Unbroken (Laura Hillenbrand)
0May 5, 2012 by Steve
It isn’t very often that I read a book which leaves me saying “Wow!” It’s even rarer for a book to reach me on any kind of an emotional level. But Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Random House, 2010) did all of that and more. I bought this book on an impulse and came away from it stunned.
This is a true story, which is probably why it impacted me like it did. If this had been some novel, I would have spent most of it thinking, “Naw, never could’ve happened.” But it did happen. And I’m still trying to understand how things finally turned out the way that they did.
If you’re a reader who isn’t interested in looking at the face of true evil, and observing what it takes for the human spirit to triumph under the most savage, sadistic and inhumane conditions, then don’t read this book. I’m not kidding. This thing doesn’t pull any punches. But I believe it’s all the stronger for it.
Unbroken is the true life story of Louis Zamperini who was once widely expected to be the first man to break the 4 minute mile, but never got to do it. (However, he did compete in the 1936 Olympics in the 5,000 meter race, placing a respectable 8th place.) Sadly, WWII came before he could set that mile record, and the story of his life takes an incredibly dark turn.
Zamperini served in the Army Air Force as a bombardier on a B-24. The stories of his missions are remarkable enough, but then comes the tale of how his plane crashed while out searching for another B-24 that had disappeared over the Pacific. He and two other men survived the crash, and then drifted for 47 days until they were captured by the Japanese Navy near the Marshall Islands. Zamperini spent the rest of the war as a POW being beaten, tortured, enslaved, and nearly starved to death.
The tale of his survival in the Pacific ocean was intense enough, filled as it was by stories of starvation, thirst, exposure and predatory sharks. But by the end of the description of how he was treated by the Japanese, I was truly struggling to understand how anyone could have survived that. I also found myself on the edge of my seat, just waiting for the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which almost certainly saved his life. If ever I’ve seen a description of why those bombs were necessary, this book is it.
In the aftermath of the war, Zamperini struggles with PTSD. He descends into nightmares, flashbacks, alcoholism, bankruptcy and a murderous rage driven by his desire to track down and kill one particularly cruel Japanese guard. In the end, Zamperini finds salvation in religion, forgives his guards for his torment, and then goes on to spend much of his life helping wayward boys straighten out their lives. As of this writing, he is still alive. He’s 95 years old.
Throughout the book, Hillenbrand does her best to explain quite a lot of the back story behind Zamperini’s life. She looks at the high crash rates of the early bombers in WWII, she attempts to explain why the Japanese were so cruel during that war, and she spends a good amount of time examining the emotional and intellectual attributes which helped Zamperini survive his ordeal. While the book does inevitably touch on religion and how it saved Zamperini’s life, this part of the book is remarkably brief given how important that conversion must have been for the man. The book never gets preachy but it does mutely explain why religion is necessary for the happiness and even survival for much of humanity.
Unbroken is an extremely well-written, deeply researched, and remarkably thoughtful biography of a gifted man who faced the darkest impulses that humanity has to offer, and somehow ended up thriving despite it all. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. That said, much of this book is incredibly disturbing. If you’ve got weak knees, or a fondness for certain politically correct ideas, I suggest you look away.
Category Book Reviews, Reading | Tags: Book Reviews, Reading
Writing Quotes
0April 29, 2012 by Steve
Lately I’ve taken to beating my head against my novel again. Never mind the loud, inner voice that’s telling me everything I’m writing is crap. I’m doing it anyway. Because self-flagellation went out of style with the bubonic plague.
In the midst of this, I stumbled over a witty blog post by Kenna Griffith, who I don’t know, but who I’m sure is a way better writer than me. Than I? Is better than I? Can write better than … oh nuts to it. Anyway, she provides 12 Most Worth Documenting Writing Quotes, which is a title that I really want to edit. I suspect there’s a kind of performance art in there, somehow.
A couple of these quotes seem particularly appropriate. They sum up my existence nicely, of late.
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
Yeah … but is it really socially acceptable? I mean, there’s a reason why this next bit of advice is necessary:
Write drunk, edit sober.
I actually don’t drink and write because when I do the sober editing consists of me pressing the ‘delete’ key over and over and over again. Not that writing sober makes things better, on either speed or quality. Sobriety brings meaning to this advice:
The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
And suddenly I understood how poorly I’m doing with my long, slow, pitiful writing efforts. Which brings me to this quote. It sums things up rather succinctly, I think:
There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.
But, sadly, I can’t take even that advice. ‘Cuz it isn’t a typewriter, it’s a laptop, and if I opened a vein I’d short the damn thing out.
sigh
Back to the lash for me!
Category Writing | Tags: Writing
Catching Fire, the movie
0April 24, 2012 by Steve
This is for my daughter, who has adopted ill humor towards all the attention The Hunger Games is getting from her friends:
“The Hunger Games” sequel, “Catching Fire,” has offered the coveted director’s spot to Francis Lawrence.
…
“Catching Fire” is slated to begin filming in August and will hit theaters on November 22, 2013.
See, honey, there’s always something to look forward to. 
And then, after this one, there will be a third movie. Yay! 
http://news.yahoo.com/hunger-games-sequel-catching-fire-nabs-director-francis-200253393.html
Category Movies | Tags: Movies
The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
0April 21, 2012 by Steve
Yesterday I was battling a nasty case of food poisoning, with all that entails. Since I was unable to do much of anything else, I ended up finishing the last two books in The Hunger Games trilogy — in between the stomach cramps and all the other unhappiness brought on by an ill-advised meal at Carrow’s, that is.
I mention the food poisoning only because I believe it’s important to identify your state of mind when reviewing a story, especially when your state of mind is as far from normal as mine was yesterday. Certainly, I was far more grumpy than usual, which didn’t make me particularly forgiving. If you know me, you know that’s saying something. I’ll also admit that my attention span wasn’t what it could be, and that I might have missed some important points in the books. Still, I think I’ve got the idea, more or less.
Category Book Reviews, Reading | Tags: Book Reviews, Reading
Jill makes me feel inadequate
0April 17, 2012 by Steve
I’ve been following Jill Homer’s blog on and off for quite a few years now, ever since she was exploring winter bicycling in Alaska. That was a long time ago. Back then, she made me feel like a chump. I mean, there she was putting in hundreds of miles a week (if memory serves) on a crappy mountain bike in the rain and snow of an Alaskan winter, while I could barely manage 50 or 60 miles on a nice road bike in sunny California.
Somewhere along the way, Jill moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Which is to say, my neck of the woods. And, yep, she’s still making me feel completely inadequate. (I will say, though, that it’s interesting to see her posts about routes and trails around here, some of which look awfully familiar.)
Check out these three posts. In them, she describes a 3 day, 280 mile, 24,000 foot ride in the driving rain while short on food. At least she shows herself to be not quite a machine, since she claims during one post that she’ll quit if she runs into “peanut butter mud.”
Me, I would have quit the ride the minute … I would have quit the ride … I never would have tried that, ever, in a million years, at any point in my life.
I am inadequate. Completely worthless.
Well, back to the couch for me!
http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/2012/04/not-disney-california-adventure.html
http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/2012/04/part-two-hunger-games.html
http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/2012/04/part-three-serendipity.html
Category Fitness | Tags: Fitness
