“All wars in history, from the Greek heroes onwards, spawn such intense memoirs, long and short. They are a bedrock of classic literature. We are fascinated by them. They invite us to eavesdrop on the confessional. They are a form of writing therapy, a way of laying the ghost, and a psychiatrist is not needed to tell us that. But there is also more to it. War memoirs involve all of us, including the bystanders. They make the reader complicit.”