A Passionate Prodigality cover

A Passionate Prodigality

by Guy Chapman

When A Passionate Prodigality was first published in 1933 it was hailed as one of the finest English works to have come out of the Great War. Today, this memoir reads with a graphic immediacy, not merely in the descriptions of the filth and shock and carnage that characterised that struggle, but, particularly, in its evocation of men at war. Stylish, honest, and eloquent, A Passionate Prodigality is 'less a book than a living voice', demonstrating an important if little remembered truth: 'The poetry is not in the pity. To hell with your generalized pity. What the survivor remembers is not the fears that he knew, the pains, but the faces and a few words of the men who were with him at the front...'

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?