Taken from letter Hulme wrote while on the battlefront (emphasis added):
The only thing that makes you feel nervous is when the shells go off & you stand out revealed quite clearly as in daylight. You have then the most wonderful feeling as if you were suddenly naked in the street and didn't like it. [...] It's really like a kind of nightmare, in which you are in the middle of an enormous saucer of mud with explosions & shots going off all round the edge, a sort of fringe of palm trees made of fireworks all round it.
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I believe I've said this before, but I'm reminded uncannily of Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front every time I read anything Hulme wrote regarding the war. The book is a beautiful and poetic examination of WWI through a German soldier's eyes. His narration offers the same fireworks that Hulme mentions above.
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The only thing that makes you feel nervous is when the shells go off & you stand out revealed quite clearly as in daylight. You have then the most wonderful feeling as if you were suddenly naked in the street and didn't like it. [...] It's really like a kind of nightmare, in which you are in the middle of an enormous saucer of mud with explosions & shots going off all round the edge, a sort of fringe of palm trees made of fireworks all round it.*
I believe I've said this before, but I'm reminded uncannily of Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front every time I read anything Hulme wrote regarding the war. The book is a beautiful and poetic examination of WWI through a German soldier's eyes. His narration offers the same fireworks that Hulme mentions above.
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I really need to make it a point to read this book.
ReplyDeleteYes, you do. It's really short. It will take a day or two, and it's free online. I could even email it to you.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scribd.com/doc/3268413/All-Quiet-on-The-Western-Front
ReplyDeleteMaybe this will be my "read-a-book-in-a-day-book".
ReplyDeletei like it. great quote.
ReplyDelete