Binker
13th December 2011, 03:49 PM
This is Laura Hillenbrand's second book in 10 years. Her first book was Seabiscuit, which was a huge hit in the United States in 2001 and made into a movie that I think I saw, but I remember the book better. Seabiscuit was a racehorse in the United States in the 1930s that went from an unpromising beginning to being "Horse of the Year" in 1938. Hillenbrand is a good researcher and writer and her subject made for a rousing story.
But she has outdone herself with Unbroken, which tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an incorrigible juvenile delinquent, an Olympic competitor in the mile at the Berlin Olympics, a soldier and prisoner of war during WWII, and a broken man afterwards until he was saved by Billy Graham at one of Graham's revivals in Los Angeles. He is still alive and in fact ran with the Olympic torch in the Nagano Olympics.
The focus of the book is what happened to Zamperini in WWII. He was a gunner on a B-24 aircraft and on one of their runs, the plane crashed into the ocean. 3 of the 11 men on the plane survived, including Zamperini and the pilot, a man named Phillips. They were then stranded on an insufficiently-provisioned life raft for 47 days, during which time the third man died (I didn't treat that as a spoiler because it has been widely reported and the chapter of the book where the man dies has been excerpted in at least one magazine).
They were going east, so when they were "rescued," it was by the Japanese who promptly put them in succession of prisoner of war camps, at least one of which was kept secret so that it wouldn't be subject to inspection by the Red Cross. The treatment that they received at the secret prison camp is just exactly what you would expect. In particular, one guard, called "The Bird," appears to have been a sadist who reveled in the opportunity to hurt others. Hillenbrand doesn't shy away from describing his abuses, but she also describes the guards and translators who tried to be kind to and help the prisoners.
Zamperini was finally freed at the end of the war and returned home, but he was tormented by his memories of what happened to him and consumed by the desire to find and kill The Bird. He went through a terrible spell, drinking a lot and taking all of his misery out on those around him, especially his wife. Finally, she dragged him most unwilllingly to a Billy Graham revival. There, all of his pain and hatred left him and was replaced by happiness and forgiveness. Whatever you think of Christian conversion and Billy Graham, there is no question that it gave Zamperini exactly what he needed. He spent the rest of his life working with delinquent boys and even went back to Japan to meet with the guards that tormented him to tell them that he forgave them. Only the Bird refused to meet with him.
Hillenbrand writes well and more importantly, she tells just enough without telling too much. She provides a detail or two about a situation, but doesn't overwhelm you with information. She must have winnowed through mountains of interviews and documents in order to provide you with the best few grains of information on a particular point.
There are pictures and diagrams in the book, so I wouldn't listen to it on audiobook. And I'm not sure if the on-line readers show that kind of thing. I would think they would, but I have to say that I kept referring back to the pictures to help keep track of the various people in the story, so you would want to be able to do that.
As a complete aside, Laura Hillenbrand suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is why it has taken 10 years for her to write her second book. It's too bad, both for the suffering it brings to her life and for the absence of more of her work from ours.
I highly recommend this book.
But she has outdone herself with Unbroken, which tells the story of Louis Zamperini, an incorrigible juvenile delinquent, an Olympic competitor in the mile at the Berlin Olympics, a soldier and prisoner of war during WWII, and a broken man afterwards until he was saved by Billy Graham at one of Graham's revivals in Los Angeles. He is still alive and in fact ran with the Olympic torch in the Nagano Olympics.
The focus of the book is what happened to Zamperini in WWII. He was a gunner on a B-24 aircraft and on one of their runs, the plane crashed into the ocean. 3 of the 11 men on the plane survived, including Zamperini and the pilot, a man named Phillips. They were then stranded on an insufficiently-provisioned life raft for 47 days, during which time the third man died (I didn't treat that as a spoiler because it has been widely reported and the chapter of the book where the man dies has been excerpted in at least one magazine).
They were going east, so when they were "rescued," it was by the Japanese who promptly put them in succession of prisoner of war camps, at least one of which was kept secret so that it wouldn't be subject to inspection by the Red Cross. The treatment that they received at the secret prison camp is just exactly what you would expect. In particular, one guard, called "The Bird," appears to have been a sadist who reveled in the opportunity to hurt others. Hillenbrand doesn't shy away from describing his abuses, but she also describes the guards and translators who tried to be kind to and help the prisoners.
Zamperini was finally freed at the end of the war and returned home, but he was tormented by his memories of what happened to him and consumed by the desire to find and kill The Bird. He went through a terrible spell, drinking a lot and taking all of his misery out on those around him, especially his wife. Finally, she dragged him most unwilllingly to a Billy Graham revival. There, all of his pain and hatred left him and was replaced by happiness and forgiveness. Whatever you think of Christian conversion and Billy Graham, there is no question that it gave Zamperini exactly what he needed. He spent the rest of his life working with delinquent boys and even went back to Japan to meet with the guards that tormented him to tell them that he forgave them. Only the Bird refused to meet with him.
Hillenbrand writes well and more importantly, she tells just enough without telling too much. She provides a detail or two about a situation, but doesn't overwhelm you with information. She must have winnowed through mountains of interviews and documents in order to provide you with the best few grains of information on a particular point.
There are pictures and diagrams in the book, so I wouldn't listen to it on audiobook. And I'm not sure if the on-line readers show that kind of thing. I would think they would, but I have to say that I kept referring back to the pictures to help keep track of the various people in the story, so you would want to be able to do that.
As a complete aside, Laura Hillenbrand suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is why it has taken 10 years for her to write her second book. It's too bad, both for the suffering it brings to her life and for the absence of more of her work from ours.
I highly recommend this book.