BOOK REPORT: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Title:            The Things They Carried 
Author:         Tim O'Brien
Copyright Date:  1990

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars ( good read)

Back-Cover Description
They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated Bibles, each other. And, if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb. Since its first publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of American literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul.

My Thoughts
The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories that tell of the author's time in Vietnam.  The odd thing about them is that they are fictional, but told as a direct memoir. Throughout the book, Tim O'Brien addresses the reader directly to talk about why he writes fictional stories about his experience during the war. He says that sometimes fiction is more truthful than the real thing. 

While this was a good book, The Things They Carried lacked the cohesion of the other war books I've read.  As I mentioned above, the author jumps back and forth between addressing the reader directly and addressing his memories.  Jumping back and forth between the two breaks up the flow of the book at times and seems redundant in certain occasions.  While most of the stories have a common thread that follows the natural passage of time in the war, you can tell that some of the stories were composed as separate entities, probably for different periodicals where one can't assume that the other ones have already been read. 

Like all good war stories, the reader is closely tied to the horrors, tension, boredom, solitude and camaraderie of war.  The stories revolve around the friendships formed and lost, and the soul searching which takes place everyday in a war zone.  The stories also touch on how a soldiers life is affected when returning from active combat; how you are never the same when you experience those horrors first hand. 

One of the more powerful stories for me actually takes place before Vietnam. It is about the author as a young man in a small Wisconsin town when he gets the dreaded draft letter.  He is forced to choose between possibly dying in a war that he didn't believe in and disappointing his family and community by running away across the Canadian border.  I honestly don't know what I would have done in his situation and I am glad I didn't have to make that choice. I also hope that Sims doesn't have to make it either when he gets to be draft age.

 I think I would have enjoyed it more not reading it cover to cover but by treating The Things They Carried as a magazine and spaced the readings out over a few months.  Each story is well written and deserves to be read in its own time.

BOOK REPORT: The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman

Title:                           The Forgotten 500

Author:                       Gregory A. Freeman

Original Copyright :  2007

My Rating:     4 out of 5 stars  ( fascinating )

Back-Cover Description

The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

Here is the astonishing never-before-told story of the greatest rescue mission of World War II -- When the OSS set out to recover more than five hundred airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia

During a bombing campaign over Romanian oil fields, hundreds of American airmen were shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Local Serbian farmers and peasants risked their own lives to give refuge to the soldiers while they waited for rescue, and in 1944, Operation Halyard was born. The risks were incredible. The starving Americans in Yugoslavia had to construct a landing strip large enough for C-47 cargo planes--without tools, without alerting the Germans, and without endangering the villagers.  And the cargo planes had to make it through enemy airspace and back without getting shot down themselves. 

Suppressed for more than half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time ever.  The Forgotten 500 is the gripping behind-the-scenes look at the greatest escape of World War II.

My Thoughts

Shortly after the beginning of World War II, the royal family of Yugoslavia was forced to flee the country when the Nazi's took over in 1941.  The resistance movement which rallied together to fight this invasion fractured into two parties quickly afterwards.  The Pro-Royal Serbs under the guidance of General Milhailovich (the Chetnik's), and the Pro-Communist ( Partisans) under General Tito already looked past the German occupation to the new post-war government. By the middle of the war, the two sides took to fighting each other just as much as the Germans.  

The Forgotten 500 is a fascinating view into the logistical nightmare of a daring rescue mission to bring home hundreds of airmen in Nazi occupied mountainous terrain of politically unstable Yugoslavia.  

The book is roughly divided into four main parts. The beginning section gives the personal stories of several of the airmen who chose to fly a slow, behemoth of a plane across enemy territory.  It was interesting to learn what motivated and drove them to become pilots, tail gunners or the most dangerous of them all, the ball turret gunner. These brave men along with hundreds of others were tasked with bombing a major oil field in Romania and couldn't quite make it home. 

The second part tells the stories of the airmen post-bailout in the mountains of the what is now Serbia. The Chetniks saw the American soldiers as liberators and welcomed them with open arms.  They did everything they could to protect them, often at the risk of their own lives.  This section also outlines the back-story of the OSS, the predecessors to the CIA, and the people responsible for Operation Halyard.  One of the more interesting stories in this section is about the OSS officer who was the son of Yugoslavian immigrants; he was responsible for organizing the rescue mission.  For those who may decide to read this book, I won't spoil his interesting and serendipitous journey into the OSS, but I will tell you that someone who has that many close calls and chance meetings must be living right.

The third section goes into details about not only the Chetnik/Partisan conflict, but of the politics of allied British and American forces working "together" in the area fighting the Germans.  This was by far the most intriguing section of the book. The British were technically the lead force fighting the Germans in Yugoslavia.  The Americans were helping where they could but got their direction from good man Churchill.  The problem with this was that there was a communist double agent feeding the British misinformation.  The double-agent was saying that Milhailovich was secretly aiding the Germans and the Allies needed to support General Tito to make any progress in the area.  A rescue couldn't be attempted without British consent and they did everything they could to stall and hinder the mission as they saw it as aiding the enemy.

The final section is the aftermath of the rescue.  The troops were told to keep quiet about the rescue mission just in case any future rescues needed to be performed.  However, when the war did end,  the American soldiers were directed to not openly acknowledge the support given by Mihailovich for fear of upsetting the newly communist Yugoslavia, which was supported by the Russians. Shortly thereafter,  Mihailovich was executed for war crimes.  The role Mihailovich played in the resistance movement is still a contentious issue today and the many of the same dividing lines drawn in the sand during World War II were still fighting through the war in the Balkans during the 1990's which ended with the creation of Bosnia-Herzogovinia, Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro.

The Forgotten 500 was very well written and thoroughly researched book which I would recommend to anyone who has an interest in non-fiction accounts of World-War II or military covert operations.

BOOK REPORT: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Title:                                     The Book Thief

Author:                                  Markus Zusak

Original Copyright Date:    2007

My Rating:    5 out of 5 stars  ( simply amazing )


Backcover Description

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath.

Death has never been busier, and will become busier still.

      By her brother's graveside, Liesel Meminger's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow.  It is The Grave Digger's Handbook, left there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordion-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.
      But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up and closed down.

My Thoughts

Prologue

featuring

an introduction and an explanation of format 

Why do I find it harder to write book reports for the books I love versus others?  This particular book report has been especially difficult given how much I loved The Book Thief and how much this book has impacted me.  I finished it over a week ago now and I've thought about this book everyday since.  I am still obsessed with it and I'm telling everyone I know who reads on a semi-regular basis to read it.   I've found it hard to articulate exactly what I want to say in a somewhat brief book report without overwhelming the reader or giving away too much of the plot line.

The format of this book report is a bit different as well.  I've broken it up into four main parts similar to the way Markus Zusak breaks up the book where he gives hints as to what is to come with a "featuring" line.  I just thought this was clever and decided to mimic it for this report.

Part One

The Book Report

featuring 

A rave review and a reader jealous of the author

When I finished this book, I told Maggie that even if I don't finish the twenty-five books I set out to read last fall, this project was worth the time and energy because it led me to this book. This is the best book I've read this year. Hands down.

Even though it is technically classified as Young Adult or Children's Fiction, this is not "light" reading; it is a glimpse of the ugliness of War seen through the eyes of a 10 year old orphan girl.

 And it is beautifully done.

Actually, that is one of the major themes of the book.  That humans, can have moments of beauty, tenderness, and joy, even when their world is collapsing, sometimes literally, around them. 

How does Markus Zusak achieve this?  Besides being simply a great, well written story,  he uses two fairly standard literary constructs in interesting ways.

First is his use of Death as the narrator.  I can hear you mumbling as you read this, "How can Death make something as tragic the holocaust readable? That would seem to make it MORE depressing".  Well, Death in this book isn't the tall, stoic, black-robed, scythe-wielding figure we all know and love from the movies.  He cares for the stories of the people he helps cross from the land of the living to where ever they go.  He is an emotional player in all of the events which occur around characters, even before Germany invades Poland.   Death is not an omnipotent third person narrator either. This is Liesel's story, with Death's poignant commentary added in.

Second is Zusak's use of blatant foreshadowing.  Death tells us up front when something significant will happen, including a few details about the event, then backs up a bit and continues telling the story.  Sometimes the forshadowed event will happen within the near future, sometimes within a few months, and sometimes, the event is years away. These events are not always tragic, or sad, or life-changing, but they are important. But when they are heartbreaking, knowing about it before hand doesn't lessen or trivialize the tragedy of the moment, it just takes away a *bit* of the surprise,... sometimes... Blending this interesting use of foreshadowing somehow adds weight to small happy moments in Liesel's life, allowing you to enjoy them more completely with her.

On a side note, after I finished The Book Thief, I did a bit of research to see what else Markus Zusak has written.  I found out that he is now 36 years old as of this writing.  I am 35.  He's written 8 or 9 books in his young career. Needless to say, I am jealous of his creative success...

and this leads me to: 

Part Two

The Inspiration

featuring

A potential early "New Years Resolution"

Many of you know that I've played around with the idea of trying to writing a short story ever since I posted a link about National Novel Writing Month back in November.  The goal of NNWM is to get people to write down 50,000 words (~175 pages) of a story; it doesn't have to be perfect or even good, the organizers just want to inspire people to put pen to paper and get started. Neil Gaiman's notes about The Graveyard Book inspired me further when he said he's had the idea for the book ever since his son was two years old and wandering around a graveyard behind an old church.

Markus Zusak builds into The Book Thief simply written and illustrated  stories created by the characters themselves and shown completely within the narrative Death is giving us; a short story within a book if you will.  These stories, these characters actually, are the metaphorical straw that broke the novelist camel's back and I am now determined to actually write something of my own...

I don't have any subject, characters, or special theme in mind as of yet; I just know I want to write something. I also don't have any expectations that what I write will be any good. I am now constantly looking out for inspiration in everything I  do.   I figure I would start with simple story at first, which I can then, over time, expand into a legitimate short story that I wouldn't mind if some else actually reads. I think I will make this my next "New Years Resolution".  I haven't worked out the logistics of it or anything, so stay tuned.

The Ending

featuring

wrapping up the book report

I don't know why I seem to have a connection to books about war.  I'm not talking about non-fiction accounts of the political causes thereof or military strategies employed during such-and-such battle, but the personal and social ramifications of one of the most devastating wars ever.   Night, by Elie Wiesel, and One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn still impact me even though I read them waaaaay back in high school.  And I know, The Book Thief will live long in my memory as well.

BOOK REPORT: A Long Long Way By Sebastian Barry

Title:                                 A Long, Long Way

Author:                             Sebastian Barry

Original Copyright Date:  2005

My Rating:                    4 out of 5 stars  (Beautifully Written )

Would Recommend to a friend?:   Yes

Back Cover Description:

"...Irish author and playwright Sebastian Barry has created a powerful new novel about divided loyalties and the realities of war. In 1914, Willie Dunne, barely eighteen years old, leaves behind Dublin, his family and the girl he plans to marry in order to enlist in the Allied forces and face the Germans on the Western Front.  Once there he encounters violence on a scale he could not have imagined and sustains his spirit with only the words on the pages from home and then camaraderie of the mud-covered Irish boys who fight and die by his side.  Dimly aware of the political tensions that have grown in Ireland in his absence, Willie returns on leave to find a world split and ravaged by forces closer to home...."

My Thoughts:

This was a beautifully written book; the language was absolutely stunning.  It walked the fine line between prose and poetry to perfection.  The subject matter however can be difficult at times.  It is war after all.  

The basic story is a good one.   A young lad goes off to war to make his father proud of him, finds a girl before he ships off to war, and deals with the horrors in the trenches of World War I. But the twist is the Irish revolt which starts up while he is away.  He has to deal with fighting in Belgium and at home, where he is the "enemy" in both places.  

Trench warfare, mustard gas, death, injury, mud, cold, and  rain seem to be surround every scene and never leaves the characters alone, even when they aren't on the front lines or in Belgium for that matter.  But throughout all that, the main character Willie, despite peeing his pants before most any battle, copes with this adversity with a grace and dignity that only men of yore seem to have. You know, the ones that get interviewed on TV shows reminiscing about The War, talking about the small details that got them through the atrocities that surrounded them:  A flower here, a song by a comrade there, a lady back home waiting for him, etc...  Willie is not always brave, but he never runs.  Each time he had to kill a German, it weighed heavily on his soul, despite the fact that he was being attacked and almost died himself.

Sebastian Barry does a great job moving the story forward without bogging it down in the details.  He provides more than enough detail to understand the motivations and driving forces for all the main characters without turning it into a thousand page Vanity Fair style epic which it probably could have been.

But enough of the story, lets get back to the prose, that is the real story here.  It is hard to give examples in this format because the author uses sweeping narrative instead of poignant little quotable nuggets to progress the themes throughout the book.  I remember whole scenes which were simply awe inspiring.  

For example.  In one scene, after a particularly brutal gas attack and hand to hand combat which left 800 of the 1200 front line soldiers dead; Willie's group is brought back to the reserver lines to recuperate.   The soldiers set up a small stage in a barn and hold a somewhat impromptu concert.  As I am reading it, I come to a paragraph which I think shows some of the beauty of the moment.  In this scene, the first performer gets up nervously and starts to sing: 

"The listeners were stilled because in the song there was a melody that brought from their own memories coloured hint and living sparks of the past.  The past was a valued thing bit it was also dangerous to them in the toxic wastelands of the war.  It needed a box of safety round it, and this small room for concerts was a good as they had found" 

However, this poignant scene goes on for several pages and I soon gave up trying write it down in my reading notebook and just wrote a page number down instead.  I felt the shelter and comfort that the soldiers felt.  I was wrapped up into the beauty "Ave Maria" as Willie sings it even though I personally only know the first few bars. I was there. Very few books have ever done that to me consistently throughout a book. 

This isn't to say that there aren't great quotes in the book. 

"The pith of sorrow was in the upshot a little seed of death" 

Thanks Tom for the recommendation and letting me borrow the book!