"Tracing the Somme",
British National Writer
Jeff Dyer blockbuster works,
There are a number of people related to the war on display
Images, images, poems, texts.
The author analyzes them, deconstructs them,
Try to find it from:
The war is narrated and presented with clues.
Jeff Dyer is one of the great critics of our time. What he criticizes is not only art, but also a certain essence of life. He is a truly sincere writer.
- The New Yorker
Jeff Dyer is a contemporary British writer admired by Haruki Murakami and Alain DeBotton, who was considered by the Daily Telegraph to be "probably the best British writer today". His writing has been written in literature, photography, film, music and other artistic fields, winning the Maugham Literary Prize, the E.M Foster Award, and his works have been translated into 24 languages. Jeff Dyer is indeed one of the most special writers in contemporary literature, he never sticks to the identity label of writer, but always extends the tip of the pen to different fields, using cross-border writing to explore the boundary between fiction and non-fiction.
Previously, Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House had published eight works by Jeff Dale, each of which was unique and extraordinary: "The Encyclopedia of the Human Condition" is a critical note on a comprehensive view of human culture, "White Sand: Experiences from the Outside World" is a travel essay that wanders between reality and fiction, "Lazy Yoga" tells about Dale's own "lazy philosophy", "In Search of Mallory" is a black detective novel that pays tribute to Raymond Chandler, "However, Beautiful" is a jazz criticism book admired by Haruki Murakami, "Lazy Yoga" tells the story of Dale's own "lazy philosophy", "In Search of Mallory" is a black detective novel that pays tribute to Raymond Chandler, "However, Beautiful" is a jazz criticism book admired by Haruki Murakami, "Under a Fury" is about D.H. Lawrence's literary wandering, "This Moment" is a language castle that shuttles between black and white images, "Stalker" is a literary imagination of Tarkovsky... It can be said that each of his books will jump out of the reading scope framed by any other book, and expand our reading horizons infinitely.
As a writer who cannot be accurately classified or content with any traditional mode of writing, Jeff Dyer completes a literary practice of historical criticism in this work, first published in 1994. It's unlike any other book about the Great War.
The title of "Tracing the Somme" is taken from the text of the Monument to the Battle of the Somme, "Dedicated to the Soldiers Who Disappeared into the Somme". John Berger once said that the century we live in is a century of disappearance. In war, it is not only the person itself that disappears, but also the photos and words that record the existence of people, and the carriers that record the disappearance disappear together with the people. As for the reason for choosing the Somme as the narrative object, Jeff Dyer gives the answer at the beginning:
In the book, Jeff Dyer recalls that his maternal grandfather joined the army in 1914 and returned to his hometown in 1919 to continue his life, writing that his maternal grandfather had worked as a coachman in the somme province, and it was through a photograph that Jeff Dyer saw what his grandfather looked like at that time, and seemed to embark on a journey of memory to visit the old battlefield.
This work takes war as the background, blends the memory of it with various works of art such as literature and images, and reproduces the long-standing memory of war through words and image symbols. He maintains his personal literary style in a writing distance that is sometimes wandering and sometimes in person, wandering and staring among ruins, trenches, and cemeteries, trying to contemplate the vague echoes of the Great War a century later.
The words commemorating the past were considered by him to be some kind of prophecy of the future, a kind of peace that always awaited. "The future may not be better than the past, but it will certainly be lighter." The so-called burden is the weight of the past. ”
We can describe this unique work in terms of Jeff Dyer's own assessment: "There are a whole bunch of books about World War I, but my book is not a traditional history of World War I, but the little things I notice about World War I." So I'm confident that in this field of repeated writing, my book will be a very meaningful one. Its value lies in the fact that I'm not trying to repeat what others have already written, but rather writing my insights. ”
"Tracing the Somme"
By Jeff Dyer
Translated by Kang Suxiang zhou yan
Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House
Text/Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City Reporter: Wu Bo
Photo/ Guangzhou Daily, Xinhuacheng reporter: Wu Bo
Video/Guangzhou Daily Xinhuacheng Reporter: Wu Bo
Correspondent: Grace
Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor: Dai Yujing