This memoir, written by Vera Britton and first published in 1933, recalls Britton's experience when war broke out in Europe in 1914. She follows the years of the war, through letters, journal entries, and relevant poems that were either written by authors of the time, by herself, or by the men in her life who had gone to fight their "enemy". As I read through the pages of this epic novel, I am continuously struck by Britton's perspective on the war. Where we so often see what went on from films and stories and poems coming from the male side (no less important than any other point of view), we rarely experience what life was like for the women who were left behind, or who went into the Voluntary Aid Detachment to become nurses on the home soil and abroad. A highly personal, poetically infused, and historically relevant text, Brittan's elegy is a fresh and haunting tale of the disastrous war that changed the scope of war, feminism, and youth, and helped to shape the world we live in today. Britton writes her novel with such elegance and grace, as well as with an amazing record of events coming from dated letters and journals, that it is a hard book to put down. It's easy to become involved in the world that Britton records, and to feel her suffering alongside the rest of her "lost generation". If you are looking for a deep read, a tale of war and love and loss, a well written and highly attachable story, then I would recommend you pick up a copy of this book. You may learn not only what the war looked like from Britton's point of view, but also from the men in her life, her family, and an entire generation of young people sent off to defend their homeland, and who upon their return fell into the anonymity and carelessness of mainstream society, where most would never rise from.
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