The problem of Vera
Article about Vera Brittain, or, really, about Testament of Youth (coming shortly to a cinema near you).
I have, my dearios will doubtless recall, expatiated heretofore on my own problems with Vera, as in, the more one learns about her the less one tends to like her (okay, I am Team Winifred all the way).
I find it really problematic the way in which ToY is positioned as THE iconic story of women in WWI.
However, I also find it problematic that a book which VB did, after all, credit where it's due, intend to be about the futility and waste of war, in line with her pacifist views, seems to be being turned into a period evocation of love and loss.
I also find it extremely odd that a piece that is about ToY and VB's wartime experience is titled as being about her 'remarkable life' when it doesn't say anything much about any other part of it. And again, credit where due, there are things worthy of note, like building up her literary career and her involvement in that general post-war feminism of assorted causes and rethinking marriage and her own marriage and children and her WWII pacifism, etc.
She did have a life beyond the events recounted in ToY, but that might, possibly, slightly complicate the picture of her as grieving heroine. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2209064.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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