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A review by anitaofplaybooktag
Her Privates We by Frederic Manning
4.0
I found this book to be both monotonous and beautifully rendered at the same time.
Set in World War I, the book focuses on the lives of ordinary soldiers in the trenches, mostly as seen through the eyes of one particular soldier, Bourne. The first three quarters of the book focuses on the every day lives of the soldiers as they wait for something to actually happen. There's a lot of obtaining of rations and going out for drinks. In addition, some soldiers speak in an uneducated dialect that's hard to follow. And there are whole paragraphs in French. My high school French was partially up to the task of translation, but if I hadn't had that, I never would have known what was said. Not that it really mattered.
You can tell Manning focused on writing and teaching poetry. His writing itself is really evocative of time and place. I credit him highly for that. There are numerous exquisitely rendered sentences that make you go "oh wow". But the rest of what makes novels great seemed a bit missing.
He isn't big on building suspense. Honestly, until the last quarter of the book, I just felt like I couldn't keep going at times. Oddly paralleling some of the sentiments of the soldiers. But when I am reading for pleasure, this feeling really isn't a plus.
The ending (which I won't elaborate upon), when battle finally came, was very well done, and you almost felt like you were in the war yourself. That part was five star.
All in all, I just don't think this is a book I'd recommend anyone read for enjoyment. If you enjoy literature about war and the military, you may want to read it. I think it would be a great book to teach in a literature class even just to expose students to the writing itself. But it is a book I'm glad to have read, but was really sorry I was reading while I was reading it. And it's a book I just wouldn't go around recommending to regular readers; but if you were an English lit major or read and love fiction about war, this one may be for you.
Set in World War I, the book focuses on the lives of ordinary soldiers in the trenches, mostly as seen through the eyes of one particular soldier, Bourne. The first three quarters of the book focuses on the every day lives of the soldiers as they wait for something to actually happen. There's a lot of obtaining of rations and going out for drinks. In addition, some soldiers speak in an uneducated dialect that's hard to follow. And there are whole paragraphs in French. My high school French was partially up to the task of translation, but if I hadn't had that, I never would have known what was said. Not that it really mattered.
You can tell Manning focused on writing and teaching poetry. His writing itself is really evocative of time and place. I credit him highly for that. There are numerous exquisitely rendered sentences that make you go "oh wow". But the rest of what makes novels great seemed a bit missing.
He isn't big on building suspense. Honestly, until the last quarter of the book, I just felt like I couldn't keep going at times. Oddly paralleling some of the sentiments of the soldiers. But when I am reading for pleasure, this feeling really isn't a plus.
The ending (which I won't elaborate upon), when battle finally came, was very well done, and you almost felt like you were in the war yourself. That part was five star.
All in all, I just don't think this is a book I'd recommend anyone read for enjoyment. If you enjoy literature about war and the military, you may want to read it. I think it would be a great book to teach in a literature class even just to expose students to the writing itself. But it is a book I'm glad to have read, but was really sorry I was reading while I was reading it. And it's a book I just wouldn't go around recommending to regular readers; but if you were an English lit major or read and love fiction about war, this one may be for you.