Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War by William Manchester ISBN: 0-316-50111-5 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 12 April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.19 (37 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: I've read it again and again
Comment: Few books moved me like this one. William Manchester has always been one of my favorite biographers writing such magnificent books as The Arms of Krupp, American Caesar, and The Last Lion. But Goodbye Darkness is an intensely personal look at his own life as a soldier fighting in the brutal battle of Okinawa during World War Two. As the title suggest, this book is an attempt by a aging man to come to grips with the brutality and the deeds of his youth. More than a personal biography, Manchester weaves the whole Pacific Campaign into his story, we learn of the terror of Guadalcanal, the bravery of the Marines at Tarawa, and the courage of ordinary men who were put in extraordinary circumstances. It is an intensely personal story as we get to know a young Manchester and his Raggedy Ass Marines. We see how friendships were man, mistakes were made and lives were lost. It is a magnificent book.
Manchester comes to grips with the ferocity of his enemy, the Japanese solider. One can sense both a sense of admiration and enmity as Manchester talks about those he fought so long ago. Underlying this hate is the seed of racism as seen in the Japanese who took no prisoners to the Marines who mounted the severed heads of their enemy on their tanks. It was brutal. Both sides saw the other as inferior human beings; thus, it was killed or be killed with very few prisoners taken. Yet, the reader senses Manchester admiration of his enemy, the courage of the Japanese solider who fought with interior weapons, weakened by disease and who was often on the verge of starvation. In the end, however, the authors observes, We were better soldiers.
I have read this book three, maybe four times over the years, and I am due to read it again. It is that good.
Rating: 5
Summary: Poetic and Haunting
Comment: If one could read two accounts of the Pacific War written from the perspective of Americans this book and Sledges "With the Old Breed at Peleliu and Okinawa" would be the best that one can get. There are a lot of very good narrative history books on all aspects of the Pacific War, but the poet-gone-to-war genre is something that really the British usually do much better than the Americans. That is why when I stumbled upon Manchester's memoirs I was immediately sucked into the guts of wartime experience.
Manchester writes with passion borne from desperation and experience of long times in the firing line. He waxes from the lyrical experiences of a fireside chat on the battle-line with a student of philosophy (himself?) regalling the troops with an exposition on the nature of time. One is left with the images of hard worn veterans from small American towns, experiencing the wonder of ideas for the first time on the eve of battle. Their far off, empty stares as the philosopher marine finishes his exposition in sheer silence is something that one can almost feel. That very same night they cut up a large Banzai charge on Guam --- one can cut the atmosphere of the book with a knife.
Manchester can then go on an describe his visceral uncomfortable feelings of being close to the Japanese today. Their inability to admit to former attrocities is something that Manchester admits, planted the seed of dislike deeply inside him. Try as he might he cannot shake it and we are at least amazed with his honesty. This contrasts with the cerebral, fair-minded Manchester we all know from his biographies.
I have read more than 200 narrative histories and memoirs of the Pacific War, British, American, Japanese, Indian and Chinese, Australian, Canadian ... and this is one of the best. Like all good books, it stays with you for a long time....
Rating: 1
Summary: Self serving claptrap
Comment: This is a self serving account of WWII, starting with the tip off "Let me tell you about the first man I ever killed." Hogwash and sea stories. If you want to read an honest account of WWII in the Pacific by someone who is out to give a realistic account without building a myth around himself, read E. B. Sledge, With the Old Breed.
 |
Title: With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene B. Sledge, Paul Fussell ISBN: 0195067142 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
 |
Title: American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur 1880-1964 by William Manchester ISBN: 0440304245 Publisher: Bantam Books Pub. Date: 01 February, 1983 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
 |
Title: Utmost Savagery by Col. Joseph Alexander ISBN: 0804115591 Publisher: Ivy Books Pub. Date: 27 November, 1996 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
 |
Title: The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War by William Manchester ISBN: 0316529400 Publisher: Back Bay Books Pub. Date: 04 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: Into the Rising Sun: In Their Own Words, World War II's Pacific Veterans Reveal the Heart of Combat by Patrick K. O'Donnell ISBN: 0743214803 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 13 March, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
