Book Review: GOODBYE TO ALL THAT by Robert Graves

Good-Bye to All That: An Autobiography by Robert Graves
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Quite a few booklovers on social media had written posts about this 1929 memoir, saying that it was a suitable read for lockdown. So when I saw this worn and tattered copy in our library, I looked past the dilapidated cover and dove in, having had very pleasant memories of I, CLAUDIUS, which Graves had written as well.

It was a great deal funnier than I expected it to be, considering that most of it (the best parts) was about the author's experiences in World War I France! Graves vividly writes of the day-to-day life in the trenches as an officer. He does not come away unscathed, narrowly surviving death by shrapnel and the Spanish influenza, and struggles to adjust to civilian life as a husband and father in Oxford and Egypt after the war (he even taught the future Nasser and became quite close with Sassoon and T.E. Lawrence).

It's always an education to read the honest, no-holds-barred musings of people generations past. Robert Graves comes across, to this Oriental, as a privileged snob all right. But one who is unpretentious; he neither hides nor makes any apology for who and what he is (after all, it isn't his fault that he was born into all that upper crust privilege, and whatever moral failings he had, he more than made up for in terms of services rendered during the war).

What I will remember about this book is the sense of honor and decency that seemed to drive most of the English men (and even the Germans!) fighting in the war. I thought that the Christmas Truce in 1914 was a special case, but apparently not! Graves wrote of unspoken gentlemen's agreements that, when defenses were being erected, the opposing sides would stop shooting at each other for a bit. Or how they would pass messages like schoolboys, thrown inside empty grenades, from trench to trench.

There's this line from the theme song of the HBO series BAND OF BROTHERS that goes: "Young men who died for old men's wars, gone to paradise." That's exactly what Graves and Sassoon thought of the whole enterprise. And yet, they fought for their regiment/platoon. For THEIR band of brothers, to the point that, when faced with a choice of home service after injury or going back abroad, they would plead with their doctors to let them return to their comrades in France.

My favorite part was when he quoted the famous article "A MOTHER'S ANSWER TO A COMMON SOLDIER," which was the response of the mother of an only child to a pacifist. Maaaaan, I was bawling like a pig after that one. "If the men fall, the women won't." AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Graves writes dispassionately about every-day horrors, so it comes as a bit of a shock when he tells heartbreaking stories of self-sacrifice and courage so nonchalantly, like the tales of the Catholics following their fearless priests into battle where they wouldn't follow their C.O., and the man who died cramming his throat with his fingers in an effort to prevent his cries of pain escaping, so his comrades wouldn't risk their lives to try and drag him from No Man's Land. * tear *

It was interesting to note what he brought with him to battle, coming from leave: "I also took a Shakespeare and a Bible, a Catullus and a Lucretius..." apart from the usual torch/flashlight and wire-cutters, sleeping-bag and folding arm-chairs.

So why is this suitable quarantine reading? I suppose it's a wonderful way to gain the perspective of history, to compare the burden of this generation to that of theirs. Graves showed that all troubles could be borne with the help of books and friends. This book is well worth cracking open.

View all my reviews