Conflicted feelings
As the Second World War passes beyond living memory, how should we think about the men who fought it? In this nuanced and thought-provoking book, Luke Turner answers this question via his own journey of contemplative discovery.
This starts as a voyage through the ephemera of the British cultural memory of the war, from plastic aircraft kits and family stories via war museums and abandoned airfields to the surging popularity of Al Murray and James Holland’s podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Whereas other authors have evoked a blurry nostalgia for a ‘war culture’ held together by comic strips and polystyrene glue, Turner reflects on the ambiguities involved in consuming the war second-hand. By articulating the complicated meaning of the war for his own masculinity, he opens the door to an exploration of the complexity of men’s experiences at the time.
At the centre of the book is a historical investigation based on detailed case studies, using diaries, letters, memoirs and oral histories to explore the breadth of those experiences. It shows how men managed the gap between contemporary expectations and their own desires, abilities and circumstances. It benefits not only from Turner’s impressive knowledge of source material and secondary interpretation but also from a reflective approach that avoids the anachronism risked by anyone trying to reconnect present and past. Turner’s discussion of the experiences of gay and bisexual men, in particular, reminds us both of the momentary opportunities that the war offered for people to lead diverse lives, and of the intolerance of difference and individuality that counterpointed the cohesiveness of British society during and after the war.
As the war recedes, its public memory is inevitably simplified: this book makes the case that only by becoming more varied and capacious can it remain relevant.