Goodbye to Berlin
Reading Isherwood brings you into a moment in history, and there’s something really powerful and rare about that.
War
Books about war or life during wartime.
War
I was excited to read War — not because I’m a big fan of Céline, but because it’s a small piece of lost history that didn’t actually end up being lost. Now, all they need to find is a copy of Tod Browning’s London After Midnight.
Our Philosopher
I have read many novels written from a child’s perspective, but this is one of the best. It is very challenging for an adult writer to capture the uncertainly and bewilderment of childhood, and Hofmann has done so beautifully.
The Sorrow of War & Novel Without a Name
Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War and Duong Thu Huong’s Novel Without a Name are both novels about the Vietnam War from the perspective of young men who served in the North Vietnamese Army. They are powerful testaments from a viewpoint that we do no often get in the west — that being the Americans as the invading, colonialist army in Vietnam.
The Things They Carried & In the Lake of the Woods
When I was initially planning this post, I was only going to review only The Things They Carried, but after reading In the Lake of the Woods, I think they go together thematically and both share a focus on war and the aftermath of it. And so I’ll discuss both here.
All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front is given from the perspective of the losing side, which is still rare when it comes to war literature, especially in translation and from this era.
Goodbye to All That
Graves has the unique perspective of being in the middle and a bridge between the command that used soldiers as canon fodder and didn’t fight, and those that were the fodder and lost their lives so meaninglessly.
Blood Dark
In a novel that occurs in single day, it can be ironically difficult to mark time and to create atmosphere. There are often limits to setting to consider, as well as how to convey the sense of hours passing without it seeming chaotic or creating too much stress in the reader experience. Guilloux is a master of atmosphere and space.
Hiroshima
Hiroshima follows the stories of six individuals who lived through the bomb — a clerk, a seamstress, a doctor, a minister, a surgeon, and a Catholic priest initially from Germany. There are five chapters each with six sections — one for each person.
The Book of Blam
Tišma makes death a haunting presence, coming in and out of focus, receding and approaching. It is always there and always palpable, and is never far away.