More than any other trait, Steinbeck was a listener and thus had a deep compassion for normal people. That compassion was only heightened in a war that demanded normal people do courageous and horrible things. Some of these stories are gonna stick with me for a long time. That’s all you can hope for when reading books like this. Def recommend.

Also, the creepy stories were a highlight in this book. The woman in the water might show up in a nightmare at some point

What an absolute treat to read typically well expressed Steinbeck but in his war correspondent role. The beauty of this book is that every short piece was written for the general public via The New York Herald Tribune during WW2. No report is longer than 3 pages.
Steinbeck was with a group from the US Bomber Command and then later he witnessed the Allies liberating German occupied Italy.
Some desperately tragic stories written with such sublime skill. The one describing the death of civilians killed when one stray bomb landed on a picture theatre is heartbreaking especially the medical team’s despair at losing so many children. He really gives the readers a glimpse into the human reality of war with his descriptions of the troops in the landing craft, waiting for the dawn.
But there are many humorous stories too of larger than life soldiers who manage to run their Black market business whilst acting as a General’s driver.
I had the immense good fortune to find the Folio Society edition at a garage sale for $1. Never read, in a slip cover and with black and white photos and usually sold for over $50 so my reading enjoyment was enhanced by holding such a beautiful copy.Reading Steinbeck again after reading so many of his novels nearly 50 years ago reminded me why he won the Nobel Prize for Literature: he is a master of the English language.

3,5⭐

Любопитно бе да видя любимия Стайнбек в една по-различна роля - тази на военен кореспондент. Всяка среща с него вълнува.

"Стара жена продаваше малки невзрачни клонки от лавандула. Градът се тресеше от бомбите, а светлината от горящите сгради превръщаше нощта в ден. Целият въздух се беше сгъстил в един безкраен оглушителен взривен рев. А в някое малко промеждутъче сред този рев се промъкваше гласът ѝ, кресливият ѝ глас. "Лавандула! - молеше тя. - Купете си лавандула за късмет!"

Well written, as to be expected. Not all the shorts are equal but overall a good enjoyable read that does not shy away from the good, the bad, and the ugly of WW2.

Worth reading. He lived and when so many died or were in tragedy after, he wrote about it...his accounts of American and British torpedo boats in action against German troops seem like first-hand accounts, yet he does not refer to himself as present, even though his dialogue is detailed as if he were...

I am an avid reader of non fiction WW2 stories, and a handful of great historical writers keep me coming back for more. This book is different.

Steinbeck wrote a series of daily articles for the New York Herald Tribune during the last six months of 1943. They paint a vivid picture of soldiers, sailors, and civilians, in a variety of situations, simply trying to do what was expected of them.

You can and should read about what is still to this day the single most important event in the lives of those who lived through WW2, and for those of us who read about it today. (As the saying goes, those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.)

But set aside time to read Once There Was a War as well. You will see and feel what that time was like as though you were there yourself.

I started this book in part because it seemed an appropriate thing to do on Memorial Day in this tumultuous year of 2020. I needed a voice from a time other than our own, a writer who had a big heart and a small ego (at least on the page).

It was a good choice. I loved "Once There was a War"! The book is a collection of short dispatches Steinbeck sent to the NY Herald Tribune in 1943. Each is an attempt to capture something of the lives, thoughts, feelings, circumstances, and experiences of American soldiers in Europe. Steinbeck knew going in that censors would remove any information (e.g., names, locations, etc.) they deemed too revealing -- and indeed, several of these pieces have notations that 10 lines were censored, or 6 lines. He knew too that he would not be permitted to write material that was too dark, depressing, or violent, because public morale mattered a lot during the war.

Even with these and other constraints, though, Steinbeck lets us see so much. He is honest, kind, insightful, funny, and astonishingly humble: the words "I" and "me" rarely appear in the entire book unless they're spoken by another person. Steinbeck is determined not to make himself a character in his reports.

Most important of all, he's a hell of a storyteller with a finely honed sense of the telling moment. His dispatches cover a lot of ground (from England to Africa to Italy, from crowded troop transports to drenched PT boats, from army bases and pubs to a German occupied island off the coast of Italy). They introduce us to countless memorable characters: homesick soldiers, civilians grateful for their liberation (or for access to American dollars), drunken war correspondents, young crew members on an American bomber, GIs who somehow always find ways to game the system -- or who believe they can -- even a goat with an extraordinary tolerance for beer. We meet soldiers trying to fill endless tedious hours crossing the ocean; we hear the rumors that grow larger and wilder with each telling; and read of the superstitions that seem to persist in all circumstances. And of course, the young men en route to their first battle, anxiously wondering how they'll act. The stories are sometimes funny and playful and often filled with suspense. And they are always filled with kindness and empathy.

I listened to the Audible version of the book and I'm very glad I did. Because the individual pieces are short and Steinbeck's style so unpretentious, the text lends itself very well to being read aloud. The narrator, Lloyd James, sounded like he had a lot of fun reading the book and he does a wonderful job. Even the occasional corny accents -- and there are lots of them! -- somehow added immeasurably to the experience.

I enthusiastically recommend the book to anyone who needs to take a break from our time.

Jurnalism și literatură de calitate. Dar nici nu te aștepți la altceva din partea unui corespondent de război care se întâmplă să fie și unul dintre cei mai importanți scriitori americani. Minusul cărții îl reprezintă intervenția cenzorilor. Altfel, a fost interesant/instructiv să descopăr această față a războiului, văzută de la nivelul ochilor lui Steinbeck.

Subiect: ★★★★☆
Stil: ★★★☆☆
Mesaj: ★★★★☆
Structură: ★★★★☆

A vivid and insightful look into the realities of wartime. While Steinbeck's particular genius was perhaps better suited to novels like Cannery Row and Tortilla Flat, he makes a fine job of war journalism.

Favourite quote:

There is a quality in the people of Dover that may well be the key to the coming German disaster. They are incorrigibly, incorruptibly unimpressed. The German, with his uniform and his pageantry and his threats and plans, does not impress these people at all. The Dover man has taken perhaps a little more pounding than most, not in great blitzes, but in every-day bombing and shelling, and still he is not impressed. Jerry is like the weather to him. He complains about it and then promptly goes on with what he was doing...Weather and Jerry are alike in that they are inconvenient and sometimes make messes. Surveying a building wrecked by a big shell, he says, "Jerry was bad last night," as he would discuss a windstorm.

Least politically-correct quote:

No love is lost for the Arabs. They are the dirtiest people in the world and among the smelliest. The whole countryside smells of urine, four thousand years of urine. That is the characteristic smell of North Africa.

A book of stories John Steinbeck filed while working as a war correspondent during WWII.

Even though they're non-fiction, there's a Steinbeckian ring of storytelling here that reads much like his fiction. Style can be a difficult thing to get away from. But then again, perhaps he didn't want to. After all, these weren't meant to be straightforward reports on battles and troop movements. These stories tell a more human side to the war. Steinbeck did what he did best. He created larger-than-life characters out of real people.

Solid war reporting from a simpler - if certainly more horrific - time, when Americans were unified in fighting a pair of megalomaniacal European Fascists, rather than fratricidally divided over a domestic one of our own creation.

These aren't "war stories" per se; there are very few descriptions of fighting here. But there are many insightful dispatches here on American troops outside of combat: preparing in England to move forward into the war; deploying to North Africa in preparation for the Allied invasion of Italy; and then finally, in the brief final section, some pieces on the initial seaborne assault itself.

As always, Steinbeck is a helluva writer, but he proves himself here to be a hell of an observer and reporter as well. Recommended for anyone who wants to remember what a united America looked and felt like, because God knows when we'll see that again…

(Unrelated, but I also like how back in the '60s they'd put ads in the back of paperbacks for other books - don't remember when they stopped, but haven't seen these things in at least 30-40 years...)

Bueno, es Steinbeck y un prólogo fantástico. Qué más se puede pedir.