Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man

Love horses? Check. Love nature and the English countryside? Check. Love coming-of-age boy-to-man stories? Check. Love exquisitely expressed character and social framework descriptions? Check. Love war stories? Check. These are the five reasons why this is one of my all-time favourite books.This is the semi-autobiographical account of a sensitive and lonely personality whose adolescence persists into his mid-twenties, yet the seemingly indolent and snobbish lifestyle of hunting transforms him from Mummy’s boy to fearless aggressor. Sassoon will one day win the Military Cross for rescuing wounded men in France in 1916.This book is about the original extreme sport and the age-old bond between horse and rider in the very last days of man’s dependency upon his four-hoofed friends. Each horse Sassoon owns develops his riding- and his character- in a new way. But this wonderful account of rural pursuits is far more than a horsey story. It is an unsentimental snapshot of English country life at the dawn of the twentieth century: a frozen glimpse of a society soon to be obliterated with the passing of its ‘doomed youth’ and replaced by motor cars and mass production. It makes you want to be able to go back in time to the village green flower show and warn them all not to let it happen…

Read from the perspective of the 21st century, this narrative seems to feature a man who doesn't know what he wants from life but is seemingly content to rub shoulders with the smart country set. We are given the tale of a man - George Sharston - without great means who spends his time and his money hunting. More importantly, this is a social document that describes the pre-1914 world in southern England, and a mindset that is difficult to visualise without remembering what came after with war.The quality of the writing makes the mundane illuminated by a poetic choice of prose. The descriptions of horsemanship, of the village cricket game, of Sharston's deep respect for those socially above him in status, are all fascinating. So too are the descriptions of the early stages of the Great War. The second book in the trilogy is even better, but this is a wonderful taster for what comes next.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I had no idea until recently that Siegfried Sassoon had written a hunting book, I wrongly thought he had only written war poems. If you love horses and the English countryside, then you will love this book. The detail regarding the countryside is magnificent and the joy and care involved with the horses is just wonderful. It is lovely to read about how as a young boy he came to love riding horses and hunting and racing. A different world, and as Sassoon rightly says at the end of the book, a way of life was all on the cusp of changing for ever and of course it did.

Ok

This is a gorgeous book. It's an incredible portrait of a very particular time in England that's been lost to the ages, of young men who had incredible freedom, of a country idyll that I don't think has been known for generations. Even if you've never so much as seen a hunt, this is worth reading (although you might need a glossary of hunting and horsey terms) as an elegy to an England gone. The last few chapters, clearly written from Sassoon's own experiences in the trenches of Northern France are utterly heartbreaking and in such stark contrast to the rollicking fun over rolling hills that it's hard to believe the experiences came from the same heart and the same pen. Highly recommended.

A blast from the past, painting a picture of genteel country life in the first decade of the 20th Century and the run up to the Great War. First book in Sassoon's trilogy The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston, which tracks his life through the war and out the other side. An important book giving insight into the impact of war on ordinary life and well worth a read.

This book is a moving and eloquent description of the rural life led by a young "gentleman" immediately prior to the first world war. The difference between modern life and his experiences is breath-taking. Also his creeping self-doubt gives the account a certain honesty and I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. Particularly good if you have followed, or want to find out about, hunting. Highly reccommended.

Not so gloomy & sad as Memoirs of an Infantry Officer - see elsewhere on my Profile page. (I've hunted around Cambridge when we kept our hunter at Parkhouse Livery).