Bourne is a private fighting on the front. Self-reliant and articulate, he is under pressure to accept a commission, but he prefers to be among the ranks, drawn into the universal struggle for survival in a world gone mad.
An attempt to understand the inexplicable, Manning's moving and powerful work is unlike any other First World War novel in its depiction of the life of the ordinary British soldier, which was as much concerned with drill, transportation, rest and relaxation, as the trauma and brutalities of combat. Its use of swearing and its highly disturbing realism give The Middle Parts of Fortune a startling contemporaneity.
