Overall I enjoyed this book very much, and the trilogy marks one of my favourite literary adventures. This book compares favourably with anything written by Hemingway and Orwell on the same subject and exposes the individual's fragility in the face of political ambition. The book then recounts Lee's experiences as a Republican soldier in Figueres, Valencia, Tarazona, Madrid, Teruel and Barcelona. First a look at the descriptive writing: Lee, along with the hundreds of other men, collected at Figueras Castle are transported south to Valencia. See George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia for the proof of this playing out in the bloody Barcelona May Days.

Laurie Lee published four collections of poems: The Sun My Monument (1944), The Bloom of Candles (1947), My Many-Coated Man (1955) and Pocket Poems (1960). This is one of those times when I am reviewing based entirely on my response to the subject matter - and has nothing to do with the quality of the writing. I started Lee's story a month ago, and after the first couple of chapters I put it down, not particularly drawn to war-torn Spain, and the shenanigans of the volunteer soldiers. I felt such a jarr between his internment in the hole and then this youthful seduction that I put the book down.Finally, in the waning hours of the battle for Teruel, Lee comes to grips with the enemy, but there is no gruesome detail.

Before crossing the Pyrenees into Spain in December 1937 at the age of 23, Laurie Lee had already walked to London from the Cotswold village in which he was raised.

I regard the Orwell as a better book; yet the Lee is beautifully written and is true in spirit even if the facts are perhaps dubious. Perhaps only appearing more shocking on a backdrop of bullets and bombs than breezey Gloucestershire meadows and wine-soaked Spanish bars. His other works include The Voyage of Magellan (1948), A Rose for Winter (1955), The Firstborn (1964), I Can't Stay Long (1975) and Two Women (1983). For Laurie Lee, the success of his early memoir, "Cider With Rosie," published in 1959, was both a blessing and a curse. Now, in Albacete, Laurie is accused of being an agent of the Franco rebels, interrogated by Sam, an American volunteer, told he's probably going to get shot, and thrown in a cell.