I have been watching ABC World New podcast for at least a year. This is one foreign correspondent, Martha Raddatz, who never failed to impress me. She was very articulate and level-headed. But most important, I liked her because I could sense she was a kind person, and I do not know how I got this impression. She liked to use "You bet" when Charlie Gibson said, "Thanks, Martha." And I thought that was smart too.
Anyway, one day I listened to Newshour podcast (another of my favorite) while I was biking to a bike shop, Martha was reading excerpts from her new book. It was a book about war and family, and I was instantaneously hooked by the humanities shining through the pages, well, ipod. I sought for the book, but the hardcover was sold out. So I had to wait until last week and got a paperback version.
There is no surprise that I would like this book. If you know me, you probably know my favorite movies, such as Forrest Gump, Cider House Rules, Cinema Paradise, etc, that put the main characters against a historical backdrop. The storytelling has to be good as if I know the people in the movie for a long time. If it is a good guy, I need to know the weaknesses and mistakes; if it is a bad guy, I need to track down the family background to understand the way he/she is. Anyway, that is the kind of movie I like, and it applies to books as well.
Martha's book really brought me to the battleground of April 4, 2004, and the army post 8000 miles away. I see heroic acts, strong families, gruesome battles, and I also sense the battlefield mistakes, flawed policies, battle dilemmas and troubled soldiers and family members. Through its superb story telling, I think I have a close encounter with war and its aftermath, all thanks for Martha.
I have not read through the whole books yet. I finished the first 100 pages or so, and some soldiers began to die. I knew there would be eight deaths in total, and reading the book linearly would unveil one death after the other. So I decided to spoil the ending, skipping to the final chapters so that I would know who died and who lived, so that I did not need to invest much emotional attachment to the soldiers about to die when I read through the battle sequence in the next several days.
This is a three-day weekend. Sometimes I got really bored and I read the book out loud. Reading out loud was quite different from silent reading, because it involved for senses so the scenes feels more real. I was especially touched by the end, when death messages were delivered, families shocked, and dead soldiers remembered. That is the book at its best. When I read it out loud, I felt touched and overwhelmed, and my voice sometimes got choked a little, and I am very proud of it.
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2 comments:
songhua,
i think you'll also like this book that i recently read: the river below by francois cheng. this is the title for the english translation. the original is in french, called 'le dit de tianyi' (i blogged about it recently). i read the chinese translation and loved it. the context of the novel is china and france (so there are things that overseas chinese can certainly relate to), and the historical backdrop is the period between 1929 and 1982.
the reason i think you'll like it though, is mostly its writing. the author's sensitivity and refreshing philosophical take on every little thing in life and nature makes the reading full of delightful surprises.
the chinese translation is very good if you can find it, and i assume the english translation shouldn't be bad since the original is said to be using very simple (and yet elegant and lyrical) french.
hope you enjoy the long weekend!
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