Mixing Memory & Desire: Why Literature Can't Forget the Great War

by Brian Kennedy

The last soldier who saw trench action in the Great War died in 2009. With his passing, all direct memory of the horror of that war ceased―memory became history. But Brian Kennedy argues that our collective need to grieve the horrors of the Great War still remains. In this wide-ranging book, he looks at a variety of fiction recently written about World War I, from Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse to Pat Barker’s Regeneration, from Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road to Timothy Findley’s The Wars, with many other books besides. Kennedy considers the traditional stories and tropes of the war, along with modern revisionings, the role of women in the war, and even Irish issues and the divisions within the British Empire. In the end, he argues persuasively that the cultural process of grieving concerns both the fear of forgetting and the need to build a narrative arc to contain events that shaped the past century and continue to shape the present. Published 2017-06-29

288 pages, Paperback

Published October 1, 2017

Reviews

[Sharen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An essential companion to the understanding of novels set during the World War One years and its aftermath or those works whose theme relates to the Great War. As the last participants and eyewitnesses in WWI have passed on, we look to fiction for knowledge and cultural literacy about this highly significant era - and its repercussions. Kennedy states the interest in this literature "...does more than preserve memory. It signals a cultural need to mourn that has not been satisfied. This is especially interesting as a feature of the past ten years (approximately), when the remaining combatants - those with firsthand memory - have died." (p. 11) He draws together the threads of various novels in this fascinating addition to an area of literature that benefits greatly from such analysis.

(My sincerest gratitude to the author for the gift of this copy.)