People with a History/CLGH Book Review:
Christopher Capozzola:
Review of Peters, For You, Lili Marlene
Christopher Capozzola, Columbia University.
Review of Peters, Robert. For You, Lili Marlene: A Memoir of World War II. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. 107pp.
CLGH Newsletter 11: 2-3 (1997)
Memoirs have a bad reputation these days. Although they still top the bestseller lists,
the tide in the book world has turned and publishers' advances have shrunk. In the
academy, scholars have grown more critical, and now examine the social construction of
memory in the written text rather than simply mining memoirs for historical evidence.
Despite these trends, however, Robert Peters' brief recollection of his World War 11
service demonstrates the continuing value of memoirs as evidence for gay and lesbian
history. All too often, histories of gay and lesbian people during wartime have examined
just two groups: the openly gay and the bureaucrats and physicians who encountered them.
Well recorded-by Allan B6rub6, among many others-are the social networks gays and lesbians
constructed and the debates among military policy makers. Lost are the silences that
surrounded the experiences of many who would later identify themselves as gay; lost as
well are the actions and experiences of those who would never so identify themselves.
The most striking feature of Peters' memoir is its careful record of ambiguity,
ambivalence, and confusion. Peters describes his memoir in part as "the story of my
struggle for self-knowledge" [xiii] and that knowledge is consistently fragmentary.
There is no triumphant moment of coming out, no blissful consummation of romance, no
menacing interrogations by officers. Instead we find brief moments of awareness, acquired
through rumor, suggestion, hints, and hearsay. Furthermore, the meaning of these moments
always remains cloudy. A fellow soldier dismissed from the army is fondly remembered,
while a fantasy about another soldier brought denial: "I was not a homosexual!"
[94] In fact, Peters passed up most of the opportunities for intimacy, and with it access
to the social networks of gay men that other historians have described. Peters moved
through his army years without ever acknowledging his sexuality or really even grappling
with it. The moments of awareness add up to no clear "self-knowledge" (though
how such a person could go to his junior prom with a boy in a dress and not know something was up remains a mystery).
This book claims to be a memoir not of sexuality, but of World War 11, and here Peters
is somewhat less successful. The daily life of an army bureaucrat in a modern war, whose
life is marked more by paper pushing than the terrors of combat, is well-depicted. But
when Peters attempts to locate himself in the context of the war's major milestones, he
stumbles. All the landmarks-Pearl Harbor, D-Day, surrender-are woven into the narrative,
but usually awkwardly and with little more than superficial reflection.
The stories Peters tells-like the episodes in so many people's lives-are frequently
left unfinished. While this is part and parcel of Peters' attempt to tell an ambiguous
story, he sometimes does a disservice to his readers. In a brief epilogue, we learn that
Peters faces some restlessness upon his return to Wisconsin, and that he marries, but he
gives us no hints what kind of influence the events of his wartime years had on his later
life, or more specifically his sexuality.
For historians, ultimately, Peters' memoir reminds us of the need to dig deeper in our
search for sources, and the need for active encouragement of memoirs and oral histories of
older gay and lesbian people. Robert Peters was never investigated, psychoanalyzed, or
locked in the brig; his sexuality has left no mark on the written record save his
recollections fifty years after the fact. Memoirs are fallible texts, as much the product
of the time in which they are written as the time they record. But they remain invaluable
sources as we attempt to describe the silence-and the moments of awareness-that Peters so
eloquently evokes.
Source.
© The Committee for Lesbian and Gay History [CLGH] is an affiliated organization of the American Historical Association devoted to
promoting the study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans* history, and the interaction of
scholars working in the field.
Twice a year CLGH publishes a Newsletter which contains extensive reviews of recent books in LGBT studies. This document contains a
review from the CLGH Newsletter. Primary citations should be to
the Newsletter [and to this site if you wish].
This text is part of People
with a History. People with a History is a www site
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© Paul Halsall, November 1998
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