It is as impossible to miss the light of its extreme beauty and wisdom as it would be to miss the full moon on a clear night. Its first claim on the attention is the obvious loveliness of the colour and cadence of its language, and it is also clever as the novels of Mr Henry James are clever, with all sorts of acute discoveries about human nature; and at times it is radiantly witty.
It is because of that unison of inspiration and the finest technique that this story, this close and relentless recital of how the good soldier struggled from the mere clean innocence which was the most his class could expect of him to the knowledge of love, could bear up under the vastness of its subject. For the subject is, one realises when one has come to the end of this saddest story, much vaster than one had imagined that any story about well-bred people, who live in sunny houses with deer in the park, and play polo, and go to Nauheim for the cure, could possibly contain.
Indeed, this is a much, much better book than any of us deserve. It is now the fashion in many intellectual circles to despise Mr Bennett, as it is the fashion to despise all authors who have performed the crude act of publishing anything. But it is interesting to notice that because has has worked so hard at the craft of writing, at the art of inventing the dreams of a not wild imagination with beauty, he cannot help but achieve good writing and beauty even in a book written without much devotion and with a light intention.
Hewlett would probably object, the girl had charm. Yet can anybody who cannot grasp that the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal have charm? Can anybody who cannot — to take a simple and revealing test of intelligence — fold up a deck-chair, have charm? Lucy, one feels, could not have passed either of these tests.
All of these reviews are, in their own ways, epigrammatically delightful. But they also have a quality of self-display that is in fact slightly wearing after a while: To be quotable, that is, is not the same as to be impressive, and I find her reviews here more impressive when she tones things down and speaks less from her head and more from her heart. It is as though the usual literary process had been reversed and a mouse had produced a mountain.
Vera's Valour by Anne Holman
It is entirely characteristic of Miss Sinclair that this record of seventeen days spent in Belgium, which is largely a record of humiliations, and is told with the extremest timidity and a trembling meticulosity about the lightest facts, should be one of the few books of permanent value produced by the war. Partly it is because her meticulosity makes her describe what writers more accustomed to the battlefield leave one to take for granted.
And partly it is because she writes of such a company of heroes as never lived before: And against this background, which is a miracle of of dreadfulness, there moves the Ambulance Corps, which is a miracle of human splendour.
It is merciful that, just as one discovers that the world is capable of being infinitely more noble. One perceives quite clearly that some members of this Ambulance Corps must have been intolerable as individuals: And yet, united by their collective purpose of courage, they become an organisation so magnificent in its fearlessness that one accepts as a real tragedy the personal grief which makes this book muted like words spoken by one who holds back the tears.
No triumph of good work that may come to Miss Sinclair will ever make up to her for the discovery that the artist is unfit for the life of action. And yet every page of this gallant, humiliated book makes it plain that while it is glorious that England should have women who walk quietly under the rain of bullets it is glorious too that England should have women who grieve inconsolably because the face of danger has not been turned to them.
Brittain, Vera
It is alert and vigorous thinking about specific points, it is the very quality of intelligence which Miss Key belittles, which brings an end to war. The intellect is the sword in the hand of humanity, without which its tears and laughter are as impotent as the tears and laughter of children. How well did West know Holtby and Brittain? Though I certainly identify as a feminist, I let my Ms. I wonder why I enjoy polemics so much more at some historical distance. What critics would you point to who combine strong political critique with a strong literary sensibility?
The four young men in the correspondence are all products of the British public school system which taught them the values they lived and then died for: Remnants of what can only look to us like a narrow-minded as well as naive idealism linger on throughout their letters, especially in their poignant wish to show courage in the face of incessant horror and imminent death: I have been rushing around since 4 a.
This latter was captured by the French not so long ago and is pitted with shell holes each big enough to bury a horse or two in. Roland to Vera, 11 September I was glad that neither you nor Victor nor anyone else who may some day go to the front was there to see. If you had been you would have been overwhelmed by the horror of war without its glory. The mud of France which covered them was not ordinary mud; it had not the usual clean pure smell of earth, but it was as though it were saturated with dead bodies — dead that had been dead a long, long time.
All the sepulchres and catacombs of Rome could not make me realise mortality and corruption as vividly as did the smell of those clothes. They have school memories and career ambitions, favorite novels and poems, families that frustrate as well as comfort them. They worry, too, about how the war might be changing them. I have been looking at a bloodred bar of sky creeping down behind the snow, and wondering whether any of the men in the trenches on the opposite hill were watching it too and thinking as I was what a waste of Life it is to spend it in a ditch.
These are the moments that restore these painfully young men to the normalcy that their extraordinary circumstances have stripped away, the moments that help us see them as our own sons or brothers or loved ones. And after all to be human is better, and greater, and more beautiful than anything else. It is the common fate of our generation. To-day we would pass through the scenes of our youth like travellers.
We are burnt up by hard facts; like tradesmen we understand distinctions, and like butchers, necessities. We are no longer untroubled—we are indifferent. We might exist there; but should we really live there? We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost. The physical violence ultimately comes across as peripheral—collateral, even—to the other damage they endure:. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts.
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- The Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
We are cut off from activity, from striving, from progress. We believe in such things no longer. We believe in the war. We do not fight, we defend ourselves against annihilation. It is not against men that we fling our bombs, what do we know of men in this moment when Death is hunting us down—now, for the first time in three days we can see his face, now for the first time in three days we can oppose him; we feel a mad anger. No longer do we lie helpless, waiting on the scaffold, we can destroy and kill, to save ourselves, to save ourselves and to be revenged.
If your own father came over with them you would not hesitate to fling a bomb at him. And in France, too, the majority of men are just labourers, workmen, or poor clerks. Now why would a French blacksmith or a French shoemaker want to attack us? No, it is merely the rulers. I had never seen a Frenchman before I came here, and it will be just the same with the majority of Frenchman as regards us.
Kat shrugs his shoulders. But it is dangerous to think this way, or to think at all, as Paul discovers during a turn guarding a group of Russian prisoners. In the trenches, the enemy is abstract until he is upon you, and then your common humanity becomes irrelevant in the desperate struggle to survive. A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends. Any non-commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupil, than they are to us. And yet we would shoot at them again and they at us if they were free.
Paul pulls himself up short here: I dare think this way no more. This way lies the abyss. Human feeling surfaces again when, hiding in a shell hole during an enemy attack and how odd and salutary it is, just by the way, to be on the German side for once in my reading , Paul stabs a Frenchman who tumbles in on top of him. This way, indeed, lies the abyss:. The gurgling starts again—but how slowly a man dies! For this I know—he cannot be saved, I have, indeed, tried to tell myself that he will be, but at noon this pretence breaks down and melts before his groans.
By noon I am groping on the outer limits of reason. This dying man has time with him, he has an invisible dagger with which he stabs me: Time and my thoughts. At last he dies: But only for a short time. If you jumped in here again, I would not do it, if you would be sensible too.
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But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. It was that abstraction I stabbed. But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. We always see it too late. Why do they not tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?
Veeram is simultaneously made in Malayalam , Hindi , and in English with the same title. Principal photography commenced on 5 January in Thiruvananthapuram , where it was mostly shot, with other locations being Agra and Aurangabad. Jayaraj had earlier adapted two of Shakespeare plays Othello and Antony and Cleopatra into feature films in Malayalam. The announcement was held during a function in Doha , organised by the executives of Chandrakala Arts, a newly formed film production company based in Qatar , who are also the investors of Veeram.
Jayaraj said, the film's story is set in 13th century Kerala and will features newcomers as actors and most of the technical crew will be from the American film industry. Apart from Malayalam, the film is also made in English and Hindi for attracting international audience. The film was planned to start production in November for a mid release. Pre-production underwent until early December The film will abundantly use the martial art, Kalarippayattu.
Jayaraj call the film his dream project. After completing the screenplay and conceptualising a production plan, he put a newspaper advertisement in search of producers. Pilai, a Qatar-based banker and an old friend of Jayaraj replied to the ad. In fact, almost thirty years ago Pillai already had a discussion with Jayaraj for producing a film and Jayaraj was interesting in directing it. The deal was finalised after which Jayaraj invited him to India for further discussions about the film's production plans, which likely requires a high budget.
Pillai formed the production company, Chandrakala Arts in India for producing the film with collaboration from two of his friends, though they do not wanted to credit their names in the film. Jayaraj himself traveled to the United States in search of technical assistance for the film. Jayaraj did not wanted to cast superstars or experienced actor for the film as he do not want to compromise his directorial freedom as star actors often demand alterations in script to glamourise their characters.
Audition for actors was conducted in three rounds, with first one conducted in Mumbai in October , and second round in Chennai , and third in Kerala. Over candidates participated in the audition. Despite the search for a newcomer, Bollywood actor Kunal Kapoor was selected to portray the protagonist. Kapoor's name was confirmed in late December Preparing for the role, Kunal attended a Kalaripayattu training schedule in Mumbai, who was taught by a Gurukkal from Kollam in a strict schedule which started in October During preparation period, apart from his martial art training, he had a regular reading workshop with Jayaraj and also learned Malayalam.
His character was reported to have a beard and a man-bun. Mediacentrale , Groningen, Netherlands. Theater De Kapel , Groningen, Netherlands. London Philharmonic Orchestra and Roger Norrington. Oosterpoort , Groningen, Netherlands. Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Blaudzun. Lekkage x twidl Thorin. Club Lola , Groningen, Netherlands. Diverse Zalen in Groningen , Groningen, Netherlands.
All Round Poolcentrum , Groningen, Netherlands. EM2 , Groningen, Netherlands Energieweg Hollt, Sjamsoedin, Crouwel, and Cosmic Force. Kokomo Beachclub , Groningen, Netherlands. Wolfsonic Atomic Vulture and Mouflon.