Undertones of War

View other editions of Undertones of War.
View books by Edmund Blunden.

A Poetic Account of War - Rated
It takes a bit of getting used to reading a book as old as this, you don't realise how much the use of language changes over time. Edmund Blunden was clearly a wonderful writer and experienced the full horrors of WW1. I found the book however ultimately unsatisfying. This is possibly because we live in an age where everything is very explicit whereas Blunden's writings are poetic and subtle. I'll probably read this book again in a few years and reappraise it.

Very hard work - Rated
It is not my place to comment on how well Blunden conveys the horrors of an experience he, himself endured, however the dense buccolic language of this book has the effect of estranging the reader. The text is extremely verbose and difficult to penetrate, at intervals the sense of atrocity and paradoxically, beauty is conveyed, yet the book remains extremely obtuse.
Robert Graves' 'Goodbye to all that' - is a much easier and more comprehensible lead into writing of WWI.

'It is time to hint to a new age what your value was' - Rated
While writing a first-hand war diary must be tantamount to aspiring to express the inexpressible, the decade Edmund Blunden's Undertones of War took in the making bought him time to distance himself from the numbing impact of the Great War events demanding to be exorcised.

The book offers an understated account of the events that gripped the minds of Blunden and his beloved 11th Royal Sussex Regt., taking the reader from the build-up to the Battle of the Somme and on to Third Ypres and Passchendaele, campaigns which left the party shattered morally and badly depleted for size. The overall experience at the time was beyond the comprehension of a single human being, the more so as Blunden (barely 20) was too young to deal with, let alone, put into prespective, the depths and cruelty of events as he witnessed them. The combined effect of a cathartic ten years' time and Blunden's mildness and humanity of temperament has only added to the merits of a book which, to this day, has been, and deserves to remain, a long-standing classic.

As perfection is not of this world, Blunden's inclination towards quoting from his literary predecessors might be considered a minor flaw. Likewise, the critical reader might feel mildly irritated at the pastoral tone and evocative detail with which the author intersperses his account. Anyone will, however, agree that in no way has Blunden sought to embellish his experiences, but perceive that, in the face of devastation, he merely set out to find comfort in the permanence of forms and shapes to go by, as well as to pinpoint solidarity and camaraderie as beacons along their dark ways. The latter can be derived from Blunden's dedication of the books to some of his pals, whether dead or alive at the time.

"It is time to hint to a new age what your value, what your love was; your Ypres is gone, and you are gone; we were lucky to see you 'in the pink' against white-ribbed and socket-eyed despair.": how appropriate a description of a near-perfect book, the universality of whose message remains unimpaired. As a tribute to the ordinary soldier in too great a war, Undertones of War is more eloquent than any Menin Gates or Passchendaele Tyne Cot Cemeteries could ever aspire to be.

"You endured that winter (...) in the best way of manliness" - Rated
How rightly did UOW deserve, as it did, for its first edition (in 1928) to be sold out in merely one day. To be true, Blunden stands out as one of the youngest and most dedicated soldier poets ever to testify to the shattering Great War experience they lived through. While no reader of Undertones will escape being moved by the sheer poignancy of Blunden's statement, one will likewise be struck by his consistently understated style (convenient to the aspiration implied in the title, to perceive the "undertone") as well as by a distinct inclination towards the pastoral. In so doing, the infantry subaltern must have sought to avoid being gulped down altogether by the turmoil of the battles of the Somme, in the Ypres Salient and at Passchendaele. Apart from a penchant for the continuing beauty of Nature, the comradeship for the brothers-in-arms provides the kind of emotional refuge that young Blunden must have been so badly in need of (as, indeed, any other soldier) , if only to survive the estrangement brought along by war, as well as to cope with the indelible emotional scar it left him with till his dying day. Looking back on his time in Ypres, the author extends his generous sympathy for an unnamed fellow-soldier. "Your Ypres is gone, and you are gone. (...)", Blunden reminisces, "It is time to hint to a new age what your value, what your love was". Nearly eighty years on, how appropriately do these words sum up the profound value of a book, which so rightly deserves its qualification as established classic! From our unholy holy region of Flanders Fields, which Blunden described with such depth of affection, we share his message of hope of better things to come.

Chris Spriet