A Moment of War (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Also, the idea of just walking away from everything stirred my wanderlust, even though I did little about it for many years. into the ex-convicts, the alcoholics, the wizened miners, dockers, noisy politicos and dreamy undergraduates busy scribbling manifestos and notes to their boyfriends.

I also felt that the issues with the last one were much more detrimental here, given the subject matter of ‘A Moment of War’. The whole story is adrift in time, everything seems to take place in a perpetual winter, there are shortages of everything except defeat, the paragraphs stink with the smell of further war, in Barcelona before leaving Spain Lee works on a card index of international volunteers: "Here were the names of dead heroes, piled into little cardboard boxes, never to be inscribed later in official Halls of Remembrance. 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? I'd say this is a very brave book, because Lee doesn't seek to put a shine on any of his exploits or make any grand statements about the International Brigades; he simply exists within its environment, and he suffers more than some and less than others.In fact I was so exhausted I had to master all my patriotism in the cause of reading to end this book at all. 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. After the first bombing of a town where he was staying, the realities of the harshness of war, stripped away any romantic notions that he may have still harboured about the fight that he had volunteered for. For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued a number of classic nature and historical novels. Either it's a nice day and you lie in the long grass, or people knock on your door and want you to go to the pub for a chat.

And he tell us that Madrid is a mile-high, when, in fact, the altitude of Madrid is only about a third of that. It also helps to explain why I was dismayed at the beginning; there was such an emotional gulf after the execution of the young deserter, and then his detailed account of the volunteers at Figueras. But unlike the previous volume, it is not as poetic and lyrical, taking a colder eye on the unfolding tragedy. The preceding books of the trilogy are Cider With Rosie (1959) and As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969). Lee quickly joins the International Brigade, along with a motley rabble of men from all over the UK and other parts of Europe who felt drawn to the anti-fascist cause too.It could have used some photos, and I think that Lee holds off on saying things that might make himself look bad, but the writing and story are superb. He was then given limited training, but was arrested again as a brief trip to Morocco when he was in Spain previously had made him a marked man. Pages are bright and clean, light spots to the first and last few pages of 'Cider With Rosie' and 'A Moment of War'.

Lee dutifully reports on this aspect of his service, while giving descriptions of his fellow men-at-arms and the hardships of his daily routine. The cold that winter was the most severe the country had ever known, people froze to death as well as were killed in the fighting. Lee experiences five minutes of battle in the entire book; the rest is the curious sequence of sneaking into Spain, being taken for a spy, twice, narrowly missing being executed, twice, and completely random, disorganized movement toward the front. In the Castle at Figueras he meets a bunch of young volunteers like himself; they go into town, smoke, drink, and Laurie gets laid.

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 (?