In 1914, two months after England and Germany went to war, Geoffrey Pyke persuaded a newspaper to hire him as a war correspondent. Pyke was about 20 at the time and, acting under the same impulse by which modern 20 year olds crash keg parties and drink themselves into comas, snuck into Berlin. He was arrested, of course. But, hey, at least he got a book out of it.

To Ruhleben–and Back was published in 1916 and recently republished under McSweeney’s (McSweeney’s’s?) Collins Library imprint. (And damn, this is a handsome book. Good paper, a cover made of sturdy boards and real cloth–Cloth! In an age of big-publisher hardcovers covered in construction paper!–and the design must have time-travelled forwards from the days when books were bound like their publishers gave a damn. I stuck it on my shelf between Phillip Pullman and David Quammen and it looked like Mr. Blackwell at a hobo convention.)

Pyke spent months in solitary confinement wondering whether he’d be shot. Then he was transferred to a cold and inadequate POW camp at Ruhleben. A case of pneumonia left him with a weak heart. He escaped in the company of a man who knew the country better. They walked a very long way to the Netherlands with very little food. Pyke collapsed several times and was once almost left for dead.

As Pyke tells it, all of this was hilariously funny. Continue reading Review: To Ruhleben–and Back →