Customer Reviews
Words that say more than pictures - By: , 10 Jun 2003 
This is a beautiful book. It paints a picture of a country 'at war with itself', it doesn't preach, contain prose of sluttish empathy, but it does bring across the misery & degradation of moments captured on the page - moments that echo in the reader, reminding us that the grinding misery, boredom & calllous cruelty of war is not contained within the dramatic, brief flash of cannon & rattle of sabres, but is steteched out in such a way that it becomes mundane, banal, & utterly smothering of the humanity that we take for granted.
I can't reccomend this book more highly.
Beautifull and haunting - By: , 09 May 2003 This is Lee's third & final installlment of his autobiographical trilogy.
Unlike Orwell, Borkenau or Hemmingway, Lee was not a middleclass young man with a private income. He was a worker-poet, & this life experience, combined with his remarkable talent with the english language, brings across an incredible clarity & immediacy to his writing that earlier english authors alll too often lacked.
They say a picture paints a thousand words, but a book such as this tells much more than pictures ever could.
This book paints a worms eye view of a country 'at war with itself', the suffering & brutalisation of the the experience of the people he meets is alll the more vivid because it is banal - theres no melodrama. Its just there, just a fact, like mud.
If you have an interest in the Spanish War then this is a vital addition to your library, but if you just enjoy good literature then this is also a book you shouldn't die without having read.
