The Middle Parts of Fortune eBook Frederic Manning
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The Middle Parts of Fortune by Frederic Manning. Originally published in 1929
The Middle Parts of Fortune eBook Frederic Manning
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The Middle Parts of Fortune eBook Frederic Manning Reviews
A truly remarkable story of the horrors of the trenches in WWI. Manning, an Australian who moved to Britain to pursue his writing, served in WWI as an enlisted man, upon which the book is based. Bourne, the main character, is based upon Manning's experiences in France on the Western Front during WWI.
The novel provides an interesting insight into the lives of the common man in the trench, based on the perspective of a man who is from the upper class. Despite the class difference, Bourne is able to befriend his comrades, while at the same time, engage with the NCOs and officers who are senior to him.
An important element to derive from the book is the horror of the trenches, and the commanality of the experiences of the men who served, despite their social status. Once a man went "over the top" the base instinct of kill or be killed prevailed. Manning grasps this concept and adeptly describes the mechanical routine of sending men to their death, in what today is an inconceivable amount of casualties.
If you are looking for a good read on what life is like in the trenches, this is a great book.
Manning, while not a household name, won the acclaim of writers of his era to include Hemmingway and T.E. Lawrence. It is an enjoyable read and not easy to put down.
I am writing this in response to a reviewer who said that he was unimpressed by this book. Obviously all book reviews are subjective, on or anywhere else. At the same time, I have always understood there to be something approaching a critical consensus, among academic specialists, other writers (e.g., Ernest Hemingway), and laypersons, that this is the greatest novel in English about the Great War. I have read Graves' Goodbye to All That (which despite its faux-memoir style is a novel and not a memoir), Siegfried Sassoon's war trilogy (which I like very much but which lacks the grittiness and realism of The Middle Parts of Fortune) and, of course, All Quiet on the Western Front, compulsory school reading despite its leaden translation and lack of authenticity. (I have not read Hemingway, who served as an ambulance driver in Italy during the First World War, not because he was a non-combatant who attempted to write about combat but because I find him unreadable on any subject.)
In this book, by contrast, Frederic Manning (1882-1935) achieved something that no other Great War writer I have read came remotely close to achieving he captures perfectly in fiction the "mateship" that enabled infantrymen to endure the psychological and emotional horrors of war whatever may have lain ahead in terms of either physical wounds, death in action, or both. (Manning touches on all of these essential subjects, too.)
Mateship was not friendship -- the three soldiers who are "mates" in this book, Bourne, Shem, and Martlow, are so different in almost every way that they could not possibly have been "friends" in peacetime -- yet they are totally devoted to each others' welfare while in service. And in the main character, Bourne, a highly intelligent, wry observer -- as well as a nimble "survivor" -- Manning created the ideal medium for a brilliant commentary on the war experience as seen from the perspective of the lower ranks. No other writer I have read managed to do this; having for the most part served as officers they customarily wrote from the junior officers' point of view, which was very different in vital ways from that of men in the ranks.
This book is not about fighting, but about how men developed the small, close-knit support networks that enabled them to survive mentally and spiritually before and after combat. Since World War II produced less great fiction than World War I, and nothing approaching this book in sheer brilliance, I think it is fair to say that this is the greatest English-language war novel of the first half of the twentieth century.
Post-script on "Strange Meeting" by Susan Hill (1971)
Writing this review brought to mind an interesting English novel called "Strange Meeting" by Susan Hill, first published in England in 1971 and in the United States in 1972, when Hill was not yet 30 years old but already a well-established novelist. (Hill is now a very successful writer of mystery novels and other highly-regarded books besides mysteries.) In the preface to the English edition of Strange Meeting (which is omitted from the American edition), Hill explains what prompted her to write her novel (the death on the Western Front of a 19-year-old great uncle) and how she managed to do it (holing herself up with a variety of reference books in a remote cottage on the English coast during a long, cold winter).
I mention Hill's book because her sole focus is the mateship that arises between two young English officers of with very different backgrounds and personality types as they serve together in combat in Northern France. Hill's novel was ambitious in the best sense and a very impressive achievement for a young novelist who was far too young to have had any direct experience of the fighting on the Western Front. While deserving great credit for tackling this difficult subject, Hill's novel lacks the authenticity of Manning's masterpiece (Manning served in combat during the Battle of the Somme), as well as Manning's subtlety, complexity, and sheer brilliance of literary execution. Then again, almost every novel about the Great War does.
Marvellous read. You are with the protagonist in France during the Great War. Interesting perspective on war develops during the novel.
The book Ernest Hemingway read every year. A rather gentle walk through one soldier's experience in and around the trenches. Well worth reading. It brings home the inside of war and speaks to all generations.
Not everybody's cup of tea - WW I warfare up close.
Hard to find book, but so are diamonds.
After WW1 Erich Maria Remarque published his classic anti-war novel "All Quiet on the Western Front" which is admired and respected to this day and has been filmed at least twice.Australian Frederic Manning's novel, published around the same time, tells the tale of horror, devastation, comradeship, and death at least as well yet this work tends to be ignored. We meet an educated young man enlisted as a private in a British infantry regiment and meet his officers and comrades in arms. We share in their lives, fears, and joys as all hell breaks loose around and among them as the story moves towards its tragic conclusion.
Strongly recommended and at least as good as Remarque's classic work.
Okay. No great shakes.
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