Testament of Youth (Penguin Classics)

Product Details

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 fiancé, 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

Product Reviews

(4 stars) - Still relevant
I am fascinated by what led up to World War I and the events during and the minutae surrounding it. Like Robert Graves' fantastic Goodbye to All That, Vera Brittain's work speaks for her generation, for her class, and for her sex. The work is engaging and honest, and with her use of her own diaries, Brittain has remained as true as possible to how she felt when the events were actually happening. I highly recommend it to readers interested in personal accounts of the war, those intrigued by late Victorian and Edwardian middle class life, and students of early 20th century feminism. This is one of the best non fiction books I've ever read.

(5 stars) - A Transformative Experience
There's not much more to say than has already been written, but I just want to add that I got this book from the library sometime in the 1970's and I have never forgotten it. As a member of the Vietnam generation I couldn't help comparing her experiences to mine. Her entire generation went to war; I hardly knew anyone who did. The young men of my age were in college for the most part and, therefore, exempt from the draft. I am still haunted by her heartbreaking account of the beaten, broken young men in the muddy trenches as they watched the Americans arriving to come to their aid. The memory brings me to tears to this day. I never forgot her observation at the end of the book as she watched the deplorable treatment of the German people, seeing the seeds of the next war being sown. I am overjoyed to have found this wondrous book after all these years!

(4 stars) - Growing Up the Hard Way
Vera Brittain was a privileged, yet restricted young woman. She was very of her time in that she had to fight for everything that today's women tend to take for granted. The freedom to spend time with whomever she chose, to have privacy, even to receive an education, were all hard-fought. She belonged to the middle/upper class, with all the comforts that status implies, even to the point of having no idea how to boil an egg at the age of 20.

She freely admits that when the War broke out, it appeared to her to be an interruption and an inconvenience. She had no idea just how it would transform the world and her life. Five years later, she was a bitter, nightmare-ridden shadow of her former self.

Testament of Youth takes you from the time of Vera's childhood through 1925, when she is just starting a new, happier life. Making copious use of her own diaries, letters between herself and her friends, and the poetry and music of the time, she gives a lesson by means of immersion into her life. Her prose is extremely demanding and not for the faint of heart. There were many sections where I was only able to pick up just what she was saying from the context. Her vocabulary is dense and elaborate. At first I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to rise to the occasion, but in the end I was richly rewarded.

The meat of Testament of Youth is Vera's writing of her wartime experiences as a nurse and as a worried sister, lover and friend of those serving in the trenches. I have never been so aware of just how debilitating this era in history was, not just to the soldiers, but to those who waited, worked and worried back at home.

The book runs out of steam after the War, and then Vera's finalization of her education at Oxford. I didn't find her discussion of her work for the League of Nations Union nearly as interesting as the previous 450 pages, though I might have done if I'd known more about British political history. Testament of Youth shines when Vera is discussing her personal relationships and frailties. It is at these moments that the book grabbed me by the shoulders and absolutely refused to let me go.

(3 stars) - Disappointingly Beautiful
This book, as captivating as it can be for the first 450 pages, is by no means an easy read. For starters, Brittain employs a vocabulary that Shakespeare would have envied. I own two SAT- and beyond-level vocabulary books that I peruse on a regular basis, and I still encountered words I had never seen before (and have yet to see again) on nearly every page of Brittain's work. If that were not off-putting enough, Brittain's constant hash and rehash of certain emotions, memories and details often make for some tedious and repetitive reading.

The main story actually ends somewhere around page 450, though most readers would not surmise that from the 150 additional pages padding the rear cover. To summarize the excess, there exists no satisfying end to this dark and heavy read. Readers will learn at this point in the book that Brittain becomes engaged to a mysterious man, only to burn in vain with curiosity over his identity; as effusive as Brittain is regarding her earlier loves, she remains stubbornly cryptic about her final husband-to-be. Readers do not even have the pleasure of learning his name. Instead, the last quarter of the book devotes itself Brittain's political work for the newly-formed League of Nations--information that only readers with Ph.D.-level knowledge of British politics circa 1920 could find interesting and meaningful.

However, in spite of these shortcomings, Testament of Youth remains a relevant, provoking, and well-written tome. The prose of the book's first half is unmatched in its beauty, and quotable passages abound throughout. I was surprised at how often I empathized with Brittain's thoughts and feelings on several different subjects despite living almost a century removed from her time. For me, the experience was definitely an enriching one, even though the reading often fell short of stimulating.

(2 stars) - UNCLE! I give up. Sorry, ladies
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.

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