Vera Brittain: Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

Vera Brittain: Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
by Vera Brittain

Vera Brittain: Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Vera Brittain
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1994-09-01
ISBN: 0140188444
Number of pages: 672
Publisher: Penguin Classics

Book Reviews of Vera Brittain: Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

Book Review: UNCLE! I give up. Sorry, ladies
Summary: 2 Stars

I tried hard to like this book, but finally I just couldn't manage to. And I should admit that I "only" read 386 pp before finally giving up. I am an avid reader of both memoirs and history fm the world wars, but I'm 64 years old and life is far too short and filled with too many really enjoyable books for me to continue slogging through this dreary tome. While I know that Testament is an important text in the history of both feminism and the WWI era, I found the book to be incredibly slow and "overly romantic" in tone. The language was simply too flowery, ornate and dated to hold my interest (it was a great book to fall asleep over); and the so-called "love story" element was just a little too unbelievable in its chasteness and altruism. In fact I seriously wondered about the fiance's sexual leanings. Was he really heterosexual, or ...? I probably better just shut up. I just couldn't finish the book, certainly not ANOTHER 300-plus pages, that's for sure. I gave it the old "college try," but I'm giving it back to the women and the historians.

Summary of Vera Brittain: Testament of Youth: An Autobiographical Study of the Years 1900-1925 (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

A heartwarming portrait of a young woman's life in pre-1914 England and a heartbreaking record of the holocaust that followed.
When war broke out in August 1914, 21-year-old Vera Brittain was planning on enrolling at Somerville College, Oxford. Her father told her she wouldn't be able to go: "In a few months' time we should probably all find ourselves in the Workhouse!" he opined. Brittain had hoped to escape the Northern provinces, but the war seemingly dashed her plans. "It is not, perhaps, so very surprising that the War at first seemed to me an infuriating personal interruption rather than a world-wide catastrophe."

Her father eventually relented, however, and she was allowed to attend. By the end of her first year, she had fallen in love with a young soldier and resolved to become active in the war effort by volunteering as a nurse--turning her back on what she called her "provincial young-ladyhood." Brittain suffered through 12-hour days by reminding herself that nothing she endured was worse than what her fianc?, Roland, experienced in the trenches. Roland was expected home on leave for Christmas 1915; on December 26, Brittain received news that he had been killed at the front. Ten months later Brittain herself was sent to Malta and then to France to serve in the hospitals nearer the front, where she witnessed firsthand the horrors of battle. When peace finally came, Brittain had also lost her brother Edward and two close friends. As she walked the streets of London on November 11, 1918--Armistice Day--she felt alone in the crowds:

For the first time I realised, with all that full realisation meant, how completely everything that had hitherto made up my life had vanished with Edward and Roland, with Victor and Geoffrey. The War was over; a new age was beginning; but the dead were dead and would never return.

First published in 1933, Testament of Youth established Brittain as one of the best-loved authors of her time. Her crisp, clear prose and searing honesty make this unsentimental memoir of a generation scarred by war a classic. --Sunny Delaney

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