| Siegfried Sassoon: The reluctant hero Cambridge University is on the verge of securing Siegfried Sassoon's personal papers for posterity – his unpublished poems and letters are more relevant than ever, says Michael MorpurgoI once came across a letter written by a military officer to a soldier's mother. "We regret to inform you," it said, "that your son was shot at dawn for cowardice." I later discovered that more than 300 British soldiers were executed for cowardice or desertion during the first world war. Two were shot because they had fallen asleep on the job.As far as I know, Siegfried Sassoon didn't write about these soldiers. But what he did do, as I did when I went to the graves at Ypres, was get angry about the futility of the war. In July 1917, Sassoon – poet, diarist, satirist, officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers and winner of the Military Cross – was away from the front due to injury. He wrote a letter to his commanding officer, declining to return to duty because he believed the war was being deliberately prolonged by those who had the power to end it. "I believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation," wrote Sassoon, who was nicknamed Mad Jack by his men, "has now become a war of aggression and conquest."Sassoon's letter, titled A Soldier's Declaration, was published in newspapers and read out in the Commons; it very nearly got him executed. Now, a handwritten copy of the letter is among the wonderful collection of Sassoon's personal papers – among them the diaries and notebooks he carried with him to the front – that Cambridge University has all but secured for its library. The National Heritage Memorial Fund has today announced a grant of £550,000 towards their acquisition, which leaves just £110,000 to be raised.This collection is vital to our understanding of war both then and now. The poets of the first world war – Sassoon, and others like Wilfred Owen and Edward Thomas – evoke the pain and suffering of war in a way that I, when I discovered them aged 14 or 15, found riveting. I was a war baby. Born in 1943, I grew up with the suffering of the second world war all around me. I played in bomb sites, and my mother cried often, mourning the death of the uncle I never knew – Uncle Peter, who was in the RAF and was shot down in 1940, aged 21, and whose photograph was always on the mantelpiece. But it was only when I read Sassoon, and the others, that I realised how extraordinarily brave these soldiers, and these poets, were. They faced down the most difficult thing for any of us to face down: our own mortality.The thing that sets Sassoon's work apart is that he was so connected to his soldiers. One of the previously unpublished poems in this collection provides an account of that connection, and of the wrongs Sassoon felt were being dished out to his men:Can I forget the voice of one who cried For me to save him, save him, as he died? I will remember you, and from your wrongs Shall rise the power and the poignance of my songs And this shall comfort me until the end That I have been your captain and your friend. It's just a scrap torn from a notebook, but it's hugely powerful. Sassoon is more political, more edgy, than the other war poets. But he wasn't always violently against the war. The poem he wrote on the first page of his earliest wartime notebook is also included in this collection. Called Simpleton, it's about his faith that "God marches with the armies". "He loves to hear men laugh," Sassoon wrote, "and when they fall he triumphs in their wounds."At that time, Sassoon was in tune with the spirit of the war. It was only when he saw the suffering and the pointlessness of it all that he changed his mind. He had a great sardonic wit, too. There's a wonderful short poem Sassoon wrote called The General – about jolly chaps going off to the front, and the general on his horse sending them to their death. Sassoon knew that the soldiers' deaths were coming at the behest of people who didn't understand the military situation: they simply hurled men at barbed wire and machine guns.Sassoon had the courage to say what, at the time, you absolutely couldn't say, and to some extent, still can't: that there was no point in just going on fighting and fighting. If you read out Sassoon's A Soldier's Declaration in Commons now, it would create the same furore it did in 1917 – because we're exactly where we were then. We're not in a world war, though some might call it a world crisis. But we are still sending young men and women to die in wars that many people in this country don't agree with: wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for supposedly democratic principles – and yet we have a president of Afghanistan who has arrived in the most undemocratic manner. And we have soldiers coming back in coffins.We're all so adept at turning people into heroes. Sassoon admired the courage of the soldiers, just as many in this country do now; it was the causes he was dubious about. And still, in our wars, with every day, every week, every month that goes by, someone dies. And every time someone dies there's a mother left, a father, a lover, a wife, a child. Sassoon was asking us why men were still dying. His is a voice that really needs to be heard now.Siegfried SassoonPoetryMichael MorpurgoLaura BarnettMichael Morpurgoguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
'Let the Great World Spin' rolls to the National Book Award Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, a portrait of a decaying 1974 New York, won the National Book Award for fiction Wednesday ... rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
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Spielberg to take War Horse for big-screen gallop Steven Spielberg has acquired the film rights to Michael Morpurgo's book about a farmhand's search for his beloved horse, which has already become a hit play with life-size puppetsWar Horse, the hit play which began life as a children's book, looks set for a gallop on the big screen after Steven Spielberg picked up the film rights.With its innovative use of life-size puppets to depict the horses of the first world war, the story of a young Devon farmhand who braves the trenches in an effort to find his beloved colt has proved a huge success on stage. After opening at the National Theatre in October 2007, it transferred to the West End's New London Theatre in March this year and is currently booking until February 2010, with a possible national and world tour also on the cards.Spielberg has bought the screen rights to Michael Morpugo's 1982 novel, which formed the basis of the play, through his studio DreamWorks. The Oscar-winning film-maker said he felt the story was one with a wide appeal. "Its heart and its message provide a story that can be felt in every country," he said.Morpugo told the London Evening Standard yesterday: "I can think of no one better to do this. It is so exciting. I only just learnt this in the last two days. After such a fantastic success with the play, it needs someone of his imagination and skill at turning books into great visual experiences for the film version."DreamWorks has confirmed that Lee Hall, the Newcastle-born scriptwriter nominated for an Oscar for Billy Elliot, will write the screenplay. It is not yet known whether Spielberg will direct the film himself or take a producer's credit.Reviewing the stage production at the National in 2007, the Guardian's Michael Billington wrote: "Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris recreate the kaleidoscopic horror of war through bold imagery ... the joy of the evening lies in the skilled recreation of equine life and in its unshaken belief that mankind is ennobled by its love of the horse."The film version would be unlikely to utilise puppetry, but the project has the potential to stand out for a different, but just as unusual conceit. Morpugo's novel is told not from the point of view of Albert, the young farmhand, but from the perspective of Joey the horse.Steven SpielbergMichael MorpurgoTheatreFilm adaptationsBen Childguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
Grimm Tales | Theatre review Library, ManchesterWhen Tim Supple first dramatised Carol Ann Duffy's vibrant retellings of the Brothers Grimm's Household Tales in 1993 it was with a Âphysical theatre flair that added a new layer of wonder to these classic tales. ÂSixteen years on, actors playing trees, Âanimals and Âinanimate objects are part of Âmainstream theatre everywhere; for this revival – on Duffy's home patch – Âdirector Rachel O'Riordan spins Âsomething new from old by effectively setting the stories to music. Conor Mitchell's Âwonderful score – creepy, jaunty and with its own goblin-like magic – becomes like an extra Âstoryteller, an ever-present Âsubtextual character in the unfolding whirl of Âstories acted out by a troupe of actor-musicians who creep into a derelict house to make merry.Whether they are human or fairy we never know, but the device adds to the richness of two hours that ranges from the scary, in Hansel and Gretel, to the cheeky and comic in lesser-known tales such as The Mouse, the Bird and the Sausage. Gary McCann's design of a broken country house overwhelmed by nature as trees break through the Âceiling, is a riot of russet and green.There is layer upon layer of textured richness, but sometimes it can all be a bit distracting, and in danger of Âsuffocating the jewel-like brightness of Duffy's crafty text. The stories that work best are those that are most simply staged, such as the final no-frills bonus story of Little Red Cap.The company works well, although there's a tendency for Âindividuals to shout and overplay, as if fearing they will be rendered invisible by the weight of the production. But there is much to enjoy, and the crueller twists in some of these stories will come as a surprise to a young audience weaned on Disney.Until 23 January. Box office: 0161-236 7110.Rating: 3/5Carol Ann DuffyTheatreLyn Gardnerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |