In Memoriam

A love story set in British private schools and across the battlegrounds of WWI. Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt, dashing dapper private school boys, constantly reciting poetry and reading Greek epics, are secretly in love. When one of them feels pressured to enlist for England before his time, the other follows shortly behind. What follows are many heartbreaks, of what war does to young bodies and minds.

I feel like I read several books with different tonalities. First we're experiencing the angst of forbidden gay schoolboy crushes (honestly kind of shocked how accepted sexual abuse between the boys seemed to be at those times) with lingering fears and dreams of heroics on the battlefield. Then the cruel No Man's Land reality of WWI is pure tragedy and heartbreak. Followed by suspiciously jolly adventures of a few of the former schoolmates attempting to escape German prisoner-of-war camps while rereading Adam Bede again and again (I had to laugh out loud several times at the continuous Adam Bede jokes). Followed by a final sombre act that makes it very clear how war produces broken men that never can fully heal.

Tonal differences asides, I enjoyed them all, and didn't mind at all how expertly they toyed with my emotions. Winn's writing of the schoolboy charm made me chuckle a lot, and the audio narration was quite excellent as well.