Book Description
During the most terrible years of World War II, when inhumanity and political insanity held most of the world in their grip and the Nazi domination of Europe seemed irrevocable and unchallenged, a miraculous event took place in a small Protestant town in southern France called Le Chambon. There, quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy organized to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death.
Customer Reviews:
A Flawed Tale of a Flawed Man.......2006-06-05
It is said that, during World War Two, the village of Le Chambon in southern France was the safest place in Europe. It was this small village where Andre Trocme, a Protestant pastor, charged his church and his entire village with the task of protecting refugees, and primarily the Jewish refugees who were fleeing Nazi oppression. The story of this man and, to a lesser extent this village, is told in Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, written by Philip Hallie, a philosopher and ethicist whose study of the horrors of the Second World War had driven him to near despair.
Across all these studies, the pattern of the strong crushing the weak kept repeating itself and repeating itself, so that when I was not bitterly angry, I was bored at the repetition of the patterns of persecution. When I was not desiring to be cruel with the cruel, I was like a monster--like, perhaps, many others around me--who could look upon torture and death without a shudder, and who therefore looked upon life without a belief in its preciousness. My study of evil incarnate had become a prison whose bars were my bitterness towards the violent, and whose walls were my horrified indifference to slow murder. Between the bars and the walls I revolved like a madman. Reading about the damned I was damned myself, as damned as the murderers, and as damned as their victims. Somehow over the years I had dug myself into Hell, and I had forgotten redemption, had forgotten the possibility of escape.
But in his own search for redemption, Hallie found a story that finally broke through the walls of bitterness and anger. He found the story of Le Chambon and of Andre Trocme. When he found out about this town and this man, he knew he had to write about it, not as an example of goodness or moral nobility; not for an abstract end. Rather, he was going to use "the words of ethics to help me understand my deeply felt ethical praise for the deeds of the people of Le Chambon."
And so Hallie shares the story he discovered. And it is an amazing story, the subject of which is a small village of men and women, the vast majority of whom were of Huguenot stock. Andre Trocme, their pastor and leader, was clearly a strange and unorthodox man. He seems to have been driven primarily by his love for Jesus and his respect for the teachings of Jesus, especially as they related to peace. Trocme was a pacifist whose standards of morality were strict. While he might carry a forged identity card, he would refuse to give a false name for himself. He was morally opposed to the war and to all violent forms of resistance. Yet at the same time he was a man of violent temper who often quarrelled loudly and angrily with his wife. And yet he was a man who was more than willing to lay down his life for those who were in danger.
Like many biographies of Christians that are written by unbelievers, it is difficult to know just what to believe about the man. Naturally, an author who is not filled with the Holy Spirit cannot fully understand one who is. I know little of Trocme other than what Hallie tells about him, yet if Hallie is to be believed, Trocme rarely preached about anything other than pacifism. He loved Jesus, but rarely seemed to discuss many of the great truths of the Christian faith. Is this the truth or is this merely Hallie's understanding of the truth? Did Trocme understand the gospel or was he merely a "good man?" Were his actions an expression of the Spirit's work in his life? It is difficult to know and this book offers few definitive answers.
What we do know is that Trocme was, in many ways, a tortured individual. Sadly, the death of his eldest son, the one whom he expected to carry on his work, left Trocme deeply suspicious of God so that he lived the last thirty years of his life after the war with a terrible skepticism. "[N]ever again would he believe that God protects precious life. Never again could he pray to a Protector-God. From now on, God and Jesus were to him powerless, suffering, limited. God was still the Father, but He was as powerless as Trocme the father was. God could only join us in our grief, not save us from it. He never recovered from the loss of his son and, tragically, never did his wife who, it seems, never did turn to Christ as her Savior. At this time she "turned her back on all religion, and on her husband as pastor, so that their marriage for a while was very painful, and later her criticisms of religion went back to their old severity."
Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed is a book that is at the same time inspiring and tragic. The hero of the story is courageous, but deeply flawed. Motivated by his desire to emulate Christ, he accomplished much and saved hundreds or even thousands of lives, all the while holding up the strict standards of morality he felt Christ required of him. This book is a study of character and a study of morality and ethics within the context of great tribulation. While it is not a Christian book and is not written by a Christian author, it does show what God can do through flawed, imperfect people. Sadly, the author seems to have missed the power of God displayed in it. He concludes by saying, "For me, that awareness [of the preciousness of human life] is my awareness of God. I live with the same sentence in my mind that many of the victims of the concentration camps uttered as they walked to their deaths: Shema Israel, Adonoi Elohenu, Adonoi Echod (Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One). For me, the word Israel refers to all of us anarchic-hearted human beings, and the word God means the object of our undivided attention to the lucid mystery of being alive for others and for ourselves." Surely Hallie's hero Andre Trocme would disagree.
More powerful than evil.......2005-08-16
Philip Hallie, a Jewish philosopher, had slipped in to a state of depression as a result of his research of human cruelty, especially regarding the Holocaust. He felt as though he was a prisoner in that he wished harm on evil doers and had himself become untouched by suffering. He was doing research when he noticed something unusual, he was weeping. The reason? He had come across a short article about a village in France, which had resisted Hitler during the French Occupation (1940-1944). The village was the pacifistic Le Chambon.
The book at hand is the result of Hallie's research (conducted in mid 1970's) into the events surrounding this village. He visited Le Chambon and interviewed several people. The main character of the resistance was André Trocmé (deceased in 1971), a Protestant pastor, who with help of many-including his wife, Magda-provided a safe haven for Jews (especially Jewish children). The book essentially covers the years 1934-1944, with many anecdotes and observations. The bottom line for Hallie is that `ethics' can only make a difference if action is taken. The people of Le Chambon simply helped the Jews because `it was the right thing to do.'
This book is an easy read yet one that will make the reader think. There is an implicit religious basis for the peoples' ethics but a strength of the book is that there are no saints. Especially prevalent is André Trocmé's humanity; he struggles immensely with death, especially of his mother and one of his sons. If you are looking for a morality based on deep and explicit theology you will not find it here. But everyone should take the following from this book: if your ethical stance is to lessen the evil in this world, then helping those who are in harm's way is as powerful, if not more so, than any show of violence.
inspiring story, but fragmented writing.......2004-12-06
The true story told in this book is amazing, inspiring, and miraculous. More people should know about it!! Pastor Trocme was the leader of the resistance, and much of the book is about him and his family. He was Pastor in a little Protestant town in France, and he and his townspeople saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish children.
However, I think the book could have been better written. I hesitate to recommend the book to others because I think they would have a hard time getting through it. The story is fragmented. It is not really told chronologically. Each chapter tells a different part/aspect of the overall story. By the time you finish reading the book, the different parts of the puzzle have come together...but its telling is not smooth.
To give the author some credit, he did have a challenging job to write this book so long after the fact. He had to piece together many pieces...through research, reading old diaries and letters, interviewing the handful of still-living people involved in the story, etc. But I still think it could have been "put together" in a better way.
Perhaps someone should write a shorter, less-detailed narrative about this town - that way it might have a wider reading audience. Again, it is an incredible and inspiring story that needs to be told!
A poor look at ethical wealth.......2002-10-08
I was asked to contrast this book to Christopher Browning's _Ordinary Men_ for a class in Comparative Religious Ethics. While this proved to be an intresting exercise, Philip Hallie's unpolished tale of Le Chambon, a stop on France's "Underground Railroad" for WWII refugees, suffers in the comparison.
Hallie makes tentative steps towards a biography of Andre Trocme (the town's pastor), a specific and narrow history of a French town in WWII, a case study in ethics, and a testimony of praise for people he grew to admire in his research. None of these directions arrive at any satisfying destination, leaving the narrative feeling disorganized and lacking the import the story might have held.
In spite of the ways Hallie's approach disappointed me, I would still recommend this book to those people who enjoy reading simple modern morality tales told in terms of "good vs. evil", or those who want some rather saccharine optimism about human nature in their histories of WWII.
Moving, challenging, insightful.......2000-06-26
Hallie is a brilliant writer and researcher who tells an amazing story of courage and faith. In it he demonstrates how "decent" people who stay inactive out of cowardice and indifference--when around them human beings are humiliated and destroyed--are the most dangerous people in the world. I didn't need his closing thoughts on ethics, and I would like to have learned more about what the villagers themselves did to protect the refugees. But the parts the author did well were so astonishing, it still gets five stars. It left me asking myself, "What exploited people groups can I help and how?"
Customer Reviews:
God's Bomber?.......2007-08-22
While the descriptions of his exploits in WWII were OK, he reminds me of the character that Telly Savalas played in the "Dirty Dozen". He judges everyone by his high moral standards and sticks his nose up to anyone who doesn't measure up. Of course, he did push the toggle switch that dropped about a quarter million pounds of bombs on women and children. He said that bothered him a bit but, what the heck, it's war right? I think he should rename his book "Bombing for Jesus". Not the kind of guy you would want to hang around with.
An honest and touching memoir.......2004-12-27
Mr. Stevens writes with refreshing honesty. He claims his book is not about heroics but the bravery and courage of his own and the other men in the 8th Air Force touch the reader in a way books written to impress or excite cannot. He shows us real ordinary young men at war in a way only those who have been there could know. A must read for students of history and WWII.
I Felt I Was There!.......2004-09-03
Charles "Norm" Stevens is a gifted writer. His descriptions give you the sense that you are there experiencing the life of one bombardier in 1944. The scent of shaving cream, the aromas in the plane, the suspense waiting for the plan of the day to be revealed, the views of the land below, peaceful, and chaotic, all are masterfully described by Lt. Stevens. The most routine actions are colorfully written with anticipation leading to the final mission and the return home. This memoir is a "good read" and one to be recommended.
A fascinating closeup look at a World War II bombardier.......2004-03-25
A beautifully written, step by step account of Steven's experiences as part of a bomb group stationed in England during World War II. Not only does he let you feel the tensions that derive from takeoffs to bomb runs to returns to base of each mission, but the content is almost lyrical in its descriptions.
I recommend it highly.
Book Description
- This concise and practical book shows where code vulnerabilities lie-without delving into the specifics of each system architecture, programming or scripting language, or application-and how best to fix them
- Based on real-world situations taken from the author's experiences of tracking coding mistakes at major financial institutions
- Covers SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting, data manipulation in order to bypass authorization, and other attacks that work because of missing pieces of code
- Shows developers how to change their mindset from Web site construction to Web site destruction in order to find dangerous code
Download Description
This concise and practical book shows where code vulnerabilities lie-without delving into the specifics of each system architecture, programming or scripting language, or application-and how best to fix them
* Based on real-world situations taken from the author's experiences of tracking coding mistakes at major financial institutions
* Covers SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting, data manipulation in order to bypass authorization, and other attacks that work because of missing pieces of code
* Shows developers how to change their mindset from Web site construction to Web site destruction in order to find dangerous code
Customer Reviews:
a longer discussion of Trojans would have been nice.......2005-09-14
Huseby walks through many instances of flawed web code. Client side and server side. All of these have been covered before in other forums and books, but he offers a clear exposition of the dangers.
Take SQL injection. If you do not have your web server filter the user's input in a web page submitted by her browser, and you blithely pass her string to your SQL engine, you are asking for grief. You're begging for a cracker to stuff a SQL command script to sabotage or exacavate your database. Thus too for shell command injection, where your server might inadvertantly execute that as a shell command. Remember to filter user input!
Cross site scripting and Trojans are also explained. Unfortunately, while the Trojan discussion is understandable, it is far too short.
There is no discussion of antiphishing methods. Though in the Trojan chapter, an example fake email would qualify as phishing. Perhaps the author saw no technical solution for phishing. And this book is about technical solutions.
A great tool. .......2004-12-01
Aside from the publication errors ( 2 chapter 2's and part of chapter 1 at the end of chapter 2 - arg). The books is full of great examples and useful information for developer's and IT security auditors. If nothing else it helps so provide simple examples of possible exploits. (And given the publication errors, my copy is a colletor's item...) Cheers!!!
Highly recommended.......2004-08-07
Security is a serious issue and education of the developer about writing secure code is extremely important. There are a lot of books out there that write either about how to configure your servers or about the various security technologies (cryptography, WSE etc) - this is not unimportant but it is incomplete because it ignores weaknesses introduced through coding practices.
The author manages a tight and very readable book that is addressed at the software developer. It can be read in about a day or afternoon (if you happen to be stranded at an airport lounge). I will be suggesting it to be one of our standard literature titles on the development floor.
Focused info for developers more than security pros.......2004-03-17
This book is similar in many respects to Web Hacking: Attacks and Defense (ISBN 0201761769). While that book was aimed at security professionals who needed to understand the exposures and vulnerabilities in web systems that were commonly exploited by the bad guys and gals, this book is aimed more at developers.
Like for former book, this one systematically covers exposures and vulnerabilities, and provides remedies at the code level. What sets this book apart is every component of a modern web site, from web server to backend database is covered, problem areas from a developer's perspective are highlighted, and solutions for resolving the problem areas given. I like this book because developers, from casual hobbyists to professionals, will easily grasp the information. More importantly, the material is not insultingly simple to experienced developers, nor is it over the head of less experienced ones.
Another reason I like this book is in systematically uncovering exposures the QA team can also use this book as a sourcebook for developing a baseline set of test cases that will catch security-related problems during acceptance, functional qualification, or regression test cycles.
In my opinion not only should web developers (including DBAs) and QA professionals read this book, but it should also be adopted by development organizations and projects as a part of coding standards.
Amazon.com
Emmy E. Werner survived World War II on the ground, as a child living in Germany, with a family split over both sides of the conflict. That war set more than a few gruesome records, but perhaps the most tragic was that, for the first time in modern history, more civilians than soldiers were maimed or killed in the fighting. Thirteen million were children, and another 20 million were left orphaned by the war. As one of the survivors, Werner carries a unique qualification for crafting this moving and well-researched book, a sweeping, reverently assembled collection of children's eyewitness accounts of that traumatic and uncertain time.
Pulling together contrasting experiences from over 200 different children and teens (drawing from diaries, letters, journals, and a handful of adult interviews), Through the Eyes of the Innocents paints an impressively rich and varied picture of the war. Children on every side of the conflict recount images and incidents ranging from the benign to the horrific, whether it was German youngsters in the Ardennes decorating Christmas trees with radar foil or a 12-year-old writing to MacArthur, begging him to let her "get down in the trenches and mow these Germans down 5 by 5." But Werner manages to temper the horror with hope, devoting much attention to postwar recovery and rebuilding (especially the efforts of CARE and UNICEF), and pleading that we remember the words of the "wide-eyed and defenseless" as we confront the violence of today. --Paul Hughes
Book Description
A riveting portrayal of the horrors World War II inflicted upon boys and girls around the world, drawn from children's journals, diaries, and letters
World War II was the first modern war in which more civilians than soldiers were killed; by August 1945, more than thirty-nine million civilians had died as a direct result of the war, about thirteen million of them were children. In Through the Eyes of Innocents, Emmy Werner tells the story of these children in their own words. Drawing on diaries, letters, and journals kept by children and teenagers caught up in the war, Werner shows the universality of the war experience, regardless of location: the children of Great Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Russia, and the United States are all represented through some 150 eye-witness accounts. Werner focuses on the shared experiences of these children, how they endured, and how they were changed forever by events beyond their control.
Customer Reviews:
Engrossing, balanced collection of children's experiences.......2004-05-06
As a German child who experienced the horrors of World War II personally, Dr. Emmy Werner weaves together a lively collection of letters, narratives and interviews that makes for fascinating reading. Werner's book is far reaching in its scope, from British children sent into the country to avoid bombing to Japanese-American childen interred in U.S. camps to German refugee children. She leaves few stones unturned. Through it all, she remains amazingly unbiased and open as she connects these experiences into a cohesive work.
Despite the horrors recounted, such as firebombing, starvation and poverty, there is an equal showing of hope, compassion and bravery. There are heartfelt glimmers of humor amid the painful recollections. It is a testament to Werner's own stamina to survive and become a giving adult herself that this book is as genuinely informative and captivatingly written as it is.
One compelling collection Werner uncovers is a special correspondence between then General Dwight D. Eisenhower and a young girl from Dayton, Ohio. It opens a wonderful window into how an energetic yet hopeful young woman and and a beleaguered commander formed a unique friendship over thousands of miles.
I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially to high school history teachers whose students are studying World War II.
They will find the personal stories compelling reading.
World War II Through the Eyes of Children.......1999-12-15
Dr. Emmy Werner's lastest book, in her ongoing research into the resilience of children who face adversity, probes the experiences and impressions of children who lived through the terrors of World War II. With even-handedness she quotes Japanese children who survived the world's first atomic bomb, English children who saw and felt London crumble from their air raid shelters in their gardens, German youngsters who watched Dresden burn. Besides showing the devastating effects of wartime violence, however, she also tells tales of English POWs who treat burned German children, or German POWs who are kind to the children of the families where they are housed. Her overriding message is that individuals must--and do--care for others, regardless of national politics, right or wrong. This work, while full of sadness, is a heartwarming affirmation of hope.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful Book!.......2007-03-09
(I am b.rothermel's daughter). My aunt gave me one of her multiple copies of Our Hearts Were Young and Gay for my fifteenth birthday, and I LOVE it! Emily and Cornelia are perfect mirrors of my best friend and me, who are both dying to travel abroad together. What makes this book so great is that it all really happened, which encourages my friend and me even more. If they did it, we can, right? (Of course, the whole trip cost them a little over eighty dollars...) This book is one of those I'll read again and again, because it puts me in a lighthearted state of mind like an Elizabeth Enright or Eleanor Estes book does; it has that old-fashioned charm. P.S.--Thanks, Karen Bramblet--I was so happy to learn there's a movie! I'll be sure to watch it!
You will LOVE/LOVE/LOVE this book!.......2007-01-31
I found this book in the tiny public library of my small Texas town in 1946 when I was ten years old. Years later I hunted down a used copy for my four daughters to read and still more years later I'm hunting copies for my 8 granddaughters.
One of those granddaughters has her 14th birthday in a couple of weeks, and I came to Amazon today expecting to have to buy a used copy, not realizing that it has been reissued. Hallelujah!
So few books of this genre are truly interesting and truly funny. Most of them consist of anecdotes that leave you thinking, "I guess you had to be there". Not this one. Those two girls were disaster-magnets. I think only David Niven's "The Moon is a Balloon" has made me laugh out loud as many times, and it's a much longer book.
The writing is seamless and authentically witty, the line drawings are almost Thurberesque in the way they stay in your mind's eye forever after.
This is a true American classic. Don't miss it.
Heartwarming and hilarious.......2007-01-26
Having first watched the black-and-white movie based on this book, I was eager to meet Cornelia and Emily again inside its pages, and was not disappointed. The story of two young girls taking their first trip abroad, Our Hearts Were Young and Gay is the true story of their adventures, ranging from heartwarming to hilarious. Some memorable incidents: Emily throwing a deckchair over the side of the ship to "save" a man who fell overboard and inadvertantly hitting him with it instead; the safety pockets which both girls' mothers insisted they wear beneath their clothes (to keep money and stuff in) and which mystifies their dance partners by swinging beneath their skirts and hitting them; Cornelia's bout with measles, and how she and Emily get off the ship without being quarantined; spending the night in a brothel which they have mistaken for a genteel ladies' hotel . . . and many, many more. Be prepared to laugh and laugh as you read this great book.
Average customer rating:
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Pope Innocent III and His World
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Religious | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Catholicism | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Popes | Catholicism | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Roman Catholicism | Catholicism | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 184014646X |
Book Description
The whole world was about to change, and no one would be affected more deeply than Dorothea and Iris Crosby, sisters—identical twins—born to the wealth and social standing of New York City's Park Avenue. It was 1914, and while life in Manhattan seemed to center on grand balls and exotic parties, in Europe everything was coming undone. World War I was about to explode, and when it did it would involve many thousands of young Americans already heading overseas.
Aroused by the perils of the rest of the world, Dorothea and Iris decided to join the American Red Cross in France. Sent immediately to the battlefront, they became immersed in a daily struggle to help save lives, and when that wasn't possible, to at least make death less terrifying for the young French soldiers in their care. Beautiful and mysterious, the twin sisters were dubbed
les anges, the angels, by the wounded men.
They charmed the Americans as well, among them a fighter pilot with whom Iris fell in love—the first threat to the singular bond that held the sisters together. As the losses mounted, however, the link between the sisters grew stronger. Finally, when the battles ended, they awoke to the reality that the world they had known was forever gone, and home seemed a distant and alien place.
A powerful story of spiritual awakening, of innocence lost, and of the emotional toll of war,
The Innocents is sure to appeal to readers of such outstanding historical novels as
Regeneration by Pat Barker,
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, and Rebecca West's classic
The Return of the Soldier.
Customer Reviews:
Engrossing memoir of Nazi Germany from a foreign woman's experience.......2007-05-29
Sins of the Innocent is the wartime memoir of a French woman who married a German man in interwar Europe and then had to endure the Nazi years in Germany. In Spain when the Spanish civil war breaks out, boyfriend Abel is nearly executed as a spy. He manages to survive, they marry, go on vacations, and try to live a normal life as life in Germany is consumed by Nazism. Abel is an artist and an ardent anti-Nazi. Conscripted when war breaks out, he spends the war in various drawing-related jobs, and manages to stay alive in jobs that are sometimes near the front lines. Meanwhile Mireille endures the war in various locales, and in the telling we learn frankly about life in wartime Germany from the eyes of a foreigner in its midst. Because Mireille is a strong, sympathetic, and acutely observant person in frequently unsafe situations, we get a clear-sighted picture of life in Nazi Germany from a woman's experience and a woman's perspective. It's a book well worth the reading. Smoothly translated and engrossing in its open-eyed view of life in a bizarre world, it's a hard book to put down.
An emotionally powerful and moving true story of being witness to a grim hour for all humanity.......2006-12-10
98-year-old author Mireille Marokvia presents her second memoir, Sins of the Innocent, the story of her adult life when she followed the man she loved to Stuttgart in 1939... just as Germany became tightly ensconced under fascist control. At times dark, at times embodying the spirit of hope, Sins of the Innocent chronicles the years of World War II and beyond with a candid, soul-searching eye. An emotionally powerful and moving true story of being witness to a grim hour for all humanity. Also highly recommended is Marokvia's previous memoir, "Immortelles: Memoir of a Will-o'-the-Wisp".
Book Description
The novel's nihilistic heroine, Ami, is a teenage prostitute and rape victim whose only satifaction is derived from sex with her retarded brother. When Ami finds a lover who's also rejected the world, she finda a reason to live.
Customer Reviews:
Twisted sensuality.......2007-02-21
It was rather bizaar how i found myself strangely aroused throughout this book...Yeah yeah i know she made Love to her brother and biological father but it had a sense of nessesity for them to connect. If you read this book and was disguished i request that you pick it back up with an open mind...If you are looking at this review and deciding whether or not you want to buy this book...stand forewarned...you much keep your mind open and your own judgements closed...
An author boldly chronicles a lifestyle that she read about somewhere........2007-01-16
The back cover tells you all you need to know. "Enter a world of nihilism and self-destruction...rape, incest and trauma...violence, drugs and prostitution. Enter an innocent world." Man, that cover copy sure makes rape, incest and trauma sound like some pretty exciting stuff!
That's right, this is a book about Decadent Youth. Ostensibly written to give a voice to the alienation and nihilism of modern young people, it also appeals to bored housewives, primetime-news anchors, and well-to-do high school girls who are like totally bored with having to study for college entrance exams. Wouldn't it be cool if they could like totally disregard their parents? It also may appeal to lonely teenage boys, by depicting a seductive, promiscuous babe, then playing on their fear of women by making her cold and materialistic, while also tapping into their heroic fantasies by making her just as lonely and isolated (hence rescuable) as they are.
The first sign that something is seriously wrong comes in the form of Sakurai's uncertain, yet lecturing tone in all of her descriptions of youth culture. It's like she watched a news broadcast about raves and drugs, and now she's trying to teach the reader something about drug and music jargon. So, during a visit to a rave, her protagonist states pedantically that "the music [the DJ] spun was too incantatory to be called techno" (76), which means absolutely nothing. And then she carefully explains the difference between ecstasy and cocaine, in case you don't know. Sounds like someone has been reading some alternative newspapers.
Oh, and by the way, just like in that news broadcast, the DJ turns out to be a rapist. In the worst tradition of de Sade, he woodenly proclaims on page 85, "I'll crush all your false pride and defense mechanisms so that by the end, your humiliation will make you feel like a piece of trash." But give him some credit, at least he made an effort to come up with that statement.
The other thing is that, for such a worldly babe, the protagonist romanticizes her loss of virginity a lot. In fact, her first time was with her true love, and even though it was his first time as well, he was able to easily send her into multiple ecstasies. This does not happen in reality.
In her quest to convey just how much her protagonist hates everything, Sakurai plagiarizes Yukio Mishima. Page 24: "My little white diary. In it I kept track of the life-worthiness of the grown-ups in Takuya's life." Hey, that's just the "list of crimes" from The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, except without all the truly odd and queasy stuff! The idea of the mentally retarded brother probably came from A Quiet Life by Kenzaburo Oe, with a lot of sex added in.
The protagonist is eventually redeemed in a very traditional way, by having a baby. This provides a respite from all the cheap nihilism, and it's even a little bit believable that she might feel that way. Unfortunately, it usually doesn't turn out that well in real life. Nor do most seventeen-year-old girls have that epiphany so easily.
But what makes this book so unintentionally hilarious is Sakurai's choice of metaphors. She sounds like nothing so much as a first- or second-year college student whose mind has been totally blown by a wide variety of fascinating technical subjects. In fact, I am inclined to conjecture that she really was a straight-A student at a top-level school, where her worst sin was an occasional drink at a party with her similarly hip and fashionable girlfriends. She had to take a couple of freshman electives, and even though she got one of the smart guys to do her homework for her, the effect on her prose was immeasurable. Drumroll, please:
Page 27: "The imaginary number i is a non-existent constant used only as a matter of convenience. Thus the value of my existence, too, is infinitely artificial and scant." (Complex analysis!)
Page 27: "The world exists to analyze chance and its contradictions and errors by induction." (Computer science!)
Page 37: "His heart and mind tended to take paths like some diagram of chaos theory that went beyond the realm of ordinary thought." (Physics!)
Page 40: "Through anonymous sex, men were slowly depleting my store of some valuable element. What remained with me was...the sadness of a space probe drifting forever in the vacuum beyond." (Okay, to be fair, this one sounds more like it was lifted from a Murakami novel. It's still awful, though!)
Page 41: "I sensed the possibility that some common circuit could form between us that opened to a special password." (Electrical engineering!)
Page 48: "A neon of phosphorescent animalcules swimming on the night sea's calm surface." (Biology!)
Page 53: "I'd finally met the man who could solve the differential equations that were Takuya and me." (Calculus!)
Page 56: "I didn't care if he was an old man on his deathbed; he had to be made to click on all the constants that I needed to solve the differential equation of my existence." (Oh man. I swear, I didn't make this up.)
Page 57: "In my imagination, my hatred was making his cancer viruses propagate at an exponential rate."
Page 88: "If you can't keep up with my biorhythm, you don't have the right."
Dear Japanese college students, please listen to me! Freshman year really isn't that bad. It'll be over eventually, I promise. If you want some cool nihilistic books to help you get through it, I recommend Yukio Mishima. And for the girls, try The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai. It also has a strong female protagonist, but unlike Innocent World, it's not completely terrible.
Interesting, if a bit simple.......2005-09-20
The entire time I was reading this book I couldn't help but think "what is the point of all of this?" The book is written in a sort of "journalistic" type of way from the main character's point of view. There is definately plenty of shock value: rape, insest, drug use, prostitution, and so on; but that's really not the point. Upon finishing it you realize it's more about coming to terms with yourself in society and finding a sense of closure and peace, in a sort of extreme, twisted way. In that sense the book succeeds.
The writing is pretty simple and you should have no problem finishing this in one sitting, though you may want to read through it one more time and analyze it further.
Crystal Mind.......2005-08-18
Ami seems to have a good life. The daughter of successful parents, she is given everything that she wants. Yet there appears to be something missing because when the opportunity arises that she can make lots of extra money from being an underage prostitute she jumps at it. However, the men she sleeps with offer her little solace so she oftentimes separates her mind from her body while the men, normally middle-aged businessmen have their way with her. The only person with whom she can receive true sexual satisfaction from is her mentally handicapped older brother.
Ami and her brother continue to have sex with each other under their parents' roof until they are discovered. Takuya, her older brother is forced to move to his aunt's home in Yokohama, but Ami only increases the number of clients she sleeps with in order to make enough money to visit her older brother. Ami considers Takuya to be the only person with whom she can truly find satisfaction; not only in a sexual way, but on a spiritual level as well. However, when she becomes pregnant with her brother's baby, Ami is left to decide on her own whether or not to keep the child.
I purchased this book a few months ago because Vertical Books offers a signed edition. Although it is definitely not a great piece of writing, Innocent World is proof that publishers are beginning and willing to translate books that do not belong to the Mishima, Tanizaki, and Kawabata mold or even the Murakami H., Yoshimoto, Murakami R. mold. With the translation of this work and Kanehara Hitomi's Snakes and Earrings hopefully the American audience will be exposed to a wider range of Japanese literature than what is currently available.
As for the book itself...I consider it a decent, fast read. Besides the main character, Ami, the books other characters come off being pretty flat. However, considering Ami tends to know very little about the individuals around her, including her own parents, maybe the lack of character detail stems from the isolated nature of the main character than lack of depth writing by the author.
Depressing, overwrought.......2005-04-10
In her first work to be translated into English, Ami Sakurai's Innocent World is a quick peek into every middle class parent's nightmare: incest, casual prostitution, rape, and the utter nihilism of today's bourgeois youth. Part document of the numbed state of teenagers in Tokyo, part manga-like read, this novella is the book for those with an interest in the underbelly of Shibuya youth culture, in particular of how young women are able to divorce their bodies from their minds in pursuit of money - and what they will do for it.
The protagonist of Innocent World, Ami, is Every Young Girl in Tokyo: educated parents who send her to a private school, an absent father, a young woman lacking nothing who is utterly devoid of feeling. The only possible twist is that her older brother is retarded. She discovers that she was the product of fertility treatments that involved a sperm donor not her father (her mother did not want another child with developmental problems, for which she blamed her salaryman husband). This leads Ami in pursuit of Number 307: the man who donated his seed. On the way she prostitutes herself - perhaps out of boredom, perhaps out of resentment - and becomes physically and emotionally involved with her half-brother.
A depressing if insightful read.
Average customer rating:
- Dr. Anderson is one of The Greatest Generation!
- A powerful book
- Much Better Than A War Story
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Innocent Killer
Robert L. Anderson
Manufacturer: PublishAmerica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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General | Military | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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General | World | History | Subjects | Books
General | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Life & Institutions | Military | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 159286712X |
Customer Reviews:
Dr. Anderson is one of The Greatest Generation!.......2007-06-13
Dr. Anderson's vulnerable revelation of his growing up years both at home; in Swedish Kingsburg and on the battle field allowed those of us with WW II veteran father's to understand the "Greatest Generation" which made it clear that many returning Veterans refused to or couldn't talk about their war experiences and knowing that made my father's unwillingness to talk about the war and the pain he suffered more understandable...so when Dr. Anderson confronted his own hypocrisy (as a psychologist) in "Not Talking" about his pain and did so in his book...allowed me to empathize and understand my Dad's crippling emotional pain...the book was magnetizing and a very worthy read...thanks for the therapy!!! Michael Gish
A powerful book.......2003-10-19
Bob Anderson has crafted a different war story. Each chapter provides a bayonet thrust punch accentuated by reflections of his idyllic childhood on a California ranch. "Innocent Killer" shines a penetrating light on the insanity of war and dispassionately describes both the incredible journey and harsh evolution of his survival
Much Better Than A War Story.......2003-10-04
Most war stories are written in a boring historical manner or as an action story. This is wonderful emotional story by a writer in touch with his real feelings. This is a true story with much honesty. Easy reading & extremely engrosing. Loved it!
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