Welcome to Litsy!

Private Bourne is an exceptional soldier, the type of person that is liked by most everyone and is always able to scrounge and charm what is needed. He is friendly with most everyone, but not friends with anyone. From his prospective, we see the brutality, stupidity, and humanity of WWI. This well-written novel is bookended with battles, but the majority is set behind the front lines and balances mundane events with Bourne‘s thoughts about it all.

Death, of course, like chastity, admits of no degree; a man is dead or not dead, and a man is just as dead by one means as by another; but it is infinitely more horrible and revolting to see a man shattered and eviscerated, than to see him shot. And one sees such things; and one suffers vicariously, with the inalienable sympathy of man for man. One forgets quickly. The mind is averted as well as the eyes.

He neither knew where he was, nor whither he was going, he could have no plan because he could foresee nothing, everything happening was inevitable and unexpected, he was an act in a whole chain of acts; and, though his movements had to conform to those of others, spontaneously, as part of some infinitely flexible plan, which he could not comprehend very clearly even in regard to its immediate object, he could rely on no one but himself.

I‘ve had this on my Kindle for awhile now. November 11 seems like a good day to finally start it. 🥀