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sjgrodsky's review against another edition
5.0
I have been reading about the Yom Kippur war recently, starting with “Who by Fire,” then on to “The 2 O’Clock War.” But this is the first soldier’s-eye view.
It’s being uncomfortable at best — terrible food, days and weeks living in filthy clothes, boredom, bad weather, being with an OK bunch of guys, but not with your own family. At worst it’s terror and grief.
Like one other reviewer, I am an atheist, so don’t really understand how religious people feel. But I did understand that the protagonist and his religious friends gained comfort from their readings and discussions. What is the harm in that? Indeed, isn’t it a good thing when conversation (more portable than a chess set or a guitar) helped them endure their horrific circumstances?
Another reviewer complained that the time line was hard to follow. I agree but think the author did that intentionally. He wanted you to feel just a tiny bit of the confusion and surreality of the battlefield: being told to fire when you couldn’t see a target, being told to advance when the gears were locked and you couldn’t move at all, acting (and seeing others act) in ways that violated the procedures you’d practiced during reserve training. Most brilliantly, the protagonist occasionally sees someone acting “by the book” and is comforted by the brief respite from SNAFU and FUBAR.
SPOILER ALERT.
I’m labeling this a spoiler out of an abundance of caution. I think every reader realizes, early, that Dov is gone, and the protagonist’s grief — like a throbbing toothache — cannot be fixed. We, like the protagonist, do not receive official word or incontrovertible evidence. But as the story proceeds, we, like the protagonist, adjust to the reality. There’s no “closure” in the way we’d all like there to be. But closure is a luxury, and there are no luxuries in a war.
It’s being uncomfortable at best — terrible food, days and weeks living in filthy clothes, boredom, bad weather, being with an OK bunch of guys, but not with your own family. At worst it’s terror and grief.
Like one other reviewer, I am an atheist, so don’t really understand how religious people feel. But I did understand that the protagonist and his religious friends gained comfort from their readings and discussions. What is the harm in that? Indeed, isn’t it a good thing when conversation (more portable than a chess set or a guitar) helped them endure their horrific circumstances?
Another reviewer complained that the time line was hard to follow. I agree but think the author did that intentionally. He wanted you to feel just a tiny bit of the confusion and surreality of the battlefield: being told to fire when you couldn’t see a target, being told to advance when the gears were locked and you couldn’t move at all, acting (and seeing others act) in ways that violated the procedures you’d practiced during reserve training. Most brilliantly, the protagonist occasionally sees someone acting “by the book” and is comforted by the brief respite from SNAFU and FUBAR.
SPOILER ALERT.
I’m labeling this a spoiler out of an abundance of caution. I think every reader realizes, early, that Dov is gone, and the protagonist’s grief — like a throbbing toothache — cannot be fixed. We, like the protagonist, do not receive official word or incontrovertible evidence. But as the story proceeds, we, like the protagonist, adjust to the reality. There’s no “closure” in the way we’d all like there to be. But closure is a luxury, and there are no luxuries in a war.
skonyo's review against another edition
5.0
4.5 I was born at the end of Yom kipor war. Living in israel you get to hear a lot about that war and i am not a fan of war stories so i took my time reading it but Sabato takes you from the very first word by the hand and leads you gently with so much humanity in a world gone mad. Its a beautiful book
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