A novel that apparently fully describes the mind of the unimaginative army officer. Read in staff colleges as a warning. But he's a good officer, just hopelessly beyond his ability in the latter stages of his career. There's a bit of dead-pan humour, and sympathy with the central character, who gets on with his life, as he sees it. This book is useful to contrast with Hornblower's mental framework, and with that of Bush. ( )

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Of course I was favourably disposed to it from the outset because it was recommended to me by a co-worker who has often given me good recommendations, but I was certainly not expecting to love the dry-witted narration so much. The only reason it took me so long to read was that I had to keep stopping to write down amusing quotes, such as:

"A complete record in detail of those twelve years would need twelve years in the telling to do it justice, so as to make it perfectly plain that nothing whatever happened during those twelve years."

and:

"Men who stopped to think about their chances of being killed were a nuisance to their superior officers."

and this dialogue, which made me actually laugh out loud:

"Two men to carry up each gas cylinder? We've only been using one for the empty ones."
"Yes, sir. These are full and they're heavier in consequence."
"Nonsense. Everyone knows that gas makes things lighter. They put it in balloons and things."
"That's coal gas, sir. This is chlorine, and heavily compressed."

As to what this novel is actually about, it chronicles the career of one Herbert Curzon as he rises through the ranks during the Boer War and the first few years of the First World War. It's an excellent portrayal of the typical commander during the Great War, the ones who were not necessarily bad men per se but sincerely believed they were doing their duty and that there was no need to change their strategy -- just send in more young men to die (needlessly) at Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele. Forester really puts us in Curzon's boots and we can see how easy it was for Curzon to believe that what he was doing was right.

My only criticism of this book is that the ending was rather too abrupt for my liking. It did come full circle, which was nice, but I just felt like there should have been a few more pages. As I was coming to the end, I thought "Jeez, we're running out of book." But the rest of it was very good, and I would definitely recommend it to WW1 history enthusiasts in particular. ( )

Outstanding writing combined with Forester's deep empathy for the kind of man portrayed make this a gem of a book. ( )

Outstanding book, makes me want to frog-march Haig out and shoot him. But then, such feelings were common at the time. ( )