Tag Archives: WWII

Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais: Hiroshima mon Amour – Book and Movie (1959/60) Literature and War Readalong July 2011

Posted in Books, French Movie, Movie, Readalong by

How do you talk about war? How to put it into words, into pictures? How to tell and show the unspeakable, the horror, the atrocity? How much can you know about something that you have not experienced? These are but a few questions Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais explore in the book and the movie.

Hiroshima Mon Amour is maybe the most difficult book of this readalong to write about. A summary wouldn’t do it justice. I was amazed once more how good it is, how profound and how the book and the movie seem like two different ways of exploring, with two different languages, the atrocity that we call war. What is fascinating is how they seem to converse with each other.

In 1959 a Japanese man and a French woman meet in Hiroshima. They are both a bit over thirty and happily married. They spend a night together. It is shortly before the woman’s return to France. She is an actress who has come to Hiroshima to play a nurse in a movie on peace. They make love and talk. First about Hiroshima, then about the past of the woman. They part for the day but he follows her and they spend another night together, stay awake, spend  time in a tea house. During the second night, the woman tells the man the whole story of her past in Nevers and her tragic first love. She hasn’t told anyone this story before because there was never anyone like her first lover after that until this day.

I’m glad I read the book again before watching the movie. It was interesting to see how different it is when we first imagine something and when we then see it as well.

During the initial part of the movie we hear a voice-over. The woman tells the man everything that she has seen in Hiroshima. In the news at the time, in the museum during her stay. When you read it, you see in your imagination what you have seen before in documentaries or on photos but the movie shows you how it really was and on the other hand you have the man’s voice telling you, that you have seen nothing, know nothing. There is no replacing the actual experience.

The first pictures show bodies, parts of bodies, first covered in what looks like fall out, then in sweat. This reminded me of Resnais’ documentary Night and Fog. It is the same visual language that tries to show us what violence does to the body, that tries to capture the devastation. Hiroshima Mon Amour seems also to say that war and love can be equally destructive. There is violence in aggression and in passion.

What struck me is that we do not know their names. At the end they give each other the name of the places in which their mutual tragedies happened. She calls him Hiroshima, he calls her Nevers.

One of the themes of the book and the movie is how the collective and the personal tragedies are linked. While Hiroshima and WWII stand for a collective tragedy, Nevers stands for a personal tragedy. This is one of the achievements of  Hiroshima Mon Amour. One approach in war stories or war movies is to pick one exemplary person and tell his/her story. We understand the individual far better, can identify far better with one person’s story but the large-scale of the collective should not be forgotten. Hiroshima Mon Amour is one of the rare movies/books who manages to show both and make clear that they are interdependent.

For those who have not read the book, I would say that it is a valuable addition and it is fascinating to see how they complement each other. First there is the script, including proposals by Marguerite Duras, then she adds information on what scenes Resnais finally chose, plus there is an annex in which Duras goes deeper, explores the woman’s story, gives it more density. I liked the appendix, that was mostly dedicated to the woman’s story, a lot.

There are many things that are worth discussing and I am looking forward to hear your thoughts. One question that has been on my mind since I re-watched the movie is the choice of the Japanese actor. He struck me as looking quite European. I had kept the appendix for last and was glad that Duras mentioned this choice, saying they had wanted to make a more universal statement with this. They didn’t want people to think “That’s an attractive Japanese” but “That’s an attractive man”. I was not completely happy about this. It’s a sad fact that whenever a person from another continent is casted in a European movie, the film directors think of the European taste and choose someone less typical. This is unfortunately exactly how exotism works. I think Resnais and Duras were honest in their attempt but I’m not sure it was ok.

Other reviews:

Emily (Evening All Afternoon)

Litlove (Tales from the Reading Room)

Richard (Caravana de recuerdos)

*****

Hiroshima mon Amour was the seventh book in the Literature and War Readalong. The next one will be Elsa Morante’s History. Discussion starts on Friday August 26, 2011.

Literature and War Readalong June 24 2011: If This is A Man aka Se questo è un uomo by Primo Levi

Posted in Italian, Memoir, Non-fiction, Readalong by

This month is moving very fast and the next readalong is on the 24th already. It might be good to get started if you want to join in.

Primo Levi is a writer that has been on my mind for years. I knew his story, had read about him. I have read other’s accounts of their incarceration in concentration camps. I have read excerpts of Levi’s work but never got around to read his most famous book, the autobiographical account of his incarceration in the extermination camp Auschwitz.

He was on my mind for this and because he committed suicide so late in life. Because he seems to be such a perfect example of survivor’s guilt.

I dreaded to read his account, I know it won’t be cheerful but I always wanted to read it, wanted to explore his life, to understand why he couldn’t live with the guilt of being one of a very few survivors.

Despite the sadness and the horrors he describes there is beauty in his books as he is not only a witness of dreadful times but also an accomplished writer.

Primo Levi’s book is the only nonfiction book in this readalong.

I’m reading the French translation Si c’est un homme.

Literature and War Readalong May Wrap up: The Sea and Poison

Posted in Books, Fiction, Japan, Literature, Novel, Readalong by


Shusaku Endo’s novel The Sea and Poison proved to be a challenging read which is also reflected in the fact that some reviews will still be posted. I will of course link to them once they are done. For the time being you can always read Novroz’ review which complements my own very well.

For the time being thanks a lot for those who already participated. I know that the idea of reading about vivisection held some readers back but it isn’t a graphic book at all. Nevertheless it is a depressing book that seems to center on two major themes, one of which hospitals and their staff, the other war crimes.

What depressed me was the description of the hospital and the doctors. My late mother spent more time in hospitals than outside, so I have had my fair share of contact with doctors and most of them were not like Suguro but rather like Toda or Hashimoto. Doctors in hospitals that is. I’d like to emphasize this. Doctors who stay in hospitals after having been interns follow another agenda. A hospital in many cases isn’t much different from a Corporate Company. It’s all about results and money and hierarchy. What I didn’t know at the time of my reading is the fact that Endo suffered all his life. He was very ill, had tuberculosis and some of the treatments described in the novel in great detail were treatments he had to undergo regularly. For anyone interested in this background here is an interesting analysis.

Thanks to Kevin who did some research and added them in his comments, it became clear that the book was based on facts and that there had indeed been American POW on whom they performed vivisections. Here is the link he added to the comments section.

This leads us to the biggest problem of this book, as Kevin and Anna (Diary of an Eccentric) pointed out and which was probably the base for my doubting the incident. Why did Endo chose to describe the vivisection as if it had been performed under anesthesia when it is apparently well-known, that like in Germany, the vivisections were performed without the prisoners being anesthetized? I have no answer to this question and don’t want to start speculating.

Does anyone have an idea?

Shusaku Endo: The Sea and Poison aka Umi to dokuyaku (1958) Literature and War Readalong May

Posted in Books, Fiction, Japan, Literature, Novel, Readalong by

Against the backdrop of World War II, Japanese writer Endo ( Scandal ) explores the nature of morality. In this novel, originally published in Japan in 1958, the author examines the inner lives of three characters in the central drama, a grisly vivisection of an American prisoner of war, in an attempt to understand what conscience, or lack of conscience, allowed them to participate in such an atrocity.

The Sea and Poison is the first novel in this readalong that truly upset me. It’s an excellent book but so depressing and bleak, it reminded me of Kafka’s In the Penal Colony which was so far one of the most disturbing books I have ever read. I was afraid that the part on the vivisection might be too graphic but Endo is far to subtle a writer to be too explicit. The horror lies somewhere else.

The Sea and Poison is divided in three parts plus a prologue. Each part is told from another point of view, part 2 from different points of view. It is set during WWII in a hospital outside of the city of Fukuoka. Before we even hear about the planned vivisection on American prisoners of war we get to see the doctors at work. What we see is highly depressing. They do not seem guided by the love of their fellow human beings but purely because they are careerists and love power. Seldom have I read such an utterly negative depiction of doctors. This is best shown in the way they treat poor patients. They are unfriendly and heartless, whether they die or not, it doesn’t matter. It seems as if they did try to excuse this with the war as Suguro thinks:

No doubt it was a time when everybody was on the way out. If a man didn’t breathe his last in the hospital, he might well die that night in an air raid.

The central story is the vivisection which isn’t described in great detail. What is at the core is the study of the people who take part in it. “The old man”, chief surgeon Dr. Hashimoto and Dr. Asai are in charge. Dr. Toda and Dr. Suguro, two young interns, will assist, and two nurses will help as well. We do not hear much about Hashimoto’s motivations or only what Toda explains to Suguro:

“Doctors aren’t saints. They want to be successful. They want to become full professors. And when they want to try out new techniques, they don’t limit their experiments to monkeys and dogs. Suguro, this is the world and you ought to take a closer look at it. “

However we get to know Toda, the nurse and Suguro’s motivations and their stories. What is important is to underline that they could have refused. All three of them were asked whether they were willing to particpate and none of them refused.

Suguro is the only one with a conscience, still he accepts because the proposal comes at a moment of utter disillusionment. He has lost a patient and has seen how “The Old Man” lied about a patient he lost. He sees how many people are killed in air raids, how hopeless it is to help. When he is asked he doesn’t really say yes but he can’t refuse. Only at the last moment does he back off and doesn’t want to touch the patient.

The nurse has a complicated and sad life story. It seems as if there is nothing in this world for her anymore after her personal tragedy. It looks as if she was thinking “If I am miserable, why shouldn’t the others be?”

And Toda? Toda is a being without any feelings. Since his early childhood he is aware that he doesn’t care about other people, that he cannot connect. He has no empathy, no compassion. Occasionally he wonders if there is something wrong with him but at the end of the day he thinks that most people are like him.

I would like to ask you. Aren’t you too, deep down, unmoved by the death and sufferings of others? Aren’t we brothers under the skin perhaps? Haven’t you, too, lived your life up to now without excessive self-recrimination and shame? And then someday doesn’t there stir in you, too, the thought that you are a bit strange?

The questions the novel poses are manyfold and extremely interesting. One could ask whether those who do not directly kill the prisoners are as guilty as those who kill them. Is Suguro who can’t say no and watches but doesn’t touch the patient less guilty than the chief surgeon who performs the surgery?

And what about the chief surgeon? He is a man who is responsible for the death of many people. He performs a surgery and it goes wrong. He makes mistakes, people die. Is he less guilty of those deaths than of those of the American prisoners?

The type of questions this novel poses are the same that were asked in Germany after the war as well. Were those who watched and let things happen less guilty than those who took an active part? This made me think of Macbeth. Who is guiltier? Macbeth who did the killing or Lady Macbeth who had the idea?

I know it is said that this novel explores individual responsibility in wartime. I’m sure that is an important topic but I think two other things were far more important. I think this book criticises doctors and health care professionals in general, showing them as too keen on success and power, as heartless and inhuman. And it also wants to illustrate that people are selfish and mean.

I cannot say I “liked” this book but I did find it extremely thought-provoking, the writing is captivating and the character studies interesting.

I’m really looking forward to read what you thought of it.

Please read also what others wrote:

Anna (Diary of an Eccentric)

Danielle (A Work in Progress)

Gary (The Parrish Lantern)

Mytwostotinki

Novroz (Polychrome Interest)

*****

The Sea and Poison was the fifth book in the Literature and War Readalong. The next one will be Primo Levi’s If This is a Man aka Se questo è un uomo. Discussion starts on Friday June 24, 2011 .


What Did the Victorian Lady Look Like? or Women, History and Make-up

Posted in Books, Nonfiction by

I like to read make-up artist Lisa Eldrige’s blog and also like to watch her tutorials. Recently I discovered two videos she did with historian Madeleine Marsh, the author of the book Compacts and Cosmetics: Beauty from Victorian Times to the Present Day. The book focuses not only on cosmetics but also on women’s history, their lives, the politics, culture and social circumstances of the times. The videos Lisa Eldrige did are so interesting and fascinating that I thought I’ll add them here. They are really worth watching, especially for those who love historical novels or novels from the Victorian and later eras.

As Madeleine Marsh says : “Vintage make-up is history that you can hold, smell and you can touch and I really think it makes our past come to life.”  (Madeleine Marsh in video I)

Both videos are great and will tell you a lot about the link between history and make-up. Did the Victorians use make-up? What did the Flapper look like? What was used during WWII? How did the 70s change the way we look?

I love these two videos, they are informative, fun and colorful and I hope you will like them too.

Literature and War Readalong May 27 2011: The Sea and Poison by Shusaku Endo

Posted in Books, Fiction, Japan, Literature, Movies based on books, Novel, Readalong by

Shusaku Endo’s The Sea and Poison is the first WWII novel of the Literature and War Readalong. The first time I read about this book was on Parrish’s blog (here is his review). Its topic is very unpleasant. Endo focuses on the theme of morality, exploring it through the central story of the vivisection of an American prisoner of war by three Japanese surgeons.
I just discovered that there is a movie based on the book that can be watched on YouTube. I did attach the first part as a teaser.

Although it might be an unpleasant topic I’m looking forward to read my first Endo. Since it is a very short book, only 160 pages, I hope some of you will be in the mood to read along but I would understand if the topic isn’t to everybody’s liking.

Should someone want to watch the movie instead and review it, that would be great as well and I would link the review.

Sarah Blake: The Postmistress (2010)

Posted in American Literature, Books, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature, Novel by

The wireless crackles with news of blitzed-out London and of the war that courses through Europe, leaving destruction in its wake. Listening intently on the other side of the Atlantic, newly-wed Emma considers the fragility of her peaceful married life as America edges closer to the brink of war. As the reporter’s distant voice fills the room, she sits convincing herself that the sleepy town of Franklin must be far beyond the war’s reach. But the life of American journalist Frankie, whose voice seems so remote, will soon be deeply entangled with her own. With the delivery of a letter into the hands of postmistress Iris, the fates of these three women become irrevocably linked. But while it remains unopened, can Iris keep its truth at bay?

I wanted to like The Postmistress and for 200 pages I really did. It has a cinematic quality to it, the descriptions are so perfect, you think you are watching a movie. A movie like Pearl Harbor, not The Draughtsman’s Contract, that’s for sure, but still, it’s an achievement. Also the story is really interesting for far more than two thirds of the book and then it sadly collapses. What starts out as an entertaining and very well-researched read becomes slightly insipid.

The Postmistress interweaves the lives of three very different American women. Frankie Bard, a war reporter, Emma Fitch, the young wife of a doctor and Iris James, the postmaster (she insists on calling herself “postmaster” and I never really got the title).

The story that is told in the book takes place in 1941. During the first two thirds of the book, Frankie is in war-torn Europe, reporting live on the radio, during the Blitz and later from different cities in France. Emma and Iris live both, in the fictional small town Franklin in Massachusetts and hear Frankie’s broadcasts that brings the war into their living rooms. They feel Frankie’s engagement, they live the tragedy with her. They are so far away if it wasn’t for Frankie the war would seem almost unreal.  Apart from Harry Vale, Iris’ fiancé, no one in Franklin, Massachusetts thinks that America will ever go to war, even though the draft has started.

The plot starts to get silly when Emma’s husband decides to go and help in London. He seeks atonement for a “medical accident” for which he feels responsible.

The second third of the book shows Frankie travelling with various trains from Germany to Portugal to interview refugees on the trains. She collects the stories on disks and those voices will later be listened to – thanks to a huge story-twist – in Franklin.

The central story is the one part of the book that I didn’t like and this is unlucky because it ties the three parts together. The idea was to tell the story of a letter that is not delivered because the postmistress decides to hold it back.

Something else that didn’t quite work for me is due to the handling of the characters. Although all three women get their equal share at the beginning, it becomes ultimately Frankie’s story. The other two seem to be mere vehicles to make the plot work.

Sarah Blake writes in her after-word that Frankie couldn’t have had access to a portable disk recorder at that time. What she uses came into usage in 1944 and enabled live-recording from the battlefields.

I took liberty with the date because World War II was the first war that was brought into people’s living rooms by radio, and I wanted to highlight the power of the voice to convey the untellable, the refugees speaking into an air into which they will vanish.

Sarah Blake studied a lot of books on female war reporters, Martha Gellhorn and many other books on WWII. The themes are decidedly interesting and it is no wonder the book has A Reader’s Guide and Discussion Questions. An ideal choice for a book club I presume. Occasionally I wonder if these Reader Guides are not meant to justify the book and ultimately to sell it. It strikes me that I see this more in more in books, even in so-called American literary fiction.

The history of female war reporters and the evolution of reporting is interesting. I think the book also captures very well how far away the war seemed to the Americans. It looks at the way people go on about their lives while in another part of the world people go through terrible things. This seemed very timely and I was reminded of the situation in Japan. We are here and safe while people in another country fight for their survival. How do we go on living as if nothing was happening?

If you are still curious, here is The book’s homepage where you can read the first chapter.