A Moment of War (Penguin Modern Classics)

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After the first bombing of a town where he was staying, the realities of the harshness of war, stripped away any romantic notions that he may have still harboured about the fight that he had volunteered for. So there it is, as far as I’m concerned, people only talking about ‘Cider with Rosie’ when they talk about Laurie Lee are pretty justified. This is the story of his experiences as a Republican soldier, fighting for the losing side in a doomed war. Lee experiences five minutes of battle in the entire book; the rest is the curious sequence of sneaking into Spain, being taken for a spy, twice, narrowly missing being executed, twice, and completely random, disorganized movement toward the front.

See George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia for the proof of this playing out in the bloody Barcelona May Days. This is one of those times when I am reviewing based entirely on my response to the subject matter - and has nothing to do with the quality of the writing.He also wrote three bestselling volumes of autobiography: Cider with Rosie (1959), which has sold over six million copies worldwide, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969) and A Moment of War (1991).

One midsummer morning he walked out of his childhood home in the Cotswolds (described in entertaining detail in the fabulous ‘Cider With Rosie’) and walked to Spain via London (described in ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’). This is, then, where A Moment of War starts as he is briefly taken in by a family and then promptly arrested as a spy.moment, the one scene of battle, expires in derangement: "I headed for the old barn where I'd spent my first night. A few days later (let's say two, that is to say, the 13th and 14h day of the journey) he's pulled out of the hole. It is simply misery and more misery, and it passes in a horrific fever dream (in a style reminiscent of Going After Cacciato). War isn't all about fighting; there is plenty of drudgery and idleness to go around, and seldom a glance at the enemy except when he flies over and bombs hell out of you.

In midwinter he journeyed through France and walked over the Pyrenees into Spain only to be arrested straight away as a spy. There were certainly those who cursed the little bleeder, but the Brigade was proud of its bugler; he was no brash, brassy, spit-or-miss blaster of slumber, but one who pitched his notes carefully to the freezing stars and drew them out like threads of Venetian glass. But still my situation didn’t disturb me too much, but rather injected me with a sharp sting of adventure. The Omnibus Edition Red Sky at Sunrise - Comprising the Trilogy Cider With Rosie, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and A Moment of War. However despite its gloominess there are characteristic flashes of humour and some beautiful lyrical passages.A bomb hit the track near the loading sheds, and two trucks sailed sideways against a halo fire, while torn lines circled around them like ribbons. These three books comprise the author's autobiography, from his early boyhood in the Costwolds to his 1937 trip to Spain to join the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War.

It is not the same as the other two books, it evokes, in Lee's rich descriptive, poetic prose the atmosphere of war, and particularly of a country at war with itself. I had heard of the book Cider With Rosie, which, as it turns out, was just the first book in an autobiographical trilogy.that is to say, roughly the 24th day of the journey) the whole bunch are pushed into a train, on their way to Albacete. It is considered the third book in his autobiographical series which began with "Cider with Rosie", and then "As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning". This book compares favourably with anything written by Hemingway and Orwell on the same subject and exposes the individual's fragility in the face of political ambition. It irritated me that “la grippe” is by Thorne pronounced as the English word “gripe”, which has a very different sound and meaning! I suspect that his purpose in writing the book was to bring home the horrors of war, and he does this remarkably well with his beautiful descriptive writing.