capacity to cause immense grief, is immediately recognisable as part of a real world: this is how things happen when the individual is caught up in a crisis structure necessarily designed to operate on a huge scale in almost impossible circumstances. Graves is a particularly suitable victim for these absurd circumstances who – could have bettered his appreciation of the absurdity of this brief sequence ? One of the most interesting on being in the ‘eye-witness’ reports war comes from another member of the same regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers David Jones, with And here we In Parenthesis. – have the paradox of Jones writing in the most immediately expressive way he could achieve, to present specific incidents in a moment-by-moment actuality writing not as a diary or record of – the past, but seeking an almost visual immediacy. In later times it could almost be regarded as a televisual film story-line despite being expressed in an intricate tissue of myth, Welsh tradition, humour and religious imagery. Its development took a soldiers’ full two decades, and two nervous breakdowns, before it was ready for release to the outside world. In the end, Jones is a twenty-years-older man bearing witness to his young self in the heart of battle and we, now nearly one hundred years after the – event, with some eight decades and another world war between publication and our present-day reading, can still use this carefully worked directness to bring us closer to the past. Any battlefield visit to the Somme should take and perhaps read In Parenthesis from it in the appropriate setting Part 7 is his description of – attacking through that same tangle of Mametz Wood, the trees brought down by shelling, the monstrous impossibility of fighting effectively through the brushwood, tree roots, brambles and with all sense of order and direction lost. and Jones’s mystic religious sensibilities add a further layer of impression to Graves’s record of his personal memory of the wood. In his work on Richard Perceval Graves Good-bye to All That, remarks on his uncle’s belief,
capacity to cause immense grief, is immediately recognisable as part of a real world: this is how things happen when the individual is caught up in a crisis structure necessarily designed to operate on a huge scale in almost impossible circumstances. Graves is a particularly suitable victim for these absurd circumstances – who could have bettered his appreciation of the absurdity of this brief sequence ? One of the most interesting ‘eye-witness’ reports on being in the war comes from another member of the same regiment, the Royal Welch Fusiliers – David Jones, with In Parenthesis. And here we have the paradox of Jones writing in the most immediately expressive way he could achieve, to present specific incidents in a moment-by-moment actuality – writing not as a diary or record of the past, but seeking an almost visual immediacy. In later times it could almost be regarded as a televisual film story-line despite being expressed in an intricate tissue of myth, Welsh tradition, soldiers’ humour and religious imagery. Its development took a full two decades, and two nervous breakdowns, before it was ready for release to the outside world. In the end, Jones is a twenty-years-older man bearing witness to his young self in the heart of battle – and we, now nearly one hundred years after the event, with some eight decades and another world war between publication and our present-day reading, can still use this carefully worked directness to bring us closer to the past. Any battlefield visit to the Somme should take In Parenthesis and perhaps read from it in the appropriate setting – Part 7 is his description of attacking through that same tangle of Mametz Wood, the trees brought down by shelling, the monstrous impossibility of fighting effectively through the brushwood, tree roots, brambles and with all sense of order and direction lost. Jones’s mystic and religious sensibilities add a further layer of impression to Graves’s record of his personal memory of the wood. In his work on Good-bye to All That, Richard Perceval Graves remarks on his uncle’s belief,
3503_helen_mcphail,_%5c'actuality_and_imagination%5c'_(final).docx