This is his classic auto-biography and covers his life from early childhood, through College, the First World War and beyond. Graves, who was a poet, critic, novelist, translator and author of more than 120 books of history, mythology and fiction, is perhaps best known for his historical novel and fantastic BBC series, “I Claudius”.
He was a prime example of a classical liberal education in British public schools (their public schools are the same as our private academies and to universities only with much higher standards), as his writing in this instance has many sardonic passages and typical British understatement. If you catch those passages, you sit and chuckle but if you don’t, you would find the book at times a bit dry.
Published in 1929 (he died in 1985), at the end you feel that as a still young man (he was 34 when this was published), a certain world weariness and I am reminded of the words of Septimius Severus, the last “good” Roman Emperor who said, “I have been everywhere and seen everything and it is really not much”.
A good solid read that I plan to read again in a few years as I am sure I shall both be amused and pick up items which escaped me with this first reading.
Leave a Comment