[BelleZora]

Thanks for the links, Paola and Bookworm_Girl. I just finished Testament of Youth yesterday and am still mulling it over, but have just some quick thoughts touching upon previous posts.

I have immense respect for Vera's willingness to nurse the wounded and dying men, whether English or German, so terribly damaged by circumstances beyond their control. Vera was a feminist who not only pushed for more independence for women, but also shouldered the burdens and responsibilities of her beliefs.

In the first part of the book some of her statements are so 'entitled' as to be annoying, but she changes between the pre-war and after-war parts of the book. Probably some sense of class entitlement remained with her all her life, but she came to better understand problems of those less fortunate than herself.

I determined that I would not feel sorry for George since he did not marry such an interesting and challenging woman accidentally. Yet some passages she wrote, knowing they would be read by her husband, made me sad not only for Roland and Vera, but also for George.

At the beginning of 1915 I was more deeply and ardently in love than I have ever been or am ever likely to be, yet at that time Roland and I had hardly been alone together, and never at all without the constant possibility of observation and interruption. [Brittain, Vera. Testament Of Youth (Kindle Locations 2044-2045)].

I wondered if some sad variety of survivor guilt made George more accepting of this apparent disregard for his feelings. Did Vera resent (however unconsciously) George for surviving when Roland, Edward, and her other friends did not? I thought George was wonderful and love him a bit myself.

I was amused by her enthusiasm for the arrival of the Americans contrasted with the next time Americans make an appearance.

Americans arrive:

‘Look! Look! Here are the Americans!’

I pressed forward with the others to watch the United States physically entering the War, so god-like, so magnificent, so splendidly unimpaired in comparison with the tired, nerve-racked men of the British Army. So these were our deliverers at last, marching up the road to Camiers in the spring sunshine! There seemed to be hundreds of them, and in the fearless swagger of their proud strength they looked a formidable bulwark against the peril looming from Amiens. [Brittain, Vera. Testament Of Youth: An Autobiographical Study Of The Years 1900-1925 (Kindle Locations 7088-7092)].

Vera's later entrapment in a rail car with an American tourist:

Our neighbours in the carriage - also, I regret to say, Americans, but the pure accident of their not being English was probably designed by Providence to preserve our self-respect - conceived an immediate antipathy to us, for there had been a rush for seats and they objected to our occupation of the corners preempted by our rescuer. But they detested the Italian railway officials even more. ‘Animals!’ chattered one of the elderly ladies to her crushed-looking companion-secretary. ‘Nothing but animals! No order on the station! No porters, no station -master, nobody who could even speak English!’ No doubt, I remarked sotto voce to Winifred, she would have been equally scandalised had a Florentine countess arrived at one of her own junction towns - Buffalo or Columbus or Kansas City - and complained bitterly that no one spoke Italian! [Brittain, Vera. Testament Of Youth (Kindle Locations 8769-8776).]

My amusement stemmed from my own experience working with international travelers in U.S. national parks. Most tourists are delightfully open to new experiences, but there are a minority who, if they never left home, would be happier people and so would those they deign to visit.

The tragedy of the war and Vera Brittain's story are overwhelming. No doubt I'll be processing it and reading more for a long time to come.