11 January, 2012

The Art of Biffing

I finished the first installment of the Sword of Honor trilogy, Men at Arms, tonight.

The Brigadier himself lectured. Booby traps, it appeared, were proving an important feature of patrol-work on the Western front. the Brigadier spoke of trip=wires, detonators, anti-personnel mines. He described in detail an explosive goat which he had once contrived and driven into a Bedouin encampment. Seldom had he been more exuberant.


And here's another good one--

This war had begun in darkness and it will end in silence.


Neither of these quotes are a great review of the book's content or tone. If I had to describe it, I guess I'd say it's something like a British Catch 22, which is to say: More polite and, I don't know, British. Anyways, thanks to the book it reminded me of Lt. General Adrian Carton de Wiart and taught me what a thunder box was.

My next task is to move through my BFI Blade Runner book, another book on lost South African gold, and this reading companion on the above quoted book.

So there's that.

No comments:

Post a Comment