many many writers say extremely complicated things just so it looks good. But I don't care how it LOOKS, I want to be able to understand what they're writing about! And yeah, I know it's adult reading and everything and there will be words and phrases I don't know, but don't use words that even my dad doesn't know! I'm reading this stuff to understand it and develop my knowledge of the certain topic, not to get more confused and frustrated with it and then not want to read anything more about whatever I'm reading about.
However, I'm getting off on another tangent, back to this reading.
Towards the end when Fussell was discussing how during and after the Great War, many many people thought that every war would never end. Here are some parts I liked:
"At the front, as might be expected, views were considerably darker. It was there, in dugouts and funk-holes, that they built of what were called the Neverendians could be found. R. H. Mottram remembers one pessimistic officer who, in the summer of 1917,
roughed out the area between the 'front' of that date and the Rhine,... and divided this by the area gained, on the average, at the Somme, Vimy and Messines. The result he multiplied by the time taken to prepare and fight those offensives, averaged again. The result he got was that, allowing for no setbacks, and providing the pace could be maintained, we should arrive at the Rhine in one hundred and eighty years." (72)I liked this quote because it made it more obvious what the men were feeling and what I should know about the war to be able to understand what happened.
Here's another part I liked:
"German prisoners interviewed by Philip Gibbs after the Somme battles agreed:
'How will it end?' I asked [a German doctor].Back to page 71 with this (the title of this section is: "Will it Ever End?")...
'I see no end to it,' he answered. 'It is the suicide of nations...'
I met other prisoners then and a year afterward who could see no end of the massacre.' "(72)
"One did not have to be a lunatic or a particularly despondent visionary to conceive quite seriously that the war would literally never end and would become the permanent condition of mankind. The stalemate and the attrition would go on infinitely, becoming, like the telephone and the internal combustion engine, a part of the accepted atmosphere of the modern experiences. Why indeed not, given the palpable irrationality of the new world?" (71)
This last section, Will it Ever End?, was the most interesting to me. I like knowing about the effect something has on the society and the people living during the time. That's why I like reading historical diaries or journals, fiction or nonfiction. I'd rather read about one person's experience during an important time than the step by step stuff that went on. However, I do understand that I should take the time to know about what happened overall, like who won which battle and what different people on both sides thought about whatever was happening. I want to know the dates that wars started and ended so I can know what people are talking about when they say, oh 1914 was a horrible time or something like that. But I guess I just want to know, I don't want to have to take the time to understand. I'm like that with a lot of things (like learning languages). But I guess I have to do it the "hard" way and actually read, the reading is actually getting pretty interesting... onto the 1920's!
posted by Cassie @ 1:14 PM
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