WWII
Doing Battle was by far my favorite book for this course. Fussell’s style of writing was personal and engaging. The other memoirs we have read so far have been enjoyable too, but they used a level of constraint and self-censorship. A few passages were too personal like the one about Fussell’s bowel movement during a march but I felt that stories such as this and his description of army food, as “shit-on-a-shingle” gives the reader a better sense of army life. I found the section about the college students’ romantic relationships interesting. There were certainly similarities to the present generation. Pregnancy is still a big fear but now we have the pill and it is more socially acceptable to buy condoms.
The Greatest Generation Comes Home was also an enjoyable read. I thought it was well written and more appealing than Keene’s book. Her introduction raised a lot of interesting questions about the postwar period and explained her thesis very effectively. This is something I need to work on with my own writing. I found her excerpt about women who stayed in the work force after the war. I was under the impression that most returned back to their roles as primary care-givers and home keepers.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
I agree. I think Doing Battle was so much better because he did not use as much constraint as the other readings that we have had. It really gives the reader a better sense of how the soldiers felt.