A Moment of War (Penguin Modern Classics)

Product Information

With a laid-in colour photograph of the author at a signing session, plus a 1991 review of A Moment of War and a flyer from the 1995 Cheltenham Festival of Literature announcing a talk by Laurie Lee about A Moment of War. A fine first edition set of Laurie Lee's most important literary contribution, a smart set of his autobiographical trilogy.

is also a reminder that irony, so debased in the ordinary way of speech, is something more than odd coincidence or amusing contradiction. Pages are bright and clean, light spots to the first and last few pages of 'Cider With Rosie' and 'A Moment of War'. And yet there is an evanescent, very knowing sensibility at work as well, especially exposed in the murky, fluid issue of sexuality.In paragraph after paragraph, scene after scene of this book, the reader comes upon terse non sequiturs, because the only pattern in Mr. 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. So far, we are vey close to the end of December, but, according to Laurie, now starts the offensive against Teruel, something that had started on December 15th! I read the second, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning a couple of months ago but, as with this one, had read bits of it before while studying the Spanish Civil War and the role of foreign volunteers.

I hated the meaninglessness so much, not to mention the little situation with the 13 year old boy they threw into his cell to "warm" him (? The independent-minded quarterly magazine that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. The effect of military discipline is to suppress individuality, but in the preposterously unmilitary International Brigade, the collection of volunteers who flooded into Spain to fight in the Republican cause, individuality was never suppressed. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. By the time you get to ‘A Moment Of War’ you’ll adore Laurie’s fabulous powers of description and understated bravery.Lee's new book, "A Moment of War: A Memoir of the Spanish Civil War," is a bleak monument to a conflict that is remembered now mainly as an augury of World War II. He could not persuade anyone to help him and so eventually crossed the Pyrenees alone in a snowstorm. In the chapter entitled - 'Death Cell: Albacete' this is the second time where Lee, is singled out and held in confinement.

I’m not the biggest fan of memoir in general, but ones where almost nothing happens and no emotion is shown to me are kind of inexplicable. I was at that flush of youth which never doubts self-survival, that idiot belief in luck and a uniquely charmed life, without which illusion few wars would be possible.At the age of nineteen he walked to London and then travelled on foot through Spain, where he was trapped by the outbreak of the Civil War. He is immediately arrested on suspicion of being a spy and kept in a dungeon for two weeks without food. But still my situation didn’t disturb me too much, but rather injected me with a sharp sting of adventure. the Loyalists (his earlier trip had ended with his being plucked from the southern coast by a British destroyer at the outbreak of the civil war), Mr. It is in stark contrast to 'As I walked out', it could barely be recognised as the same country, the searing heat, swapped for the bitter searing cold, the jovial, welcoming, slightly bizarre characters turned to hostile, terrified and sick.

Was this then what I'd come for, and all my journey had meant -- to smudge out the life of an unknown young man in a blur of panic which in no way could affect victory or defeat? A city of silence, without dimension; it could have been a life-sized mural, or an intimately carved ivory for some medieval Cardinal or Pope. First a look at the descriptive writing: Lee, along with the hundreds of other men, collected at Figueras Castle are transported south to Valencia. This book is small in size, but in the course of Lee's 'Moment Of War', he is arrested three times, and thrice accused of being a spy.

Lee, now 79 years old, said in a telephone interview from that home, where he is struggling with an inner-ear infection. Yet already, I was to learn, within the last few days, its citizens were walling up and massacring each other. There is a map of Spain, at the front of the book, marked with all the relevant towns and cities, and the text is interspersed with line drawings by Keith Bowen which complement Lee's descriptions perfectly. He has come to join the International Brigade, to fight fascism and to support the Republican cause. On the second night, he's helped to find his way by a mysterious shepherd, who reappears a couple of times later (the Guardian Angel?