I am talking about "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption", by "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" author Laura Hillenbrand. If you've read "Seabiscuit" then you already know that Ms. Hillenbrand has an amazing talent for shaping a world long gone, so that it is so physically and sensibly real to the reader, one can truly feel like they are right there in the middle of the story. And this is some story.
Growing up in depression-era California Louie Zamperini went from juvenile delinquent, to Olympic track runner, to Army Air Corps bombardier in the Pacific theater during World War II. He saw ferocious combat, even surviving an air battle that left his plane with over 600 holes in it and a crash landing. Eventually his luck caught up with him and his plane went down, leaving him and two of his crew mates stranded in a tiny life raft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Incredibly, he and one other man survive (one died on the raft), drifting thousands of miles for weeks on end, battling sharks and dodging enemy bullets. They finally land only to find themselves paraded through a series of Japanese POW camps, the likes of which rivaled the Nazi Holocaust camps in cruelty, surpassed only by the numbers killed (millions in the case of the Germans, hundreds of thousands in the case of Japanese POWs). In fact, American POWs under Hitler fared far better than their Japanese counterparts despite the extreme Nazi cruelty towards the Jews. For the first time in my life I finally truly understood why my father-in-law (who served in WWII) refused to buy a Japanese car, and I am grateful that I have not owned one myself in years because I would have felt compelled to get rid of it after reading this story. Nothing against it if you have one, I am just telling you that this book is that powerful.
For me the most amazing part of this story, a story that is chock full of amazing parts, is Zamperini's eventual conversion to Christianity and the total healing he found in the life of Christ and what a testament to forgiveness Louie is. He's also undoubtedly one of the most inspiring and amazing persons you will ever meet in the pages of a book. And it is all true. I don't think anyone could make this stuff up if they tried. The drama is so riveting that I tore through all 496 pages in about 3 days, and though I am a pretty fast reader, I don't usually find that kind of time to read a book. But I couldn't put it down. "Unbroken" travels through heroism, inhumanity, joy, suffering, remorselessness and forgiveness in a way that will move your heart and leave you changed. I give it 5 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment