Lussu’s philosophy of war was born in the days he lived through and wrote about. Like so many soldiers, he was against it,...
The recovered memoir of a brave Italian soldier in World War I.
A lieutenant in the Sassari brigade of the Italian infantry, Lussu (1890–1975) waited 20 years to publish his memories of World War I in the Asiago Plateau, fighting the Austrian offensive. It is a story of trench warfare in 1916, but more importantly, it is the story of the men who fought and their derision of their commanding officers. They felt the enemy was not the Austrians but rather the men behind them giving orders that could only get them killed. The author’s memory is vivid, and the characters demand it. He writes of a general who demanded a different kind of definition of victory—not, “do you have enough supplies?” but a philosophical discussion. Gen. Leone, a pure wacko, demanded men wear body armor he had specially brought. Of course, when he sent them into battle, the armor was absolutely worthless. Another officer couldn’t understand why Lussu didn’t drink, something everyone in that army did—all day long and especially before a battle. The author writes about a war of maneuver to save lives rather than a war of position that would cost them. Regardless, the fact that they succeeded to take Monte Fior only to abandon it left them mostly in the same position throughout the conflict. These men were surely cannon fodder, and a short mutiny was the precursor to a much more serious revolt. One company abandoned their position in a cave that threatened to collapse, and their leader ordered the execution of every 10th man.
Lussu’s philosophy of war was born in the days he lived through and wrote about. Like so many soldiers, he was against it, and most readers will be persuaded to agree with him.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8478-4278-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Rizzoli Ex Libris
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2014
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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