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Reviews
| The Embattled Self: French Soldier's Testimony of the Great War, by Leonard V. Smith. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2007. 214 pages. $39.95, cloth.
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| Leonard V. Smith's The Embattled Self examines the conflicting views of identity and war among the testimony of French soldiers during World War I. While there have been numerous works examining the voices of the soldiers, beginning with Paul Fussell's foundational text, The Great War and Modern Memory, Smith sets himself apart by writing not on the memoirs themselves, but "about the sources of memory, and how they become so" (p. 13). Thus the memoirs themselves are not the subject, but rather how they have come to embody the reality of the war. This emphasis creates an insightful work on the creation of memory and the representation of experience with a strong theoretical basis. |
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Smith examines several facets of war narration and the construction of soldiers' identities. He begins with the concept of war as a rite of passage, describing the symbolism of going off to war and its connection to citizenship. This connection is further explored in the chapter discussing the specifically French linkage between citizenship and the Third Republic, which placed military service in the tradition of republicanism and definitively shaped the French soldier's war experience. Similarly, the French Catholicism accentuated the importance of suffering, providing yet another framework through which to view the soldier's identity and concepts of heroism. |
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This struggle for identity is further analyzed through how soldiers approached the topic of death and their personal responsibility for and connection to the carnage of the war. Smith argues that there is no coherent narrative around death; the topic itself is not adequately explained or assimilated into the experience of peacetime society, so it is not surprising that the soldiers' testimonies are quite contradictory, both in the individual and collective contexts. The need to reconcile with death is expanded to the more problematic issue of mutilation, another distinguishing feature of World War I, and how the disfigured body reincorporated into society. In death and mutilation, the traditional rhetoric of heroism and sacrifice breaks down, and what is left is a series of disjointed attempts at narrating the experience. Smith privileges this disconnection, and argues it is where the issues around identity can best be addressed. |
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In his final chapter, Smith addresses the novel as a tool for creating closure around the horror of World War I. He finds the war remained a viable topic for novels throughout the interwar period, and the failure to find this closure is apparent in the prevalence of the war novels. In fact, Smith argues, it is the Second World War that ends the cultural fascination with World War I. While looking at the meaning of the novels as opposed to the novels themselves, Smith maintains his purpose of determining how identity is structured through World War I narratives. |
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Because of the attention to identity theory, this is a work for the advanced student. Some familiarity with soldiers' testimonies of the war would be beneficial. The Embattled Self is an excellent work for examining the multi-faceted aspect of identity, and how these identities are created. Additionally, the theoretical aspects provide useful approaches, making this a valuable work for the study of trauma and representation more broadly. While it does cover some well-trodden ground in looking at the experience of soldiers in World War I, Smith has provided a very thoughtful and specific analysis of the French perspective. One of the strengths of this work is the narrow focus on France, which helps provide a depth that is often lost in comparative works. |
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At first glance, The Embattled Self looks like yet another compilation and analysis of soldiers' experiences in World War I. However, it is another book entirely. The soldiers are not the focus, but instead the complexity of their experience, and the unique paradoxical mix of experience and insight that comes from living through trauma. These men were too invested in their own perspective to see the larger picture, but sought to represent the incomprehensible nature of war, and Smith masterfully explains and defines this contradiction in all of its complexity. |
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| Pasadena, California |
Stephanie L. McKinney |
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