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Product Review Summary: Once There Was...a great war correspondent It is no wonder that most of the war correspondents, in Europe, were jealous and resentful of John Steinbecks' abilities as a writer. Even with all the censorship the correspondents had to deal with, Steinbeck wove truly interesting and compelling stories while revealing little or nothing that would affect the security of our armed forces. He could, and often did, find a story where other correspondents saw nothing.
In my opinion, he is one of the great writers of our time.
I hole heartedly recommend this book to anyone interested that tumultuous time of our past.
Product Review Summary: Start with Steinbeck's introduction to the 1958 edition! This book was published originally in 1958, collecting Steinbeck's WWII reports from 1943. He wrote an introduction, which is among my favorite Steinbeck texts (and I am a critical admirer of the man, he was a first class conventional writer, just below the level of creative genius).
Steinbeck actually suggest we ignore these reports. He gives a brillant reflection on war reporting: censors plus voluntary efforts to support the war effort conspired to produce a castrated kind of texts. All American soldiers were heros. No American general officer was a blunderer or a bad leader. No American war campaign was a flop, and if they appeared to be such, it was for a greater and as yet not understood good.
In other words: stay away, go straight away for the 'truth' as e.g. in Mailer's The Naked and the Dead.
Actually, not even Herodotus' report on the battle of Salamis was printable, it contained too many place names.
And Steinbeck is totally right. His texts are corpses. Not remotely in the same bracket as e.g. his 'Russian Journal'.
I wonder how his introduction passed censorship. Definitely bad marketing on his part.
Product Review Summary: ONCE STEINBECK WROTE ABOUT A WAR
I have a couple Bantam (S4748) .75 cent paperbacks of this book and can remember first reading the book during study hall hours back in 1960. I was headed for the military after graduation so this book caught my reading interest. This book and one other I read back then, HAWAII by Michener, have never been out of my library.
I enjoyed this book, having read it several times down through the years, but still find it a little atypical of John Steinbeck. Though he wrote some other non-fictional works, this one written when a newspaper journalist is a bit different. However, during WWII many writers either headed to Hollywood to write in the war effort or went directly into the field with the military.
If a reader is interested in bomber crews in England or action reports from North Africa and Italy in 1943, this book will certainly hold your interest. His style is very literate while down to earth writing directly to the reader. As other reviewers have noted, this is very much a written view of the human side of WWII.
Though I no longer have anything else from Steinbeck, this book will always remain in my home library as one of my favorites.
Semper Fi.
Product Review Summary: Humanity behind the horror Only Steinbeck can share the humanity behind the horror of war so eloquently, bringing you into the lives so profoundly affected by one of the darkest events in history! A chilling and essential historical chronicle!
Product Review Summary: The Nuances of War No author has a better eye and ear for details than John Steinbeck, and no author can record those details with more simple flowing eloquence. Such is the case with the columns that were composed while Mr. Steinbeck was a war correspondent in the European Theatre of operations during World War Two. The columns are not blow-by-blow accounts of great battles. They aren't closely focused on the physical and emotional plight of the soldier, as were the columns of Ernie Pyle. Instead, they capture the auras and subtleties of both big and little events. "What it's like" is the best description of these slices of war life, nobody puts you there better, nobody captures the mood of a place more vividly. What it's like to be one of thousands of soldiers stretch across the deck or house in the bowels of a troop carrier, destination unknown? What's it like to sit through an air raid during the blitz? Or, a few columns take a lighter approach. In one, he salutes the incredible durability and dedication of Bob Hope and his USO shows. Another details the American soldier's skill in growing vegetable gardens. Another muses about the popularity of the German song "Lillie Marlene" among both Nazi and Allied troops. And some columns delve into deeper territory, such as his theory as to why so few men who have been in battle talk about it. Steinbeck did not spend a great deal of time as a war correspondent. The columns were cabled back to the states between June and December, 1943. But each one is a little jewel of journalism. What else would you expect from America's finest writer?
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