In World War II memories, Terkel has found a great, untold story -
with fore-shadowings of Vietnam and aftershocks of atomic warfare.
Terkel explains the title, matter-of-factly, as the Vietnam,
nuclear-war contrast; the testimony - even from those whose lives
peaked in WW II - exposes the irony of the phrase. First witness is
"Hawaiian"-Californian John Garcia: in December 1941, as a
pipefitter apprentice at Pearl Harbor, he retrieved live and dead
bodies from the water and hulls; his girlfriend was killed by
misfired American shells, he petitioned FDR to get into service,
then was asked his race (great-grandparents?) and, as "Caucasian,"
separated from "the other Hawaiians"; on Okinawa, "I'd get up each
day and start drinking. . . . They would show us movies. Japanese
women didn't cry. They accepted the ashes stoically. I knew
different. They went home and cried." In that same lead-off section
appear the Nisei, uprooted and interned; a child-witness to, and
a-participant in, the hysteria; an American-born Japanese, trapped
in Japan on a visit. One of the last sections has to do with the
Bomb. In an Indiana farm kitchen, Terkel talks with Bill Harney,
radar operator on the plane that bombed Nagasaki. In a New York
hotel lobby, he talks to Marnie Seymour who, with her husband,
worked at Oak Ridge. "Out of the eighteen couples at the motel we
lived in, most have never been able to have children. We are rather
fortunate. We have four children. Two have birth defects." (Later,
living in "very swish" New Canaan, she'd see the Hiroshima Maidens,
brought over by Norman Cousins, at the supermarket.) There are
several things to be said about Terkel, and his material. He has
sought out people with real, unpredictable, history-brushing
(sometimes history-revising) stories - but also persons whose
experiences could be called typical, who become archetypal (like
Chicago business executive Robert Ramos, "the skinny
nineteen-year-old kid who's gonna prove that he can measure up").
He has a light intermix, too, of onlookers and leaders - yielding
comments from both Pauline Kael and a retired admiral on the
vacuousness of WW II films (but contrast, as well, between Kael's
approval of The Clock and a war bride's contempt). He doesn't,
however, construct his groupings mechanically, to make obvious
points: blacks, for instance, turn up everywhere; under the rubric
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" we hear only from Marine Andrews;
pronouncements on Vietnam differ, one after another Pacific veteran
attests to gratitude for the Bomb. What is inescapable, though, is
the recognition of war as brutal, and brutalizing; the reservations
about "the Good War" utterable only in Vietnam-and-after
retrospect. (Kirkus Reviews)
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize: "The richest and most powerful single
document of the American experience in World War II" (The Boston
Globe). "The Good War" is a testament not only to the experience of
war but to the extraordinary skill of Studs Terkel as an
interviewer and oral historian. From a pipe fitter's apprentice at
Pearl Harbor to a crew member of the flight that dropped the atomic
bomb on Nagasaki, his subjects are open and unrelenting in their
analyses of themselves and their experiences, producing what People
magazine has called "a splendid epic history" of WWII. With this
volume Terkel expanded his scope to the global and the historical,
and the result is a masterpiece of oral history. "Tremendously
compelling, somehow dramatic and intimate at the same time, as if
one has stumbled on private accounts in letters locked in attic
trunks . . . In terms of plain human interest, Mr. Terkel may well
have put together the most vivid collection of World War II
sketches ever gathered between covers." -The New York Times Book
Review "I promise you will remember your war years, if you were
alive then, with extraordinary vividness as you go through Studs
Terkel's book. Or, if you are too young to remember, this is the
best place to get a sense of what people were feeling." -Chicago
Tribune "A powerful book, repeatedly moving and profoundly
disturbing." -People
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
(1)
