A hobbit on the Somme

[Tilkalin]

Merci Yyr de nous faire partager ta lecture et les scans de cet article sur cette période de l'histoire si brutale dont Tolkien fut acteur, puis témoin...

Aux mots de l'auteur que tu donnes en conclusion, pourraient peut-être répondre ceux de Lewis sur la guerre de l'Anneau ('The Dethronment of Power', Time & Tide 36, 22 October 1955) :

This war has the very quality of the war my generation knew. Is is all here: the endless, unintelligible movement, the sinister quiet of the front when 'everything is now ready', the flying civilians, the lively, vivid friendhips, the background of something like despair and the merry foreground, and such heavensent windfalls as a cache of tobacco 'salvaged' from a ruin. The author has told us elsewhere that his taste for fairy-tale was wakened into maturity by active service; that, no doubt, is why we can say of his war scenes (quoting Gimli the Dwarf), 'There is good rock here. This country has tough bones.'

T. ;-)