The First Casualty, by Ben Elton, my opinion.
I found that the book The First Casualty was a reasonably boring book. I found that the story wasn't particularly exciting, but had some good moments. In all, the book was a bit slow. However, I find that the book was a good choice because it depicted the horrors of the fist world war, and gave accurate examples of what life was like.
It helped me picture the horrors of the war and when I went to the trenches I knew what it was like.
One of the main criticisms was the fact that Kingsley was so perfect at everything he did ant that made the book less thrilling in the war scenes because we knew that he would not die.
I very much enjoyed the detail in some parts of the story however ;)
I agree on the most part, but I think that Kingsley being so good, and Shannon being portrayed as so bad is obvious symbolism to the eternal "good vs. bad" paradox. The fact that Kingsley and his accomplice (Nurse Murray) kill Shannon in the end could be symbolic to the fact that good always triumphs over evil.
ReplyDeleteSuch as in WW1 when both sides were trying to kill each other, and yet poetry came into prominence through "trench poets". Poetry is a uniquely human endeavour and the fact that in the face of such "anti-human" goals (such as destruction and massacres), humans still felt the need to write how they felt and what was happening in an artistic, uniquely human way really shows just how resilient and powerful the human spirit is. Hence, I think the book ended on a good philosophical note.