Good-Bye to All That

by Robert Graves

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Childhood

Good-Bye to All That opens with Robert Graves painting a vivid picture of his earliest recollections, swiftly transitioning to a snapshot of himself at the time of writing: "My height is given as six feet two inches, my eyes as gray, and my hair as black.’’ With these essential "biographical conventions," as he terms them, neatly dispensed with, Graves delves into the rich tapestry of his family's lineage, unveiling the backdrop of privilege from which he hails. His mother's German ancestry is portrayed as "a family of Saxon country pastors, not anciently noble" yet cultured and thoughtful, while his father's Irish lineage bequeaths him a flair for conversation. His father, an unassuming poet and school-board official, had been widowed with five daughters before marrying Graves' mother. Together they had three children, with Graves arriving in 1895 when his mother was forty and his father forty-nine. This significant age gap meant his father played a minimal role in Graves' upbringing, barely surfacing in the narrative.

Among the distinctive memories of his youth is the moment he discerned the class divide between himself and the family's servants, alongside his "horror of Catholicism," a sentiment nurtured in a sternly Protestant household. In subsequent chapters, Graves narrates his experiences split between boarding school, family residences in Wimbledon, and travels, particularly to visit kin in Germany.

School

Graves' formative years were a carousel of preparatory schools: his father disapproved of one, he was expelled from another for foul language, and attended another briefly "for my health." Early school days were marked by unsettling encounters, such as a headmaster's daughter and her friend attempting to peek down his shirt, and a chilling memory of waiting outside his sister's school, under the scrutinizing gaze of countless girls. "[F]or months and even years afterwards my worst nightmares were of this girls' school," he confesses, summarizing his dread as being "'Very Freudian,' as we say now.’’

His tenure at Charterhouse, the final prep school, was the longest and most detested. In his second year, he penned a letter to his parents exposing the school's moral decay, only to have it forwarded to the headmaster, further isolating him. In solitude, Graves turned to poetry, contributing to the school's literary magazine and joining the Poetry Society, where he was persuaded to try boxing by a fellow student. It was here he forged a significant bond with "Dick," a relationship that hints at deeper connections often experienced in English preparatory and public schools, where "romance is necessarily homosexual," as Graves reflects. This bond with Dick became a cornerstone of his Charterhouse experience.

The War

Just days after Great Britain declared war on Germany in 1914, a restless Graves decided to abandon Charterhouse and enlist in the army, eager to escape the prospect of university at Oxford. He was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers, a regiment steeped in the traditions of British military history. Having completed Officers' Training School, he entered the army as a youthful lieutenant, responsible for seasoned soldiers who had reenlisted. His initial posting was to a prison camp in Lancaster, overseeing enemy aliens. The book corroborates the often-denied mistreatment of prisoners within the military system. From this role, Graves gleaned the nuances of military protocol and hierarchy.

Amid the turmoil, he penned a short story reflecting his initial experiences on the battlefront in France, shedding light on the stark disparity between officers, shielded from nature's harshness, and the rank-and-file soldiers enduring wretched, dehumanizing conditions. Life in the trenches quickly lost its allure, the grim reality contrasting sharply with heroic ideals. In his vivid accounts, lifeless bodies and...

(This entire section contains 1112 words.)

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men felled by snipers are juxtaposed against descriptions of the army's scanty rations and the eccentric figures he encountered. By the summer of 1915, the war had become a more mechanized and perilous affair. He experienced a haunting vision of a fallen comrade, noting that "Ghosts were numerous in France at the time.’’ That September, he participated in a futile assault on Auchy, a disastrous engagement where his company suffered severe losses. Haunted by this defeat, Graves grappled with persistent nerves for the remainder of the narrative.

In the early months of 1916, Robert Graves journeys to England for a surgical procedure on his nose, a relic of his youthful boxing days when a ferocious blow left it broken and unable to bear the army's standard gas mask. His absence coincides with a grisly chapter at the Somme, where a staggering sixty percent of his battalion's officers meet a grim demise, alongside countless enlisted men. Returning to the front lines with another battalion amidst the carnage of the Somme, Graves soon finds himself grievously wounded; shrapnel pierces his lungs, and a piece of mortar lodges treacherously in his forehead. Misjudging the severity of his injuries, a well-intentioned colonel prematurely writes to his family, mistakenly declaring his death in combat—a misconception Graves hastens to rectify. With his battlefield days behind him, he is dispatched to England for recovery. Though eager to rejoin his comrades, his return is short-lived as bronchitis swiftly claims him, prompting the company doctor to deem him unfit for battle. Henceforth, Graves dedicates the remainder of the war to administrative roles, including a position on a court-martial review board.

Post-war Years

Amidst the tumult of war, Graves finds solace in marriage to Nancy Nicholson. As the conflict draws to a close, the couple envisions a family blooming swiftly in their youth, unlike the sprawling, belatedly assembled families of their own childhoods. Between 1919 and 1925, Nancy births four children. Living off Graves' military pension, the family seeks additional means of support, briefly venturing into a small business that falters, while Graves intermittently accepts teaching roles. Though his poetry brings in modest earnings, it is this creative pursuit that passionately consumes him. He diligently hones his craft, publishing collections with regularity, yet finds little commercial success beyond his poetic endeavors.

In 1925, Graves seizes an opportunity to teach English at the University of Cairo. Their story takes an unexpected turn upon their return to England, an abrupt ending that Graves cryptically addresses in his "Dedicatory Epilogue to Laura Riding," the enigmatic muse and mentor of his poetic journey during the 1920s. He refrains from weaving her into his narrative, fearing that it would reduce her to a mere caricature, a shadow of her true self. Thus, the final chapters bear an eerie, spectral quality due to her conspicuous absence. The epilogue offers a fleeting glimpse into her arrival in Islip, beckoned by Nancy and Graves himself, her companionship on their pilgrimage to Cairo, and her tragic attempt at ending her life by leaping from a fourth-story window after their romantic entanglement reached its devastating denouement.

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