Truth and beauty square off in Rebecca West’s first novel, published in 1918. My favorite quote is from the doctor who attends to the soldier returning from war with PTSD and a 15 year memory loss: “It’s my profession to bring people from various outlying districts of the mind to the normal. There seems to be a general feeling it’s the place where they ought to be. Sometimes I don’t see the urgency myself.” Thought-provoking and certainly provocative for its time, this is a classic for a reason!

Love Rebecca West's wartime correspondence but this was underwhelming.

This book is a classic example of a good story told from the perspective of a horrible character. And she even isn't the worst!!! The commentaries about the characters from a different social class are so cruel and crude, but I guess that was the point.

‘to that No Man’s Land where bullets fall like rain on the rotting faces of the dead...’

I've stopped reading books synopsis' a long time ago since some of them actually ruins the book for you , so i had absolutely no idea on what this book was about, i only started reading it since it is a recommendation from someone on "1001 books you must read before you die group" on goodreads, i complained about the difficulty i found on other books on the very same list, and she gave me a little piece of advice.
She was right, the book is easy on the language level , on the other hand i can't say the same about the emotions that this book brought me,they were hard, i stopped reading romances altogether because after a while they all started to seem to me dull and repeated , but this one, this one made me believe once again in love and in tragedy, it made me realize that i am a romantic after all, i just don't like ordinary and cheap romances , i like the hard , enduring and non physical ones.
I felt so many different kind of love in this book, The love Jenny has for Chris , an innocent and brotherly kind of love, that could make you think of your sisters, it is the kind of love that lasts forever of course, but it's not consuming and deadly and maybe not even wonderful, it's just more natural than other kinds of love and easier too.
I don't think Kitty loves Chris as much as she needs him for her image, she needs someone she can count on, she is not the giving kind, and she is selfish and immoral , and once again we can see how physically beautiful people are presented as evil ones, because they relay so much on their beauty that there is no place left for personality, and it's not their fault alone , it's mostly the fault of society of people so blinded by beauty .
Margaret's love is unconditional and eternal, she kept it buried in her heart all those years, and the last sacrifice she made was the sign that she was worthy of love more than anyone else in this book, it showed us also how unselfish she is, she is quite the opposite of kitty , she is not physically beautiful , but her soul made her seem like a queen of beauty to me.
Chris, there are two of Chris, Chris the one who loves Margaret , and Chris the soldier, an amnesia made Chris forget all about his recent life, so i'm not sure if he truly still loves Margaret or if it just a refuge of his mind to a time when he was the happiest, and his love is unconditional as well he loves Margaret regardless of how she looks, his soul is attached to her in the purest and most magical way.
in this book you can FEEL more than anything else, i would consider from now on this book as the father of all romances , and the most tragic one.

A quietly tragic book about love and war and how to be fully human. Our narrator, Jenny, is probably one of my favourite characters I've ever read; she stays to the outside of the drama, recounting what everyone else does and feels while remaining very mysterious to us. This book is romantic, not in the sense that it is about romance, but because of the way it explores the interplay between reality and what could have been; a book that captures the longing of "if only." I'm also mad that I've never heard of this book or author before, because this definitely deserves a place in our 20th century canon, alongside The Great Gatsby and whatever else (James Joyce? Ernest Hemingway?) we consider modern classics. Like, bored 15 year olds should be forced to write essays on this book.

Le veo el mérito y a la vez me ha dejado un poco fría esta historia sobre la memoria, la felicidad, el deber y, muy de fondo, la Primera Guerra Mundial. Me ha dado la sensación de tener un aire a Henry James (pero en menos ampulosa), con esa narradora que cuenta todo de una forma indirecta. La descripción de los paisajes unida a las soterradas emociones de los personajes, casi como si se tratara de una pintura impresionista.

Es más denso de lo que parece, dado su número de páginas, y me ha dado la impresión de, más que tener un punto nostálgico, es decididamente pesimista. Lo que ocurrió no puede deshacerse, lo que se perdió no puede recuperarse. Los hombres adultos deben hacer frente a sus responsabilidades aunque sea a la fuerza, aunque los haga infelices. Los hombres adultos deben ir a la guerra. Así son las cosas.

A powerful and passionate debut novel by Rebecca West about the dark psychology of a live triangle. A short, rich and satisfying read