Missing of the Somme [Paperback]

Geoff Dyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 12, 2009

'Head bowed, rifle on his back, a soldier is silhouetted against the going down of the sun, looking at the grave of a dead comrade, remembering him. A photograph from the war, is also a photograph of the way the war will be remembered. It is a photograph of the future, of the future's view of the past. We will remember them' Relying more on personal impressions than systematic analysis, Geoff Dyer weaves a network of myth and memory that illuminates our own relation to the past.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A lyrical meditation on memory and the meaning of World War I. . . . [A] thoughtful and thought-provoking pilgrimage through the war’s bibliography and battlefields. . . . Illuminate[s] how thoroughly memory and history are interwoven with literature.”
—The Wall Street Journal
 
“[A] strange and wonderful meditation on the cultural legacy of World War I. . . . The Missing of the Somme shows us that stark simplicity isn’t the only way to talk about war. . . . [It is] a lovely, alive work.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“The Missing of the Somme . . . looks back at the unfathomable destruction of [World War I] through the fogged, distorted lens of collective memory, which can only deteriorate further with the passing of time. . . . How do we bring ourselves to acknowledge such awful events? And what purpose do memorials really serve? They are, Dyer implies, inherently insufficient.”
—The Boston Globe
 
“Fresh and often unsettling. . . . Sophisticated and nuanced. . . . Quirky but often brilliant. . . . The timing could not be more appropriate. . . . For Americans, as for Britons, memory of World War I is now entirely a matter of secondhand information. Only the films, books and monuments remain. Dyer poignantly and at times playfully examines the way these objects shape his countrymen’s mental picture of what happened between 1914 and 1918. . . . As [his] meditation on remembrance demonstrates, reminders of the past do have a life of their own, shaping and reshaping the vision of history we carry in our minds. . . . The Missing of the Somme will not disappoint [Dyer’s] fans.”
—The Kansas City Star
 
“[An] instant classic. . . . Dyer supports his point with an impressive survey of poems, letters, memoirs, and novels, combined with a perceptive analysis of British war memorials, and utilizing extensive citations.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Brilliant. . . . The great Great War book of our time.”
—The Observer

“Dyer delights in producing books that are unique, like keys.”
—James Wood, The New Yorker

“[A] penetrating meditation upon war and remembrance.”
—The Daily Telegraph
 
“No contemporary writer blends genres like Geoff Dyer.”
—Time
 
“A loving book . . . about mourning and memory, about how the Great War has been represented—and our sense of it shaped and defined—by different artistic media. . . . Its textures are the very rhythms of memory and consciousness.”
—The Guardian

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Geoff Dyer is the author of WAYS OF TELLING, a critical study of John Berger; the novels THE COLOUR OF MEMORY and THE SEARCH; and BUT BEAUTIFUL: a book about Jazz, which won the 1992 Somerset Maugham Prize and was shirtlisted for the Mail on Sunday / John Llwellyn Rhys Memorial Prize. He writes regularly for the GUARDIAN and OBSERVER, and is contributing editor of ESQUIRE magazine.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix (November 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753827549
• ISBN-13: 978-0753827543
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.5 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,516,136 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Geoff Dyer is the author of four novels and six other nonfiction books, including But Beautiful, which was awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize, and Out of Sheer Rage, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. The winner of a Lannan Literary Award, the International Centre of Photography's 2006 Infinity Award for writing on photography, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' E. M. Forster Award, Dyer is a regular contributor to many publications in the US and UK. He lives in London. For more information visit Geoff Dyer's official website: www.geoffdyer.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars That which I least expected..., March 24, 2003

By 

E. Filson (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Missing of the Somme (Paperback)

I must confess that I bought this book only because Geoff Dyer wrote it and he is my favorite author and I am a completist. I figured it was an early novel, something to give me insight into his development.

Imagine my disappointment when it arrived and I discovered it was History. Mind you, I love history (check the other reviews I've written), but I tend to find a subject and read everything I can about before I burn out and move onto something else and I really couldn't be bothered to develop a new fascination for the Great War with so many others still going.

A year later, on a whim, I brought the book with me on vacation and found myself in Paris dining alone after marching against the war. It was the first book in my bag that I grabbed and by the end of dinner I was getting all choked up and teary-eyed. By chance sitting not so far from the Somme with this book in my hands, thinking of a war not yet started, at the table in the corner, it was very affecting. But I think anyone who is interested in this perspective will find it moving whether in peacetime or war, in Nebraska or Tokyo or Egypt.

The book itself succeeds because it's not about numbers and casualties, but how we remember these struggles and how we forget them at the same time. It succeeds by placing the reader not in the conflict, something he/she could never know, but in his/her own seat: remembering that which wasn't experienced. To say more would be to demean the book and Dyer's superb writing so just read it.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to explain the fascination of Flanders?, October 30, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Missing of the Somme (Paperback)

If you've ever wondered why it is you have a particular empathy with the soldiers of the first World War, especially of Flanders, this book is for you. It goes a long way towards explaining that peculiar fascination we have with the bravery of those who died, and how the details of this war, almost a hundred years later, can touch our hearts today in a way that nothing else can.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Something Different, December 19, 2001

By 

Lloyd LeBlanc (Mill Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Missing of the Somme (Paperback)

Geoff Dyer presents in this book a moving and multi-layered outcry against the slaughter and consequences of World War I -- the "Great War". The main theme is remembrance, private and public, and the manifestations of both in the post-war years in Great Britain. The role of well-known British poets who served and died in the War is woven throughout. This book is well written by a literate and talented author; however it may be difficult to follow for those not well steeped in the history of that period, and especially the fate of British Army units in various Western Front battles. The basic subject is well covered in printed literature; what Dyer adds here is yet another dissection of the far-reaching impacts of the cataclysmic years of 1914-1918.