Abstract
This paper examines how Melvyn Bragg, British journalist, broadcaster and writer, portrays the aftermath of World War Two on family and community in The Soldier’s Return (1999) and Son of War (2001). I contend that Bragg’s apparently simplistic and minimalist style approximates what Michael Rothberg (2000) terms as traumatic realism. By blending the ordinary and the domestic with the extraordinary, he manages to evoke a meaningful absence and traumatic undertones at the same time as resonating with historical ‘truth’. Thus, I conclude that through the tension between an outer naivety and underlying disturbances, Bragg’s post-memorial discourse achieves a public disclosure which hitherto remained, primarily, in the intimate realm of postwar family life.
Highlights
El regreso de la Segunda Guerra Mundial ‘In Our Time’: post-memoria, historia y narración en The Soldier’s Return y Son of War de Melvyn Bragg resumen Este articulo examina cómo Melvyn Bragg, periodista británico, locutor y escritor, retrata las consecuencias de la Segunda Guerra Mundial en la familia y la comunidad en The Soldier’s Return (1999) y Son of War (2001)
In this paper I seek to show how Bragg reveals a historical human truth of how war reverberates through family and generations through the use of a hybrid form of modernism, and postmodernism hidden below a discourse of minimalist realism
I believe that by transposing Michael Rothberg’s notion of traumatic realism to a critical analysis of Bragg’s texts, we might better understand how the writer registers the psychic reality of authorial post-traumatic testimony
Summary
AbstrAct This paper examines how Melvyn Bragg, British journalist, broadcaster and writer, portrays the aftermath of World War Two on family and community in The Soldier’s Return (1999) and Son of War (2001). I contend that Bragg’s apparently simplistic and minimalist style approximates what Michael Rothberg (2000) terms as traumatic realism. El regreso de la Segunda Guerra Mundial ‘In Our Time’: post-memoria, historia y narración en The Soldier’s Return y Son of War de Melvyn Bragg resumen Este articulo examina cómo Melvyn Bragg, periodista británico, locutor y escritor, retrata las consecuencias de la Segunda Guerra Mundial en la familia y la comunidad en The Soldier’s Return (1999) y Son of War (2001). Se afirma que el estilo narrativo de Bragg se aproxima a lo que Michael Rothberg (2000) denomina como realismo traumático. Se concluye que a través de la tensión entre una ingenuidad externa y expresiones de ansiedad, el discurso post conmemorativo de Bragg logra divulgar una historia que hasta el momento se ha mantenido en el ámbito familiar de la posguerra. Palabras clave: Desmovilización, Familia, Post-memoria, Posguerra, Realismo Traumático, Segunda Guerra Mundial
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