As a twenty year old soldier Vonnegut was one of the few people to survive the allied bombing of Dresden in World War II. For more than twenty years he wrestled with how to tell the story of the senseless and overwhelming destruction of a city and vritually all its inhabitants. What he decides upon is a fictional account of the absurd life of Billy Pilgrim, a soldier-nebish who travels in time and space and conjoins with science fiction characters. The book’s success is the novelty in which it portrays the absurdity of war by being an absurdist book. Or, it fails as just another late 60s acid trip of a tale. July 2008.
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Old Men at Midnight, by Chaim Potok *** (of 4)
Enigmatic. I went back and forth between thinking the three short stories were too simple, too typical, not completely unique recountings of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and Pogroms and Russian Revolution and being totally captivated.
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Nuremberg: The Reckoning, by William F. Buckley * (of 4)
It was surprisingly bad. I learned a fair amount about the Nuremberg trials after WWII, but was shocked by how trivial the plot was and how uninspiring the writing was. I expected more.
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Mila 18 by Leon Uris **** (of 4)
One of my absolute favorite books about the Warsaw ghetto uprising. A real page turner with wonderful characterizations.
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Birds without Wings by Louis DeBerniere
I tried. I read 100 pages but could get no further. An excessively detailed description of the disintegration of a town of Turks (Muslims) and Greeks (Christians) who get along and then are split apart by World War I or II, I can’t recall. Read Corelli’s Mandolin instead, by the same author, because it is one of the best books I’ve ever read. May 2007.