Reviews for Eyewitness Pacific Theater: Firsthand Accounts of the War in the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to the Atomic Bomb

The average rating for Eyewitness Pacific Theater: Firsthand Accounts of the War in the Pacific from Pearl Harbor to the Atomic Bomb based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-02-18 00:00:00 Jeffrey Childers This is easily one of the most moving and influential books I have had the privilege to read. After living through the truly horrific experience of imprisonment in Auschwitz, Charlotte Delbo has managed to turn her pain into art. It is a combination of prose, poetry, vignettes, and prose-poems. At first, the formatting and structure may strike the reader as jarring, but even this has its purpose. It is intentionally done in this way to convey the shreds of memory that exist after the rupture of trauma. By refusing the "comfort" of familiarity to her readers, the author induces an almost vicarious experience of her disorientation. The beauty of her writing often lies in its simplicity; in the way that she is able to convey a sea of emotion with even a single, understated line. Of course, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that this is a translation from the original French. Having read both the original text and this recent translation, I can confidently say that the translator is true to Delbo's words and maintains the form of the text very well. At times, this books can be difficult to read, but not for the reasons that one might think. Delbo is not explicit in detail, nor gruesome in describing the horrors of the camp. Instead, she attempts to recreate the emotions of the experiences, the trauma of the event itself through her writing. She says in her introduction that a simple litany of the tragedy will do nothing to enlighten the reader, but rather that "il faut donner à voir" (loosely: they must be made to see). Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After well deserves a place on every bookshelf, not only for what it can teach us about a tragic event of our modern past, but for its striking insight into the very nature of memory and human experience.

Review # 2 was written on 2009-01-02 00:00:00 Dhiyan Mahabir Whew. I had to stop, several times, and put this book aside and finished it much later than I thought I would. Not only is the subject powerful, but Delbo's writing takes away your breath and makes you ache. I thought about giving this book four stars just because it's so emotionally difficult to read, but I don't want anyone to be dissuaded from attempting it by a lower rating. Auschwitz and After should be on everyones "to read" list.