Reviews for Hiroshima

The average rating for Hiroshima based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-05-10 00:00:00 Rey Hoffman This book will: 1) Make you cry. A lot. You will cry on your cigarette break at work so that when you go back to your desk, your coworker will see your ragged eyes and think you just got dumped over the phone or found out your cat died. No, you were just reading about something roughly one googolplex worse, but you won't even bother trying to explain because your coworker couldn't give two shits about world history, and hadn't even heard about the 2011 mass murder in Oslo until you explained it to her a few weeks ago. Blind, me-centric America, folks. Scenes from this book will return when you are stuck in traffic, and you will cry some more. Do not operate a motor vehicle under the influence of this book. 2) Humble you. Calling my problems 'problems' is a little more difficult after reading this book, which is a high achievement in any artistic endeavor. Witnessing the sober-minded, empathetic will of the survivors, and the nation itself, after suffering one of the most blind, unfathomably enormous single blows dealt in all of military history really manages to put the term 'grace' into perspective. 3) Anger you. Arguably the most stomach-dropping scene in this two-part journalistic piece is not one told from the ground where Hersey largely concentrates, but years later on a television set in America. The scene featured a spot-lit survivor of the atomic bomb, a minister, a man who put tireless efforts toward assisting his fellow survivors through worldwide fundraising despite the impediment of living as a hibakusha, a sufferer of the for generations felt, infinitely complex and boundless in physical manifestations, lifelong, crippling beast that is radiation sickness, a man who championed the notion that hatred of America and anger toward the attack(ers) is a knee-jerk reaction and that it is the notion of Total War rather than that of American militarism in general or atomic warfare specifically which should be the target of emotional examination and legal action, and which should be fought against by redirecting all the power of concentrated anger rippling through Japanese society after the bombs were dropped toward the goals of peace, acceptance, and precautionary measures taken for the future of the world, a man who stood in front of the United States Senate and prayed to them for their welfare, congratulated them for their role as the leaders of Planet Earth, and thanked them for bringing peace, stability, and democracy to his nation. Here this man sat, thinking he was on a local television station promoting his charity designed to raise money for female a-bomb victims suffering from physically deforming keloid burn scars on their faces, as this is what he was told. He was lied to, to the extent that a pre-show rehearsal was conducted without his knowledge in preparation for this major television event. Little did he know, he was actually on a popular television show (similar to, say, Oprah or Real Time) in front of millions of American viewers, stunned to find that as cameras stared at his face--a face which heroically attempted but quite understandably failed to mask his sheer horrified astonishment--in front of a live studio audience he was introduced to and practically forced to shake hands and have a nice little chat with the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, a tears-feigning man who was late and drunk during the taping because he was angry when he found out he was not receiving a big paycheck for his appearance on the show, so he just got lit and showed up all tousled and disoriented. Talk about media exploitation. Man, it has been a long time since I read something which disgusted me so much, and that is saying a lot. Oh, I'm getting flushed with anger just typing about it. A lot of pathetic parading of ugly humanity happens here. Prepare yourself. 4) Scar the visual landscape that is your mind. The imagery in this thing, as told through the recollections of 6 survivors, illustrates with emotional restraint in a dry, respectfully factual narrative account, just what an atomic bomb does to a populace. Having grown up in Oklahoma City, I have seen the mind-boggling destruction which results from a large, targeted bomb attack, and distinctly recall being in math class 10 miles away from ground zero, yet feeling myself shifted in my chair at the moment of explosion. I remember wandering into the halls and, within twenty minutes, hearing the radio and television accounts, and witnessing students and faculty alike dropping to the ground in hysterics upon finding out that the city block or even the very building where their husband, mother, father, older brother, cousin, or best friend worked had been annihilated in a breath, those close to them incapable of knowing where they were or if they were. I remember my father pulling my brother and I out of school, and taking us to witness the destruction, so massive in scope, so emotionally trying, so brain-stretching and perspective-building in a way which a 13 year old girl had never even thought she would be forced to face, or had even considered in her silly, pre-adolescent mind. Reading Hersey's piece, I remembered that time, the surreal nature and bottomless melancholy of it all, and tried to imagine it multiplied by so many times it is a number I am incapable of even estimating. Hersey illustrates: kimonos permanently scarring flesh with ornamental patterns, practically faceless soldiers marching with oozing eyes before dropping to their deaths, a pan of a city of moans, of pleas for assistance which are drowned out by roaring fires which consume a landscape predominantly composed of rubble, a blazing trash heap of screams, forcing people to make non-stop me or them decisions, shadows burned into concrete, burial tombs uprooted, a sole doctor left to make decisions about who he can save, and who he absolutely cannot save with his limited resources, working nonstop for days and days with no food or water or sleep or even a single break. There was no FEMA dropping in to assist these people. There was a small handful of uninjured doctors and nurses dealing with a miles-stretching feed-line of wounded souls, many doomed to death before they even burrowed their way out of the wreckage. Sickening. 5) Terrify you. Though I always try my best to keep my ear to the ground concerning current politics, particularly the seemingly endless stream of wars conducted in the name of future peace, this book perked my ears up even more to the subject of nuclear warfare. It's so easy to hear that a nation has or could soon have nuclear capabilities and feel only the faintest, most abstract fear at the notion. It can additionally be such a distant knowledge that what was presumed to be one of the most human rights embracing nations in the world, this, my country of origin, is the only nation in the world throughout all of history to have made the decision to unleash such massive rage and suffering against fellow human beings in pursuit of dominance and stability. This supposedly great nation conducted this and one other mission, permanently damaging the genetic makeup of thousands upon thousands of people, and it terrifies me about what's to come. This book terrified me.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-06-20 00:00:00 Charles Hughes "My God, what have we done?" Robert Lewis, the pilot Hiroshima after the bombing On August 6 1945 a quiet hysteria buzzed through Hiroshima. The Americans had been firebombing Japan for weeks, and it was one of only two key cities they had not yet hit. "A rumour was going around that the Americans were saving something special for the city." The citizens heard the bombing alarm at 7am, which wasn't unusual, or indicating a severe attack. However the "All clear" sounded at 8am and people relaxed, started to read their newspapers and cooked breakfast. Then at 8.15am "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima. The bomb kills nearly 100,000 people and injures 100,000 more, from the 250 000 that were living in Hiroshima. Atomic bomb mushroom cloud.Hiroshima (left) and Nagasaki (right) In Hiroshima Hersey traces the lives of six survivors'two doctors, two women, and two religious men'from the moment the bomb drops until a few months later. In 1985 he added a postscript that forms the book's fifth chapter. In this chapter, Hersey reexamines these six individuals' lives in the forty years since the bomb. Starting with the "noiseless flash" I was surprised to learn, that the people in the city didn't hear an explosion and saw nothing more than a flash of bright light. The typical atomic mushroom and the noise, could only be experienced from the outside. Over 90% of the population of central Hiroshima perished, almost all the families of evacuated six to 11-year-olds died. Back in the city, most of the orphan children died within months of starvation In the days after the bombing, nobody knows what caused such destruction. Theories are developed, but people are left with ignorance and confusion for an entire week, until the news spreads that it was an atomic bomb and they started to remove the dead bodies from the streets. At first everyone thought that just their building had been hit and were irritated to see that the entire city was destroyed and on fire. The skin of the people in the inner circle basically evaporated, many were severely burned, causing the people to believe, that the Americans had covered them with toxic gas or gasoline, that they had set on fire. Between life and death Part of John Hersey's goal was to show that there was no unified political or national response by the people of Hiroshima, but that they came together as a community. But despite the community spirit, they suffered alone as victims. People had severe injuries but did't complain or cry out; they suffered silently, which Hersey suggests is a uniquely Japanese characteristic; that it's important to the individual not to disturb the larger group and call attention to their own needs or pain. Thousands of people die all around, but no one expresses anger or calls for retribution. As Mr. Tanimoto ran unharmed through the city he apologized to the masses of injured people he passes, for not suffering more himself. Thirteen-year-old girls, died with noble visions that they were sacrificed for their country, and were not concerned for themselves or bitter over their fate. This stoicism becomes a major source of pride for them'they could be strong and supportive of their country and receive whatever hardship they were given with powerful silence. ". . . the silence in the grove by the river, where hundreds of gruesomely wounded suffered together, was one of the most dreadful and awesome phenomena of his whole existence." Distinctive scaring The water in Hiroshima is a cause of death and disease. When Mrs. Nakamura and her children drank from the river, they vomited the rest of the day because it has been polluted, other died from drinking it. Mr. Tanimoto spend all his energy transporting injured people across the river, but many of them drown in the rising tide. Floods from a terrible storm wash away hospitals, houses, and bridges that had survived the bombing. The bomb turns day into night, conjures up rain and winds, and destroys beings from the inside as well as from the outside. When the Japanese learn how the bomb was created'by releasing the power inside an atom'they call it the "genshi bakudan", or original child bomb, emphasizing that when men made this bomb they were dealing with forces far beyond their own power. The narrative conveys the unsettling sense that the creation and use of the atom bomb crosses an important line between the natural and unnatural world. Severe burnings, acute radiation syndrome and children born with malformations Weeks after the explosion, after Japan capitulates and Hiroshima begins to rebuild, a new terror strikes: radiation sickness, which can be separated into three stages. The first stage is a drop in the number of blood cells, causing an anemia, extreme hair loss and the death of bone marrow. The second stage is gastrointestinal, causing extreme nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In the third stage then, the victims experience dizziness, headaches and loose consciousness. This neurological stage is invariably deadly, even though every one of the stages can cause death. It can occur within minutes or hours - people were just dropping dead or fell asleep out of nothing. Beyond that men became sterile and women experienced miscarriages. Even today people still die from leukemia, babies are born with malformations and other disabilities, caused by the radiation. Removing keloids from a child Dr. Sasaki spends a lot of his time trying to remove the thick, ugly scars called keloids that have grown over burns, suffered by the victims, without realizing, that much of their work has done more harm than good. The keloids also play an important role in the the lives of the young, scarred women who are taken to the U.S. to get plastic surgery. When they return to Japan they became objects of "public curiosity" as well as "envy and spite." Employers wouldn't hire people with such scars, and people didn't want their children to marry people who suffered from symptoms of radiation sickness. The keloids mark people as survivors of the attack, and are a glaring physical symbol of both the damage inflicted by the bomb and the naivety of those who tried to heal Japan's wounds after the war. Every character we meet inevitably has to deal with the death of close family members and friends, as well as being surrounded by death on a massive scale. Mrs. Nakamura's neighbor is there one minute, and gone the next. The severely burned people that Mr. Tanimoto helps to the shore one night are drowned by the next morning. But even though Hersey does not give the reader many direct views of death, there is a constant, oppressive, and almost suffocating feeling that death is all around. John Hersey Hiroshima was first published by Hersey in "The New Yorker" and hailed as one of the greatest pieces of journalism ever written. It had a massive impact, revealing the full horror and effects of the bombing, which had been kept secret by the US government before. People all over the world began to understand what really happened not just to the city but to the people. It was a radical piece of journalism that gave a voice to those who only a year before had been mortal enemies. John Hersey combined all his experience as a war correspondent with his skill as a novelist to demonstrate the enduring power of storytelling, while revealing pictures that have been hidden away. This is why we need journalists.