Richard Cobb
Three books have given me enormous en- joyment this year. The first is Isabel Quigley's The Heirs of Tom Brown: The English School Story (Chatto), the second is Robert Tombs's The War against Paris, 1871 (Cambridge University Press), and the third, Julien Gracq, Un balcon en foret, first published in 1958, and recommended to me recently by a friend. Isabel Quigley is entertaining and acute on the subject of the generally awful books devoted to an idealis- ed image of schooldays: 'He must be wor- thy, now, of Shrewsbury! He must see that what the school gained from his name should be honour, not disgrace! His thoughts flew on through life — life, all so easy: — to success, valued not for itself nor for himself, but for the sake of Shrewsbury:' This of poor Lycidas Marshe, who arrives at Shrewsbury in a velvet suit. A lot of hot breath and exclamation marks. She also introduced me to the overblown and inexhaustible, immensely prolific Angela Brazil, Coventry's novelist. Why, one wonders, were there no stories about The Spectator 18 December 102 Catholic Public Schools? Dr Tombs briny? to military history the same level of prolific sophistication, humanity and insight dot °r , we have come to associate with the work..John Keegan. How does one get the unw to ing soldiers of a recently defeated arinY. i fight against their own countrymen deed, in some cases, against their fell°°- Parisians, — in a savage civil war? It Is a matter of a very delicate balance between_ very short periods of exposure to danger line and very long periods away from the e; of He disposes of the simplistic myth5 is savagery during Bloody Week' .' ts military history of the highest elnantY1, .balcon en fore!, a book about waiting, un; mg the uneasy months of the 'phoney w. ar,' is superbly visual: The deep, quiet — just the occasional cracking °t,_ twig — huge forest of the Ardennes, the lights of neutral Belgium visible during 7e bright still winter nights, fear gripping the stomach with the return of spring' beautiful book, superbly written. alarminFlaY
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