Review of '"Rommel?": "Gunner Who?" : a confrontation in the desert' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Not as funny as the first book in the series, but some good laughs.
English language
Published May 7, 2012 by Penguin Books, Limited.
4 stars
(3 reviews)
"Rommel?" "Gunner Who?": A Confrontation in the Desert is Spike Milligan's second volume of war autobiography, published in 1974, with Jack Hobbs credited as an editor. This book spans events from January to May 1943, during Operation Torch the Allied invasion of Morocco and Algeria and the Tunisia Campaign in World War II. (The preface to the earlier book states this would be a trilogy, but he wrote seven volumes.) As before, the book is in an unusual format freely mixing multimedia formats, with narrative anecdotes, contemporaneous photography, ridiculously non-contemporaneous steel engravings and illustrations, excerpts from diaries, letters and rough sketches, along with absurd memoranda from Nazi officials (sometimes called "Hitlergrams"). A map is included. In a later volume, Milligan wrote, "I wish the reader to know that he is not reading a tissue of lies and fancies, it all really happened". In retrospect, the reader is left in some …
"Rommel?" "Gunner Who?": A Confrontation in the Desert is Spike Milligan's second volume of war autobiography, published in 1974, with Jack Hobbs credited as an editor. This book spans events from January to May 1943, during Operation Torch the Allied invasion of Morocco and Algeria and the Tunisia Campaign in World War II. (The preface to the earlier book states this would be a trilogy, but he wrote seven volumes.) As before, the book is in an unusual format freely mixing multimedia formats, with narrative anecdotes, contemporaneous photography, ridiculously non-contemporaneous steel engravings and illustrations, excerpts from diaries, letters and rough sketches, along with absurd memoranda from Nazi officials (sometimes called "Hitlergrams"). A map is included. In a later volume, Milligan wrote, "I wish the reader to know that he is not reading a tissue of lies and fancies, it all really happened". In retrospect, the reader is left in some doubt – for the Prologue to this volume reads:
"I have described nothing but what I saw myself, or learned from others of whom I made the most careful and particular enquiry.Thucydides. Peloponnesian War.I've just jazzed mine up a little.Milligan. World War II."Some details, such as a facsimile clipping announcing the death of a comrade (an atypical sombre moment in the book) can be assumed factual. Moreover, much other information is apparently intended to be accurate:
"Around the main lagoon were dotted smaller lagoons and around the fringe, what appeared to be pink scum. In fact it was hundreds of flamingoes. This vision, the name of Sheba, the sun, the crystal white and silver shimmer of the salt lagoon made boyhood readings of Rider Haggard come alive. It was a sight I can never forget, so engraved was it that I was able to dash it down straight onto the typewriter after a gap of thirty years."On the other hand, speaking of the dedication to "brother Desmond who made my boyhood happy", Norma Farnes, editor of The Compulsive Spike Milligan said "Desmond and I roared with laughter over this fantasy. They used to argue like hell."
