Not Forgotten

I enjoyed this book very much. It is a well told story of the Great War both on the front in Europe and at home. Neil Oliver's stories, both of the war and of his own family's memories make the names on all the memorials to the Great War come alive. They take you to not only to the trenches, but to a society here in Britain struggling with it's loss and socio-economic issues as well. It certainly made me go and take a good look at the one in my town that I had passed by almost every day without thinking about.
I have watched the TV documentary with Ian Hislop as well and note that some of the same stories are told. Why does Neil Oliver not get any credit for this?

Still Remembered (2/2 people found this helpful)

This is a book not so much about the Great War as about how we remember it. Neil Oliver, best known for his television work, wrote this to accompany the television series of the same name. In the written word he has a distinct advantage over the series itself in that his Scots accent is more atuned to the ear than Ian Hislop's narration of the series.

What he manages to do in the book is to bring to life a few of the estimated 36,000 memorials to the fallen which are known to dot the landscape of the British Isles. He also ties it in with the idea of remembrance. How we remember, or what we remember, by including episodes from his own childhood and adult life. In this way he attempts, successfully, to show that the monuments themselves are touchstones. That the true monuments are the sacrifices of the men, women, children and, in some instances, animals who gave their lives.

There is throughout the book an overwhelming sense of "what if". This is particularly strong in the passages dealing with oh too few named individuals. As someones who's Great Grandfather survived The Somme, albeit with a leg blown off, it is a point he makes well.

There is no point, as people have tried to do in recent years, of looking at the Great War from a modern perspective. To evoke the times and the memories, you must go back to the memorials raised at the time. Only then do you have a sense of the loss and suffering felt by those left behind.

To try to cover all the memorials and do them justice would be impossible, in my opinion, but by offering up a small sample he has ensured that all those who gave their lives are still entitled to be remembered.

the cost of WW1 (8/8 people found this helpful)

the scale of the cataclysm that WW1 visited upon the British is demonstrated by the fact that War Memorials were put up in every city, town & village BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION, in the post war gloom of universal economic hardship, disease & low morale. Neil Oliver's research into a handful of indiviual names from the stark lists illuminates the stupendous loss of life & reminds us that these were real lives. This book made me feel very uncomfortable about how much forgotten is this slaughter of a generation that I knew members of.

purely and simply a great book (8/9 people found this helpful)

So many, strands, so many facets, so many people involved from our island nation in the Great war - Neil Oliver weaves them all seamlessly into this well researched and well written book. It's linked with the Channel 4 series but there's much, much more in the book. Excellent.

Instantly forgettable and lightweight (5/11 people found this helpful)

This book could and should have been so much better. The subject matter is oneof such scope and detail that it seems a shame that this book barely scratches the surface. The book is written in such a way that a series of stories are told gradually throughout the progress of the book, unfortunately the author's telling of the stories is such that they fail to stick in your mind and you are constantly having to track back and refresh your memory.
The author is eager to tell the story of his own family history and there is nothing wrong with that, but he only gives snippets and renders the amount of space given to his personal history almost pointless as you fail to learn anything much about his ancestors, there is also far too much tittle tattle about his wife and child, almost as though he feels it necessary to give them constant name checks within the pages.
Overall the book is easy to read, it is a shame that he fails to do many of the stories justice and it would appear that he has tried to fit in as many stories as possible and this detracts from your enjoyment as we have quantity over quality, a series of, at times, short and uninformative vignettes.
This book fails to deliver, it is a truly poor companion to the excellent TV series. Lightweight and poorly written, it comes across as having been written in a wet weekend in Falkirk and rushed out half baked.
Wait for the cheaper paperback version, if it gets that far!

Oliver Neil

Reader Reviews:

Excellent read (3/3 people found this helpful)

Still Remembered (2/2 people found this helpful)

the cost of WW1 (8/8 people found this helpful)

purely and simply a great book (8/9 people found this helpful)

Instantly forgettable and lightweight (5/11 people found this helpful)

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