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Memoirs Of A FoxHunting Man Siegfried Sassoon 9781846641138 Books

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Memoirs Of A FoxHunting Man Siegfried Sassoon 9781846641138 Books

I have seen MEMOIRS OF A FOX-HUNTING MAN described variously as a memoir, a semi-fictionalized autobiography, and a novel. Which is it? I don't know for sure, but "semi-fictionalized autobiography" probably is the closest. On the surface it is the memoir until age twenty-eight of a British gentleman named George Sherston, who had been orphaned as a lad and raised as a single child by his spinster aunt Evelyn in rural Kent. Some of the biographical information of George Sherston coincides with that of Siegfried Sassoon, but not all. For starters, there is the different name and the fact that Siegfried Sassoon was raised by his widowed mother along with two brothers.

MEMOIRS was first published in 1928. By that time Sassoon already was quite famous as a poet, one of the greatest that the Great War had produced. MEMOIRS was his first attempt at serious prose. A measure of doubt about how his prose would be received surely contributed to Sassoon's decision to lightly fictionalize MEMOIRS and, initially, to publish it anonymously.

My advice on reading MEMOIRS is to forget about whether or not it describes the life of an historical person, and read it instead as the portrait of a time and place (rural England circa 1895 to 1915) and the coming-of-age of a country gentleman typical of his time and place. George Sherston is a youth of privilege, although not great wealth. He lives in a bucolic setting, and he avidly pursues such activities as horse-riding, cross-country horse-racing, fox-hunting, cricket, and golf. Thinking no further ahead than the next ride-to-the-hounds, he drops out of Cambridge and becomes the right-hand-man to an up-and-coming Master of the Hunt. But ever so slowly he also begins to develop class-consciousness and a measure of social conscience. His education in that regard is then accelerated remarkably by the outbreak of the Great War. He first enlists in the Sussex Yeomanry and then he is commissioned into the Royal Flintshire Fusiliers. He goes to France in November 1915. His Memoir ends as his battalion is moved into position for the Battle of the Somme in the spring of 1916. By that time, of his four closest friends, three had already died in France.

He is repeatedly struck by the courage of the young men of Great Britain as they go to War, even by his own courage. Looking back from the perspective of 1928, he writes: "[T]o me, the War was inevitable and justifiable. Courage remained a virtue. And that exploitation of courage, if I may be allowed to say a thing so obvious, was the essential tragedy of the War, which, as everyone now agrees, was a crime against humanity."

MEMOIRS OF A FOX-HUNTING MAN contains marvelous descriptions of cricket, fox-hunting, and point-to-point cross-country horse-racing. It is almost de rigueur for a member of the post-WWII American middle class to deprecate those activities, but Sassoon helps me understand how and why they could be so invigorating for men of his time and place. MEMOIRS also contains numerous sketches of quintessential British characters. Here's one, Miss Clara Maskall:

"She was reputed to have been kissed by King George the Fourth. * * * With her piercingly alert eyes and beaky nose she looked like some ancient and intelligent bird. * * * She had old-fashioned ideas about education, and she usually inquired of me, in creaking tones, whether I had recently been flogged by my schoolmaster. But the menace of Roman Catholicism was her most substantial and engrossing theme; and up to the age of ninety she continued to paste on the walls of her bedroom every article on the subject which she could find * * *. Aunt Evelyn told me that the walls were almost entirely papered with printed matter, and that she had more than once found Miss Maskall sitting on the top step of a library ladder reading some altitudinous article on this momentous question of `the Scarlet Woman'."

I can't say that MEMOIRS OF A FOX-HUNTING MAN is essential reading, but it is very instructive as regards the twilight years of rural Edwardian England before the Great War and the terrible birth of the Modern Age. Plus, while perhaps it need not be mentioned, the book is superbly written.

P.S.: As of the date of this review, the Faber paperback edition is in print and can be bought new for about $15; it is quite satisfactory, especially given that the hard-cover edition published by Obscure Press costs more than $40.


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Memoirs Of A FoxHunting Man Siegfried Sassoon 9781846641138 Books Reviews

In the list of books about World War I, this is a good one. It's slightly fictionalized , but corresponds to Sassoon's real life. His Memoirs of an Infantry Officer is a continuation. There is a third volume, but I haven't read that one. Sassoon's friendship with Robert Graves author of Good-bye to All That ( 5 stars) is of great interest. Other key memoirs about WW I are Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger (5 stars) , Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden (4 stars) (also a friend of Sassoon), Under Fire by Henri Barbusse, badly translated but worth it--in French the title is simply Feu, and it's better to read it in French until a better translation comes along. I'd also include A German Deserter's War Experiences, anonymous. It's available still. I bought n early edition from Lowdermilks' Used Bookstore when I was 11 or 12.
There are more on my list, but that's a good start for considering WW I on its centennial.
This is an underknown classic, and a marvelous read. A classic slice of life of a seemingly lost time in modern British life. This edition is particularly charming and it's so great that it's been reprinted in hardcovers.
Brilliantly elegiac and beautifully written. If you already like his poems you have to read this and it wouldn't disappoint. I don't know why it's not more famous. This is book 1 - you will want to read books 2 and 3 as well (which are titled, "Memoirs of an Infantry Officer" and "Sherston's Progress"). While book 1 is about childhood, being a young man, and being (foolishly) into cricket and fox hunting, it segues very beautifully, and deliberately, into the horrors of WWI trench warfare. It captures the mindset of this naive generation perfectly - much more so than any anthology of Great War poets. If more young people of every nation read this thoughtful trilogy, written by a smart guy who experienced true war, they wouldn't think warfare, gunfighting and military heroics were so drop-dead cool.
I have seen MEMOIRS OF A FOX-HUNTING MAN described variously as a memoir, a semi-fictionalized autobiography, and a novel. Which is it? I don't know for sure, but "semi-fictionalized autobiography" probably is the closest. On the surface it is the memoir until age twenty-eight of a British gentleman named George Sherston, who had been orphaned as a lad and raised as a single child by his spinster aunt Evelyn in rural Kent. Some of the biographical information of George Sherston coincides with that of Siegfried Sassoon, but not all. For starters, there is the different name and the fact that Siegfried Sassoon was raised by his widowed mother along with two brothers.

MEMOIRS was first published in 1928. By that time Sassoon already was quite famous as a poet, one of the greatest that the Great War had produced. MEMOIRS was his first attempt at serious prose. A measure of doubt about how his prose would be received surely contributed to Sassoon's decision to lightly fictionalize MEMOIRS and, initially, to publish it anonymously.

My advice on reading MEMOIRS is to forget about whether or not it describes the life of an historical person, and read it instead as the portrait of a time and place (rural England circa 1895 to 1915) and the coming-of-age of a country gentleman typical of his time and place. George Sherston is a youth of privilege, although not great wealth. He lives in a bucolic setting, and he avidly pursues such activities as horse-riding, cross-country horse-racing, fox-hunting, cricket, and golf. Thinking no further ahead than the next ride-to-the-hounds, he drops out of Cambridge and becomes the right-hand-man to an up-and-coming Master of the Hunt. But ever so slowly he also begins to develop class-consciousness and a measure of social conscience. His education in that regard is then accelerated remarkably by the outbreak of the Great War. He first enlists in the Sussex Yeomanry and then he is commissioned into the Royal Flintshire Fusiliers. He goes to France in November 1915. His Memoir ends as his battalion is moved into position for the Battle of the Somme in the spring of 1916. By that time, of his four closest friends, three had already died in France.

He is repeatedly struck by the courage of the young men of Great Britain as they go to War, even by his own courage. Looking back from the perspective of 1928, he writes "[T]o me, the War was inevitable and justifiable. Courage remained a virtue. And that exploitation of courage, if I may be allowed to say a thing so obvious, was the essential tragedy of the War, which, as everyone now agrees, was a crime against humanity."

MEMOIRS OF A FOX-HUNTING MAN contains marvelous descriptions of cricket, fox-hunting, and point-to-point cross-country horse-racing. It is almost de rigueur for a member of the post-WWII American middle class to deprecate those activities, but Sassoon helps me understand how and why they could be so invigorating for men of his time and place. MEMOIRS also contains numerous sketches of quintessential British characters. Here's one, Miss Clara Maskall

"She was reputed to have been kissed by King George the Fourth. * * * With her piercingly alert eyes and beaky nose she looked like some ancient and intelligent bird. * * * She had old-fashioned ideas about education, and she usually inquired of me, in creaking tones, whether I had recently been flogged by my schoolmaster. But the menace of Roman Catholicism was her most substantial and engrossing theme; and up to the age of ninety she continued to paste on the walls of her bedroom every article on the subject which she could find * * *. Aunt Evelyn told me that the walls were almost entirely papered with printed matter, and that she had more than once found Miss Maskall sitting on the top step of a library ladder reading some altitudinous article on this momentous question of `the Scarlet Woman'."

I can't say that MEMOIRS OF A FOX-HUNTING MAN is essential reading, but it is very instructive as regards the twilight years of rural Edwardian England before the Great War and the terrible birth of the Modern Age. Plus, while perhaps it need not be mentioned, the book is superbly written.

P.S. As of the date of this review, the Faber paperback edition is in print and can be bought new for about $15; it is quite satisfactory, especially given that the hard-cover edition published by Obscure Press costs more than $40.