Thank God, this is fiction, at least in our dimension!
WELCOME TO 1962
It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world aftThank God, this is fiction, at least in our dimension!
WELCOME TO 1962
It is impossible that ours is the only world; there must be world after world unseen by us, in some region or dimension that we simply do not perceive.
This book is a frightening glimpse of how our world could been if the Axis Powers would have won the World War II.
The Nazi Germany and the Imperial Japan won and they divided the planet between them. Even the United States is now divided with the East Coast dominated by Nazis and the West Coast under Japanese control having a “neutral zone” in the middle of the country.
And the most frightening of all is that now there is a “Cold War” between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Where the Nazis have now Nuclear Technology and Hidrogen Bombs at their disposal.
Now rockets is the normal way to travel between countries in a matter of less than an hour. And Earth has become “too small” for the Nazis, where now they are using Space Rocket Technology to colonize the Moon, Mars and Venus.
Slavery is back. Racial persecution is enforced. Extermination Camps are still active and spreading around the Nazi Occupied Territories and now not only Jews are targets but also Africans, Afro-Americans, Indians… for starters.
And all because the death of one man. An important man. No one can do what you were meant to do. If certain person is no longer around, a void is created…
…and darkness can take control.
This is the testimony that a person can change the world. For good or for evil.
THE LESSER OF TWO EVILS
One cannot judge by book being best seller. We all know that. Many best sellers are terrible trash.
It’s interesting how this “experiment” of a world where the Axis Powers won the WWII, it’s clear that while living in Nazi Occupied Nations is a very horrific scenario, the book establishes that being a citizen in the Imperial Japan Occupied Countries isn’t so bad. Don’t get wrong, if you are not Japanese, you will be a second-class citizen, but you will be treated fair enough, if you don’t make troubles that is, and curiously if your skin color is white enough. Maybe you think that it’s the same, but when you read how are things in each side of the Axis Powers, having only those two options, it’s clear that you will try to live in the Japanese side.
Of course, you will need to consult the I Ching since now this book is the usual way to take important decisions in the everyday life of people in the Imperial Japanese controlled lands.
ECCLESIASTES 12:5
Amazing, the power of fiction, even cheap popular fiction, to evoke.
The only “hope” in this glum world, the only “fresh air” to “breath” is in the form of a novel, “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy”, a piece of fiction with the “absurd” idea of that the Axis Power could lose the WWII.
A very cool thing about the “winning” scenario proposed in that novel, “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy”, is that while it’s obvious that Philip K. Dick, the author, had access to all the details of how the WWII happened, and he could take the easy path and just telling what really happened (at least in our dimension) but instead, he did consentious thought to show a valid way that Allied Forces could still win the WWII but not just like it happened.
BRAVE BUT…
Truth,… -- …As terrible as death. But harder to find.
The book, The Man in the High Castle, is a brilliant work studying how our world could be a lot different if the “other side” of the conflict in WWII would win it.
However, except some brief moments, the most of the narrative lacks of excitement scenes, the relevancy of the main characters is too limited to their close surroundings, and where they haven’t any control over the global events decided by the global leaders that are re-shaping even more the current political scenario.
Also, the book lacks of a proper ending and/or an adequate finale. Maybe it isn’t necessary, but it’s odd (at least to me) to show such worldwide scenario without any appreciable intention to try to shaken the status quo.
Still, it’s a evocative reading and a mindblowing concept.
Wonderful example of the power of a graphic novel!
This is the “Complete” edition of “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” collecting both parts: “My Father BlWonderful example of the power of a graphic novel!
This is the “Complete” edition of “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale” collecting both parts: “My Father Bleeds History” and “And Here My Troubles Began”.
OF MAUS AND MEN
But these damn bugs are eating me alive!
While it took long time of finally reading Maus,...
...I knew that it was a graphic novel referring about the Jew Holocaust, but using mice (Jews) and cats (Nazis) as the characters,...
...and even while I was sure that it will be a crude telling, I didn’t expect that the only difference between “reality” and this graphic novel would be the choice of using “animals” as the characters in the story.
I mean, while I agree that Jew Holocaust isn’t a humorous matter, I supposed that it would be some “imaginative” use of places, tools, terms, etc… taking in account that the story was full of mice, cats and even pigs (with some frog or dog, here and there).
Actually, I don’t know why using “animals” as characters if everything else in the story will be keep as it happened. Even there are some odd moments of a “female mouse person” scared due the presence of regular rats.
Again, the Jew Holocaust is not a matter to take in comical way, but then, I think that the graphic novel could plainly use human beings (not necessarily too realistic, some cartoon style could work) and the graphic novel will be the same as good, the same as relevant.
You know, as in the movie Life is Beautiful where the horrors of the Holocaust are there, but still there is space for some humorous moments, that they help as tension relief without meaning any disrespect to the tragic historic event.
However, definitely the graphic format of this story makes possible for readers to be witness from the begining until the end (and even further) of the whole tragic and cruel process of what Jews endured (and not many were able to get out alive from it) during the World War II.
A titanic graphic story constructed during years of artistic effort to show, with detail and authenticity, one of the darkest episodes of human history.
LET MAUS WHO IS WITHOUT SIN...
Friends? Your friends?... If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week… then you could see what it is, friends!
The success of Maus obviously can tied to the reason of being a Jew Holocaust’s story, and almost any suc story receive a wide positive acceptance, but I think that what makes different Maus from many of similar stories is its bold honesty.
Here, you won’t have a partial view of the tragic event or spotless characters.
Obviously Nazis and Polish collaborators/sympathizers are shown doing their evil stuff, BUT also you will watch how Jews behaved with their own, robbing food from their fellow people, not doing any favor unless get paid with something (gold, food, cigarrettes, etc…), true, it was an extreme situation, but usually movies and other books don’t hesitate to show Nazi’s inhuman actions, but you have to realize that those were prisons, and life in prisons is tough and people will lose any humanity from them in the urge to survive.
Also, Art Spiegelman, the author, was bold showing how hard was to live with his father, Vladek Spielgelman (the main character in the Holocaust parts), Vladek wasn’t a saint (and after all, how many of us really is?) with not only crazy habits but even racist thinking against afro-american people. Art Spiegelman is a character in the story too, and while he is a whole better as person than his father, he doesn’t portrait himself as a saint and you can appreciate how even at some moments, he does some kinda unfair actions, since after all, he is human too. His family is as disfunctional as others, being Holocaust’s survivors didn’t turn it magically into “Norman Rockwell paintings”.
Anybody can create perfect heroes, only true writers are able to show the dark moments of his/her own family, in the middle of the storytelling of a book.
In this way, with boldness and courage, Maus exposes us with a harsh truth: Survivors from a war aren’t necessarily good people, saved by their faith or spared due the purity of their souls. No. Survivors from a war (in most cases) is just because plain luck. Even some survivors got such bad luck of dying after the war ended and by non-military personnel.
War is a crazy thing (any war) and if you try to get some logic out of it,...
I think that while the book is still quite good, many of the critics about histocial accuracy and even some crHeart-breaking tale
BOOK VS MOVIE
I think that while the book is still quite good, many of the critics about histocial accuracy and even some critics about how the book develops, in my personal opinión believes that the movie is better in the way of presenting the story, more details and even common sense and timing to a greater shocking effect, but as I said, the book is still totally effective delivering the main message of the novel.
THIS MUST NOT HAPPEN AGAIN
Bruno is a 9-years old German boy, whose father is promoted to be Commandant of Auschwitz Extermination Camp, the rest of his family are his mother, Elsa and his sister, Gretel.
In that part, Bruno shows difficulties to pronounce words like “Fuhrer” as “Fury” and “Auschwitz” as “Out-with”. I think very few believable that a 9-years old Germanboy can’t pronounce well the title of the main leader of the Nazi Party at that moment, while the word “Auschwitz” I am kinda permisisive since it’s a little more complicated word to pronounce but still he’s 9 years old, I think that if Bruno would be younger like 6 years old, could be more believable that he’s so naive in how he assimilates things that are happening around him, along with the way of pronouncing certain words.
Bruno became friend with a Jewish boy, Shmuel, that believe it or not, they share the same age and birthday date (that I think it wasn’t necessary such coincidence for the story). They share time at both sides of a fence, but Bruno is too innocent and he doesn’t understand the situation of Shmuel (it’s not like Shmuel is having many clues either). Bruno thinks that the prisoners’ uniforms are some kind of striped pyjamas (hence the book’s title).
Shmuel has his whole family there, father, brother and grandfather with him, but his mother is in a separate section.
I can’t detail more since I would spoil the shocking ending, and while many people know about it since the story became something in the popular culture, I won’t spoil it here if you haven’t read or heard about it, in the movie adaptation or this book. But I can't tell you that the shocking ending isn't for the faint of heart.
Besides historical inacurancies or odd management of the characters, I think that the central message of the book is quite powerful, shocking and sad, but definitely a proper warning that this must not happen ever again in humanity’s history.
We can’t let Holocaust to happen again in any other form.
The Book Thief is a wonderful story full of emotions.
I think that any book that touches the topic of the holWords, books and the power that they have.
The Book Thief is a wonderful story full of emotions.
I think that any book that touches the topic of the holocaust in the World War II always gets some attention but this book is not only worthy of attention due that but also for its amazing writing style and presentation.
I think that the first thing that touched me was the choice of narrator. If somebody has any right and knowledge to talk about what happened in WWII is the one that Markus Zusak selected. I think that it's no spoiler who is but since I didn't know when I started to read but soon enough I realized it, well, I don't want to be the one to stole you any amazement on the whole experience of reading the book in case that you may be reading this review before of actually reading the book.
I knew about the book, but basically only knew that it was about holocaust-related, with a girl who didn't know how to read and the thieving of books. That's it. I had the book since some months ago but I just didn't find the time to read it. The recent recommendation of a fellow reader friend of it and the realizing that the incoming premiere of the film adaptation was almost out, it made me to finally getting into it.
WOW
Since the beginning I was pretty sure that this book will become a favorite of mine. Also, it's of those books that make you to think: "Gee! Why the heck I didn't read it before! How could I exist without reading THIS book?!". Not only it has a very original and unique form of writing style but it's very interesting how the narrator gave you at some points in the story, strong revelations but in such amazing way that you don't feel spoiled or losing any interest on keeping on the read, but just the opposite, you want to read and read without stopping and I think that the revelations are approtiate to help to assimilate in a slow way the impact of certain moments in the story.
Anyway, not matter you get some info about future events in the story, you don't get the full picture, so still there is a lot space for surprises and amazement. The book has extraordinary characters were indeed Liesel Meminger is the lead character only rivalizing with the narrator... that amazing narrator! But also the rest of characters know how to reach your heart in different ways. And believe me or not, one of the first was Rosa Hubbermann. She is a fantastic character and with the help of the narrator when you get to know a key secret detail about her and her relationship to Liesel, well, it touched me. Since I think that those kind of characters are the most powerful ones in any story and in real life. Obviously, Hans Hubermann was a character that one loves really fast. Rudy... the great Rudy, that gains your sympathy with just his admiration about Jesse Owens and some of charcoal.
It's really interesting how Jesse Owens plays an indirect but important role in the story. I like that the author chose to do that, since it was true that Hitler didn't shake hands with him, but it's also true that at his return to United States, he wasn't invited to the White House either. And while the Nazis were doing unspeakable crimes to Jews, on America, the black people were still put in apart squadrons in the army and many of them even making jobs, important to the war effort, but certainly things that they weren't put to do by white soldiers.
Also, there is a part in the book used to mention the death of Russians, that I think that really worthy to mention since at the end, in WWII, got dead more Russian people than from any other nation, and taking in account that at that time, it was still the USSR, I have no doubt that those numbers weren't not only Russians per se, from actual Russia, but also from the many nations under the regime.
So, I think that much of the horror of the WWII was the open realization that the world, the whole world, was still full of many intolerance and hate for any person seeing as "different". Still we have a lot to learn. And I hope that works like the The Book Thief may help to unite a little more this whole big world where all of us are, breathing the same air and watching the same sky. Maybe I got distracted to mention the rest of characters but it's not because they are less important, not at all, simply I don't want to spoil much of the story, but I can assure that any character in the book plays a relevant role to the whole experience and the mechanics of how the story evolves. Another powerful thing in the book is how it helps to present German people in the middle of the war. Germans, not Nazis.
I supposed that many people still think that Nazis is like some synonym of Germans, but flash-news!!!... it is not. It's not, as it's not logical to think about the Italians as the Roman Empire legions. Along the book you get to know German people with all their happiness for simple things and their struggling for basic things in the middle of the WWII. And at the end, how words and books can be used for wonderful things but also for terrible causes. ...more
Maybe the first thing that most people would get shocked is that I rate with only 3 stars one of the best selling books of the 20th century (and now 2Maybe the first thing that most people would get shocked is that I rate with only 3 stars one of the best selling books of the 20th century (and now 21st century too) and even more, a book about the Holocaust.
First thing that I learned about this book is honesty.
Anne Frank teaches us all about honesty, about telling what you really think, and so I am doing the same.
For starters, I wonder how many people really, I mean REALLY read the book, because to rate with 5 stars a famous book that everybody tells you that it's a book that all people should read, and then they got in this commnunity for readers and maybe they feel the compromise to make the rest to think that you really read the book.
If not the case, hey, I don't see why anyone can be offended by this comment, and it's true, I don't see either anyone who will complain, since to me it would be only a defense mechanism behind their own guilt of really not reading the book but making the rest that they did.
I didn't think about this scenario but commenting about other thing with a reader friend, that thought stuck in my mind.
I invested so much time in that because, one has to be honest, the book is tedious since it's not really a novel, it's a collection of diary writings without a coherent line of constructing a story, even you need editors' further notes to know what happened to the people in the Secret Annex since obviously, Anne was unable to tell the final events.
So, since it's so tedious, I wouldn't be surprised that some reader tried to read it but at the end they just rated with 5 stars to denote that they are "cultured" readers that they appreciate the book as one of the most important books of the 20th century.
Between the passages, you learn a lot of things. The first thing that surprised me it's how this diary collection that it was written in the 40's, in Holland, by a teenage girl, almost anybody can relate to the comments and you don't feel them as outdated.
Sometimes if you read an "old" book, you sensed the outdated of the prose, selection of words, etc... but here I didn't feel it. This diary could be easily being written in present time and I don't think that it would change at all. I think that it was one of its strengths since I am sure that it will be as relevant for many more time.
Other thing that surprised me a lot was how much Anne Frank (and by association, the rest of the group in the Secret Annex) were informed about the events in the war, I know, they had a radio, but from stuff that I had read about WWII, there were certain elements of the information that people weren't aware.
I mean, at many moments, they denote a certainty that Jewish people were murdered in the extermination camps, of course if you call them "extermination camps", of course you know that people got killed there, but that's a term used by me, now, they called them labor camps, and so far I read, Jewish people really thought that they will receive "baths" when they were really gassed or burned to death, and it's kinda logical thing since if they were so certained about their deaths, there would be riots on the ghettos to flee in mass and they wouldn't march without protest to the gas chambers and the ovens. Even, Allied forces used espionage methods to know from Nazi prisoners what was happening to the Jewish people on the camps.
Anyway, also, there are elements like the assasination attempt to Hitler that they were aware that it was made by their own generals. I don't think that kind of stuff would be informed so easily since it was a clear fact of how divided was the opinions of the high ranking staff of the Third Reich.
I am not saying that the diary is not authentic as some dumb people commented that the Holocaust didn't happen.
The Holocaust happened.
It was real and we never forget that to avoid that it would happen again. I am just commenting that surprised me how well they were informed about key sensitive info of war events taking in account that they were a bunch of people living hidden for like 3 years in an isolated annex of a building.
I know, they got visits by the people that helped them but even so. I am not questioning its authenticity, just expressing my surprise when I read it. There were other things here and there that I was surprised by the use of terms like "diet: low fat", geez! I didn't know that in the 1940's they used terms like that in the 1980's were like the rush of "healthy food", but again, I supposed it's the effect that stuff that we think are new, they are just recycled and labeled as "new".
I am amazed that this book is banned in some schools, okay, there are comments relating to sex and sexual preferences, but so what? If a teenage girl from the 1940's can think about stuff like that while she was isolated with a war outside, don't you think that teenagers of today can think just the same?
I think that books like this one can help them to know that they are not alone, that they are not weird for thinking things like that, that was normal in the 1940s and it's normal now too.
I was amazed that the group tried to "live normal", I mean, kids making school work and so. I think that in such extraordinary circumstances, they needed to do extraordinary things like to make circles and to talk in group and hearing all about topics. I mean, they were like trapped and living together, really too close in the sense of physical space and yet, nobody cares about what Anne thinks or what she has to offer? Geez! Sure, they need to be really still and in silence, usually at day, but they should like making a "tribe", I don't know, I am babbling, but to try to live like regular families was evidently wrong for the sanity of their interrelationships.
What didn't surprised me were behaviors like trying to hide food or keeping money from the group. In times where the group work were essential to survive, the human selfishness risen as a second nature.
Resumming, I just want to explain that my rating is based on my "entertaining" experience while reading the book and the format of the book itself.
And this didn't have to do with my respect for the subject of the Holocaust and its terrible events.