The Construction of Memory in Interwar France (review)

Abstract

Writing about the cultural impact of the Great War in Britain, Samuel Hynes observes that literary critics have paid excessive attention to the "Waste Land Myth of the War," authorizing faithless, uncomprehending despair as "the authentic expression of post-war reality." 1 In fact, he asserts, a powerful discourse of consolation prevailed in the interwar years, a discourse in which the bereaved successfully mourned the dead, finding meaning in sacrifice. Several recent cultural histories focusing on British and continental commemorative practices have corroborated Hynes's point, underscoring the gap between the anticonsolatory themes of modernist literature and the work of mourning accomplished in popular and public culture. 2 Daniel Sherman's book is the newest addition to this vitally important area of modernist studies. Focusing on the interplay between individual souvenirs and collective mémoire, it documents a wide range of cultural practices: the writing of war-memoirs and novels and of eyewitness accounts for the "trench press"; the promotion of battlefield tourism; the production of postcards and posters; the building of war memorials and the ceremonies that consecrated them; and the representation of all these practices initially in journalism and ultimately in museums. Though it takes its examples exclusively from France, this study's analysis and conclusions can teach us a great deal about other mourning nations in the 1920s and beyond.