Sassoon not

Having bought the first two books of Siegfried Sassoon's memoirs at reference 1, have now finished all three, having suffered one of the minor irritations to which I am prey on the way - because, for some publication obscurity, I was not able to buy the third volume in the same Faber edition as the first two, having to resort to a Penguin Classics instead. Faber would only sell me the omnibus illustrated but not bought, hence the Sassoon not. Not the same tone as the cover at reference 2 at all - with the tones of the interiors matching the covers. Sassoon was no Jünger - although it is quite likely I have got him rather muddled up with his friend Graves at reference 3.

I think it must have been the first of the three books that I read as a child, at that time not being that interested in the fox hunting which occupied most of the book, rather in the first world war trenches at the end. The second rather shorter book is entirely trenches, while the third, shorter still, is more by way of an epilogue: Sassoon going back to war after his protest (see below) and ending it with a further wound on the Western Front - as it happens, the result of one of his own sergeants not having been told that he (Sassoon) was out on patrol in no-mans-land. Also, a vividly recalled near-death experience.

Volume 1 is a tale from another world, a world in which young men could drop out of Cambridge after a desultory year and knock about in the Kent countryside on a modest private income, passing the time away with cricket in the summer and hunting in the winter. Oddly, the grandson of a banker from the now near vanished Jewish community of Baghdad, with a father who was largely disinherited for going native and named for his mother's love of Wagner. And who, while hunting, had a devoted groom, who was content to live for the hunting glory of his young charge. a groom who despite being quite old, old enough to stay out of it, volunteered for the army shortly after his young charge, and died of pneumonia in France.

I think Sassoon, having started out with a horsey version of the territorials, was able to fit in with the proper, regular officer set of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (entry to which was wangled by a military neighbour), with his fox hunting - and his fox hunting London tailors - standing him in good stead. He comes across as a brave and decent officer, albeit a touch odd, at least a touch different from the others. And a lighter touch than friend Graves of reference 3; a lightness of spirit, a curious sort of schoolboy insouciance - at least that is what he puts into the book. A rather sporting attitude to the whole business - and - like many young men of his class & generation, he knew young men on the other side too.

Volume 2 is trenches and closes with Sassoon publishing an anti-war letter, protesting, I think, inter alia, the absence of any stated war aims which might justify the slaughter. A letter for which he expected to be court martialed, but was, in the event, more or less brushed under the carpet and put down to shell shock.

Volume 3 sees his return to active duty after a spell at the once famous Craiglockhart sanatorium near Edinburgh (run by a nest of Freudians, some of the first on the English block), seeing duty in Ireland, Palestine and then back to France. With the Allenby subsequently made famous by Lawrence of Arabia getting a walk on part.

Sundry incidents of mistreatment and worse of prisoners and of the wounded (of the other side), mostly reflecting the difficulty of dealing with either in the middle of a battle, but the only real crime recorded is a hearsay account of a rather coarse English officer recounting the tale of getting out - and using - a machine gun to calm down some restive Turkish prisoners in a camp - no where near a battle at all.

But there was a rather odd episode - perhaps curious would be a better word - in Ireland, where Sassoon was posted for a short while in 1917. The situation in Ireland at that time was already bad, but Sassoon was still welcomed into the hunt near where he was stationed at Limerick. Hunters clearly have the same sort of open sesame, wherever there is hunting, in the same way as golfers and (more or less) as free masons. Welcome, although warned at some point in his stay - of a few months - that maybe, as an English officer, it would be better if he were to stay away from the coming troubles.

A good read and the three volumes have earned their two inches of prime shelf space. I shall have to find something to recycle.

PS: the term 'open sesame' is a translation of sorts from the supplemental tale of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Richard Burton alleges the original is cabalistic, rather than granular, quoting Joseph Derenbourg in support. See page 370 of volume 4 of the Supplemental Nights (Indian reproductive edition),

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/topping-books.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/pour-le-merite.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/goodbye-to-all-that.html.