Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die
Memoirs of a World War I Marine
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- 11,99 €
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- 11,99 €
Beschreibung des Verlags
In the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front, Elton E. Mackin’s memoirs are a haunting portrayal of war as seen through the eyes of a highly decorated Marine who fought in every Marine Brigade battle from Belleau Wood to the crossing of the Meuse on the eve of the Armistice.
Praise for Suddenly We Didn't Want to Die
“This beautifully written and truly gripping war memoir is a significant addition to battlefield literature. A minor classic . . . An altogether remarkable job [comparable] to Crane, Remarque and Mailer. Deserves the widest possible audience.”—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“This immediate, eloquent report merit[s] comparison with Thomas Boyd’s Marine Corps [1923] classic Through the wheat.”—Publishers Weekly
“A real curiosity: a highly mannered World War I diary, published nearly 80 years after being written and 20 years after its author’s death. Bright snapshots abound…sometimes a young man’s lyricism takes over [but] the horror of war never departs. The diary has the faults one expects, and the promise one prays for. A fine addition to WWI literature.”—Kirkus Reviews
“A forthright, eloquent, and powerful memoir certain to become an enduring testament to the drama and tragedy of World War I. Threaded with no small measure of poetry, this superb memoir is sure to become a classic.”—Great Battles
“A plain but powerful tale . . . [in] vivid prose loaded with details that bring the horrors of World War I to life, he tells an exceptional new version of the old story of battle transforming a boy into a veteran.”—American Library Association Booklist
“To the ranks of Erich Maria Remarque, E.E. Cummings, John Dos Passos and Siegfried Sassoon, we must now add Elton Mackin . . . who, in a terse style reminiscent of Hemingway, [succeeds] in making someone unfamiliar with war truly now the frightfulness of the trenches and the greatness of the many men who fought in them.”—Marine Corps Gazette
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As a recent enlistee, Mackin (1898-1974) joined the 5th Marines in June, 1918, during the battle of Belleau Wood. He served with the regiment until the Armistice as a rifleman and then as a runner--a job with a life expectancy usually measured in hours. Mackin's memoir, supplemented by interviews taped in the 1970s, covers six months of action. In direct and simple prose, his taut, immediate account details a time when, with air support and field radios far in the future, machine guns and barbed wire still dominated the battlefield. In overcoming these obstacles virtually unaided, the courage and initiative of such front-line soldiers as Mackin and his comrades were tested to their limits and never found wanting. This immediate, eloquent report, meriting comparison with Thomas Boyd's Marine Corps classic Through the Wheat (1923), belongs in all collections on U.S. participation in WW I.
