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  • The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory After the Armistice ed. by Trudi Tate and Kate Kennedy
  • Angela K. Smith
The Silent Morning: Culture and Memory After the Armistice. Edited by Trudi Tate and Kate Kennedy (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013, xii plus 347 pp. £19.99).

In the introduction to this fascinating and varied collection, Trudi Tate and Kate Kennedy claim, "The chapters in this book give us a deeper understanding of the 'life history' of the Armistice of 1918, and its afterlife, too, which was to cast a ghostly shadow far into the twentieth century" (13). This is an effective summary. The essays are interdisciplinary and extremely diverse in subject matter, but all are connected by their engagement with this particular historical moment. The moment of armistice is pivotal. The "life histories" are eclectic. Some of the contributors map the primary themes of the collection—silence, memory, aftermath—very distinctly onto their subject matter. For others the links are more tenuous. But the overall impact of the essays is to offer the readers a colorful tapestry of postwar society in Britain, Germany, and Vienna. [End Page 215]

The diversity of the essays in this collection is a real strength. From a shared starting point, the end of the First World War, and asking "how that moment of silence was to echo into the following decades" (1), scholars of literature, history, art history, and music explore the consequences of the war and its impact on a range of individuals, communities, and countries. Some of the contributors use these shared signposts to great effect, offering the reader succinct and relevant arguments that make a significant contribution to knowledge. Others are less easy to locate within the broader framework of the collection. In this sense, the diversity of the collection also becomes a weakness. In trying to cover so many different elements it becomes more difficult to retain the coherence of the collection throughout. Not all the essays retain the promised focus. As a result, they don't all fit together quite as well as they might.

The clear and concise introduction leads the reader to expect questions that engage with what we mean by silence, by memory, and by peace. Some essays offer us helpful answers. The opening chapter, John Pegum's essay on Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End, does just that, offering a balanced and convincing argument that is located squarely in the moment of the armistice. His contrast of the deliberate crescendo of guns before the silence on the Western Front, with the chaotic noise of the civilian celebrations, paints an eloquent sensory picture of the multiple, complicated human reactions to the end of the war. He goes on to use Ford's novel to illustrate the potential impact of these responses, confirming the importance of war literature in the formation of memory. The other literary chapters, by George Simmers, Andrew Frayn, and Alison Hennegan, further explore this communion, by examining the literary responses of other, less well-known writers. However, Klaus Hofmann's chapter on Alfred Döblin's novel, November 1918, sits less comfortably. Although it provides the vital function of offering a German literary viewpoint, the chapter tends towards the narrative rather than the discursive and does not engage as effectively with the overall themes of the collection.

Jane Potter's chapter examining literary reviews of war books in The Bookman and The Times Literary Supplement offers a refreshing and new perspective on the war and on the peace, examining little-used media sources that would have reached a large readership at the time of their production. This chapter makes a genuine contribution to the current surge of interest in First World War publishing and alternative historical sources. The two Viennese chapters, however, are, in different ways, slightly less rewarding. Max Haberich's chapter on the work of Arthur Schnitzler and Peter Tregear's contribution on Ernst Krenek are both fascinating as stand alone pieces. Both chapters are very biographical, making for informative character studies that place their subjects within a precise historical moment. But neither engages with the main themes of the collection in as rewarding a way as some of...

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