3.5*

"Yıllarca korku tarafından sömürüldük biz, sadece ve sadece korku tarafından. Zulüm,yalan,kuşku... Bunlar hep korkunun çocuklarıdır. Havayı nasıl bomba denemeleriyle zehirliyorsak, ruhlarımızı da korkuyla zehirliyoruz."

A very interesting read. The best part about the book is all the different aspects it covers concerning warfare. Highly recommend!

“Fuimos todos una sola pieza del vasto engranaje que precisaba la guerra. Poco a poco asumimos que conocer la verdad acerca de algo era automáticamente un secreto, que no podía airearse sin perjuicio. Por eso no creo que los corresponsales fueran embusteros. No lo eran. (…) Es en las cosas que no se cuentan donde reside la falsedad.”

Entender la maquinaria de la guerra desde el punto de vista de los corresponsales, las censuras, la realidad social… Todo queda registrado en una serie de artículos de la época, divididos en África, Inglaterra e Italia. Un libro que te hace entender la diferencia de percepciones entre la propaganda que leían los lectores en EEUU y la realidad que vivían los soldados por el planeta durante la IIWW. Soldados que sin ansias de patriotismo, buscaban resolver objetivos y cumplir órdenes, sintiendo que los actores de películas ficticias de guerra de la Gran Pantalla eran mucho más especiales y heroicos que ellos mismos.

Some of these piece were deeply moving others pretty dull and irrelevant to me
.
Este es un libro que consta de artículos que publicó el autor en el New York Herald Tribune cuando era corresponsal en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Algunos de los artículos fueron super interesantes y conmovedores, otros bastante chatos, aburridos e irrelevantes

Snacky little bites of Steinbeck, yum yum yum. I bet the kids got a real kick out of these stories back then. Some nice anecdotes and, as always with Steinbeck, wonderful details which can mean so much. The sleeping men not seeing the land they may never see again, the white and ragged uniforms of the paratroopers, the shock of bombs upon the memory. I bet he had fun writing these, what an inspiration he is.

Uma narrativa da 2 Guerra Mundial contada pelo olhar atento de John Steinbeck. O horror censurado que a Guerra do Vietname iria mostrar, anos mais tarde, de forma nua e crua.

Aug 26, 130pm ~~ This year, as part of a project in one of my GR groups, I have been exploring the works of John Steinbeck. Some titles I have re-read, others I had known about but had never read before, and a few were completely unknown to me. This book was one of the latter. it is a collection of the pieces he submitted as war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune in 1943.

The book is broken into three sections: England, Africa, and Italy. In each one we get small but exquisite slices of life as lived by the soldiers and as seen by Steinbeck. Some are funny, some will make you cry, many are tender, all will make you think, even while you are trying to get your breath back after an unexpected thought at the end.

The tales set in Italy were most moving for me. My father was in North Africa, Sicily and Italy as an infantryman. He never spoke much about his experiences, but he was on the beach at Anzio, where he was injured and then shipped home. I don't usually read much about WWII, but any time I do, I think of Dad and what traumas he went through, living with the effects of them for the rest of his life.

This is from the introduction, written by Steinbeck in 1958 when the book was first published:
The pieces in this volume were written under pressure and in tension. My first impulse on rereading them was to correct, to change, to smooth out ragged sentences and remove repetitions, but their very raggedness is, it seems to me, a parcel of their immediacy.

Raggedness?! I cannot imagine where he was seeing any raggedness. I thought each piece here was a gem, capturing the moments he witnessed and preserving them for future generations to learn from, if they have the wisdom for doing so.

It's refreshing how the volume opened with Steinbeck's own admission of the untruths hidden in what doesn't get said in his many World War II stories written while he was a correspondent. The tales themselves are lovable for their relatable grit, their insight into the humdrum of wartime activities, and their uncanny humor. There was one page that, to me, read as anti-Arabic, which was extremely off-putting. I recognize that such otherizing could be explained away as "a product of another time," but it's the fact that you still hear much of the same today that makes me squirm. It's for that reason that I'm giving this a three, even though I enjoyed reading it.

This book brought a really interesting human perspective to WWII correspondence reports. This was only my second Steinbeck book I’ve read so far (the other being Of Mice and Men), and I thoroughly enjoyed his straightforward but still personality-filled writing style.

This book is a compilation of John Steinbeck’s articles for the New York Herald Tribune, written in 1943. The majority of articles are direct observations of what happened with the troops in their daily lives as soldiers. The events take place in England, Northern Africa, and Italy.

The articles vary in content and tone from light-hearted to poignant to heroic to tragic. Steinbeck is reporting on the soldiers’ reactions to the various challenges presented to them, sometimes waiting a long while for something to happen followed by a flurry of action. The dialogues are plentiful and realistic. There are some fabulous stories here – my favorite is the joint effort of troops with their officers to (unofficially) save the life of a pregnant woman in Italy. If you want to see what a skilled novelist can do in the field of journalism, this is a great one to pick up.

Interesting book of stories Steinbeck wrote in WW11 in England, Africa and Italy including the invasion of Sicily in 1943. The one I liked the best was the Italian-American GI in Africa who pretended to be an Italian prisoner of war to win a bet and get back to New York.

Steinback honestly admits not remembering much about the stories and also how the reality of war was censored and if as a war correspondent you did not toe the line you were sent home. The last story was about Venento an Italian Island where the Germans were fooled into surrendering. Very amusing.

Stories from England, the blitz, waiting, troops getting on a ship and the crowding and boredom all rang true along with the Big Train Mulligan survivors and always getting what they want in the war.

The dispatches he wrote are a living memory of the day to day life of soldiers and their superstitions, bravery and determination.