A Moment of War (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Yet already, I was to learn, within the last few days, its citizens were walling up and massacring each other. This is, then, where A Moment of War starts as he is briefly taken in by a family and then promptly arrested as a spy.

Perhaps only appearing more shocking on a backdrop of bullets and bombs than breezey Gloucestershire meadows and wine-soaked Spanish bars.Particularly memorable is the description of the air-raid on Valencia and the depiction of a country at war with itself 'an infection so deep it seemed to rot the earth, drain it of colour, life and sound. If Franco captures Teruel, he will divide the Republicans to the north and south; as Lee explains, the loss of this fortified city in the mountains is the beginning of the retreat for the Republican army. In fact I was so exhausted I had to master all my patriotism in the cause of reading to end this book at all. It stood some five miles distant and slightly above us, a gleaming city of ice, its cathedral, castle, turrets, towers, all dusted with silver, shimmering light. And yet there is an evanescent, very knowing sensibility at work as well, especially exposed in the murky, fluid issue of sexuality.

There is a map of Spain, at the front of the book, marked with all the relevant towns and cities, and the text is interspersed with line drawings by Keith Bowen which complement Lee's descriptions perfectly. Perez comes to his cell, and, after refusing to believe the version of young Laurie Lee, hands him over to four guards, the same guards who had met him the previous day. I was sick now, shivering on the concrete floor, scraping the mould from the wall with my finger-nails. One midsummer morning he walked out of his childhood home in the Cotswolds (described in entertaining detail in the fabulous ‘Cider With Rosie’) and walked to Spain via London (described in ‘As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning’). By the time you get to ‘A Moment Of War’ you’ll adore Laurie’s fabulous powers of description and understated bravery.

Was this then what I'd come for, and all my journey had meant -- to smudge out the life of an unknown young man in a blur of panic which in no way could affect victory or defeat? then, framed like some fake Van Gogh freakishly elongated, appeared the unmistakable face of the giraffe-necked Frenchman who had guided me the last steps across the mountain frontier.

crafted by a poet, stamping an indelible image of the boredom, random cruelty and stupidity of war'. In spite of our heavy sleep and grunting longing for more, some of us began to love that awakening, the crystal range of the notes stroking the dawn's silence and raising one up like a spirit. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.Spots to the fore edges of 'Cider With Rosie' and 'A Moment of War', and to the endpapers of 'Cider With Rosie'.