THE MISSING OF THE SOMME 

Published in the 
early ‘90s

Dyer was able to comprehendthe ways in wartime memorywas used and abused,corrupted and constructed 

The novel is important for later generations whose task will be to reflect on the wars of the previous century.

 

“I wanted to write a book that was not about ‘the War itself but the effect of the idea of [the War] on my generation.’”Dyer is always searching for  “what is not there,” and what is not there, of course, is meaning.

                                                                               The  use of wartime memory
                                                                                                
                                                                                                                       Who can read the novel?

Dyer was born in 1958:he doesn’t have special
knowledge about war.His granfather fought in
the war.

                                       What is Dyer’s purpose?                                                                            Dyer and the Great War

                                                   What is the subject of the novel?

Dyer operated like a historian inreverse:  “the Great War urges us to write the opposite of history: the story of effects generating their cause.”Indeed the book opens by describing 
an old family album and moves on to more general reflections on the photography, memorials, and literary testaments of the war.

The subject of “The missing ofthe Somme” is: the remembrance and representation of war.

                                                                                                                                How did the author operate to write the novel?