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Each November: grieving the dead and our unchanged world
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| From First World War |
Fig.1 Grieving the dead and our unchanged world a century on – despair at the unending violence
We are still grieving, we grandchildren and great-children. The world notices this.
What is this loss that the British and Commonwealth countries of the former British Empire feel so tangibly and personally? I see a different commemoration in France. I wonder how the First World War is remembered in Serbia? And Russia? And the US?
Ours was a pyrrhic victory in 1919. And the job wasn’t finished. How else could there have been a second world war after the first?
Britain ceased to be the pre-eminent world power it had come to be and has been leaking influence in fits and starts ever since.
Cameron to Putin is not Churchill to Stalin, which is why this country needs Europe – better united than alone.
And how does this play out in grief and art then, since and now? The distribution of wealth began – a bit. Domestic service as a career or layer of society very quickly washed away – people didn’t want to do it while the landed gentry were feeling increasingly vulnerable and broke. When we grieve every November do we grieve for a golden age, as well as for those whose life chances were destroyed?
Listening to Metallica ‘One’ inspired by the anti-war movie ‘Johnny Get Your Gun’ transcends 90+ years of this sickening grief we feel concerning the First World War
A silent room of my own
I’m both listening to and reading ‘1913: The year before the storm’ – a fascinating account of the era with passing vignettes of people who would make, or destroy the rest of the century from Hitler to Stalin, Kafka to Tito, Cezanne to Picasso and Franz Ferdinand and Trotsky.
The year Ecstacy received its patent and the fully intact Ozone Layer was identified. Then all hell let’s loose in 1914 to sweep away the old.
The line that took me to the book concerned Proust – describing how he created a cage for himself so that he could write, with the light shut out and three layers of curtains to muffle the noise. My quest to find such peace found me on the beach behind a windbreak – the house is in turmoil as various parts of it are pulled out. The alternative is to rent office space – take to sea – though that would be a distraction.
1913: The year before the storm
I’m both listening to and reading ‘1913: The year before the storm’ – a fascinating account of the era with passing vignettes of people who would make, or destroy the rest of the century from Hitler to Stalin, Kafka to Tito, Cezanne to Picasso and Franz Ferdinand and Trotsky.
The year Ecstacy received its patent and the fully intact Ozone Layer was identified. Then all hell let’s loose in 1914 to sweep away the old.
The line that took me to the book converned Proust – describing how he created a cage for himself so thhat ge could write, with the light shut out and three layers of curtains to muffle the noise.
Related articles
- 1913: The Year Before the Storm by Florian Illies – review (guardian.co.uk)
- 1913: The Year Before the Storm by Florian Illies – review (oddonion.com)
Mind Bursts 