LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT WAR 1918-1920
Written by Juliet Nicolson
I seem to be drawn to those eras of history that are…damaged. Years, centuries, millennia…full of people coping with traumatic events, blinded by their desire to ignore that which has recently occurred…lest it settle into the imagination and tear apart their souls.
The years after the end of the First World War qualify as such a damaged time period…and it is dissected with razor-sharp focus in The Great Silence.
The Great Silence takes its inspired organization from the infamous stages of grief, with a few extra labels thrown in for good measure. It then divides up the two years stretching from November 1918 to November 1920 into discreet sections, using these terms as chapter headings. Each chapter focuses on a cast of people, ranging from the upper to lower classes. How did the war affect their lives? Were they soldiers? Family, stuck at home? Nurses? Suffragettes? Politicians? Lords and ladies, to the manor born? No class-based stone is left unturned, and no traumatic aftershock left unexplored.
It’s surprising that there hasn’t been much in the way of non-fiction, post-WWI examination…at least, not in this detailed a manner. It’s a fertile field of broken bodies, broken spirits, and broken societies, forced to adapt or succumb to the extremism that would eventually lead to the next worldwide conflict. This era can’t all be left to the poets, novelists, and artists…fantastic as they are. Straightforward historiography has its place in this time period, and lucky for us that Juliet Nicolson fills this gap with great success.
Perhaps there is a doomed romanticism to post-traumatic eras that I find strangely appealing? It’s certainly makes for very addictive reading, and the air of melancholy surrounding the end of the First World WarI adds gripping and effective poignancy to the entire affair. A book well worth one’s time…and one’s tears.
