The protagonist of the story, Vera Britain, met his brother's friend Roland before the war, and the two wrote poetry with each other. With Roland's encouragement and his younger brother's fight from his family, Vera was admitted to Oxford University through self-study.
At the beginning of Vera and Roland's youth love dream, World War I began, and Roland moved to the French front. Vera went to the nurse's station to work as a nurse without the intention of studying.
When Roland went home to visit relatives for the first time, Vera noticed the changes in Roland. Roland is no longer soft, and has a lot of amazing stiffness. Vera tells Roland to remember that he in love is a part of him.
So they met and waited for Roland to return to England to visit relatives for the second time, and they got married. Unexpectedly, what he waited for was that Roland was shot and killed by a German sniper when he was on the front line to repair the wires. The marriage dream of the two is over.
One after another, Vera lost his best friend Victor and his brother Edward. When Vera applied to work as a nurse on the front line in France, she looked after the wounded German army. Vera regarded these wounded German soldiers as his lovers and relatives, and accompanied them through the last time.
After Vera returned to Oxford after the war, it was difficult to get out of the shadow of the war. A friend encouraged her, we need to learn how to live with those ghosts (who used to be the people we love), and go on live a new life. Spring is out there.
Vera wrote her own experience into "The Oath of Youth" , An autobiographical literature, married and had children, and became a pacifist.
I watched the movie yesterday and decisively bought the e-book Testament of Youth. Recently I have a lot of free time to browse through books and novels, and I feel that being able to immerse in the world of books, whether in Chinese or English, is a blessing.
There are many poppies on the cover of the book (there are also many poppies on the poster of the movie "Atonement" about World War II), and the poppies represent the blood of soldiers who died in World War I.
When I was studying in Newcastle before, people would see people putting bright red poppies on the memorial to World War I in Eldon Square, to miss those who were left by the war. There are many teenagers who have not yet begun their lives, such as Roland.
I just hope that the war will not happen so that we can cherish the people around us.
PS: The protagonist who plays Roland is called Kit Harington. He once played in Game of Thrones. I believe children who have seen Game of Thrones will be familiar with his face. He was a child at the time, and now his acting skills are thriving, it's worth seeing.
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