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tomleetang 's review for:
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah
Told in a very plain style, this memoir reads almost like a transcript of an oral narrative. Occasionally, it comes across as rambling, but at other times Beah deftly manages to interweave not just his life as a child soldier, but also Sierra Leone's diverse culture, from plant lore to myths, into the fabric of his story.
In fact, though the subtitle of this memoir might suggest A Long Way Gone is just about being a boy soldier, the first half of the book actually documents how Beah initially avoided that fate, as he travelled around Sierra Leone, fleeing the encroaching rebels, looking for safety and his family. It is a eulogy for lost childhood, for a country at war with itself, as rituals and traditions become lost in the blood splatter.
The pointless savagery and cruelty is nauseating. The author carefully documents the shattered skulls, the bloody fragments of flesh, the corpses burnt to unrecognisable charcoal.
When Beah and his friends are eventually recruited by the army to fight the rebels, the boys are reduced to little more than savage animals by a combination of violence and drugs. The middle section of the book, where the author describes being a child soldier, is relatively short, passing by in a haze of cocaine, marijuana, 'brown brown' and blood. Most of this period is later relived in flashback, when Beah emerges from the fog of bloodlust to what he initially describes as 'sissy' civilian life.
The final section is an unvarnished account of PTSD, survivor guilt and residual anger towards those whose pity feels patronising and superficial.
Through all this, the reasons for the Sierra Leone civil war are never mentioned. In the context of this memoir, it's utterly irrelevant, because could any cause justify the widespread massacre of civilians and the corruption of pre-teens into child soldiers? This is not a book about the beliefs of the people leading one side or the other, but the effect their wars have on the innocent populace.
The front cover of the edition I read had a quote from the Washington Post saying that this memoir should be read by everyone in the world. I agree, just as I think as many people as possible should watch the documentary For Sama, about the Syrian civil war. Neither that film nor this book are great works of art, but they are important testimonials that should be experienced, in order to make us all a little more compassionate, a little more humane and a little more informed about the brutal nature of civil war.
In fact, though the subtitle of this memoir might suggest A Long Way Gone is just about being a boy soldier, the first half of the book actually documents how Beah initially avoided that fate, as he travelled around Sierra Leone, fleeing the encroaching rebels, looking for safety and his family. It is a eulogy for lost childhood, for a country at war with itself, as rituals and traditions become lost in the blood splatter.
The pointless savagery and cruelty is nauseating. The author carefully documents the shattered skulls, the bloody fragments of flesh, the corpses burnt to unrecognisable charcoal.
When Beah and his friends are eventually recruited by the army to fight the rebels, the boys are reduced to little more than savage animals by a combination of violence and drugs. The middle section of the book, where the author describes being a child soldier, is relatively short, passing by in a haze of cocaine, marijuana, 'brown brown' and blood. Most of this period is later relived in flashback, when Beah emerges from the fog of bloodlust to what he initially describes as 'sissy' civilian life.
The final section is an unvarnished account of PTSD, survivor guilt and residual anger towards those whose pity feels patronising and superficial.
Through all this, the reasons for the Sierra Leone civil war are never mentioned. In the context of this memoir, it's utterly irrelevant, because could any cause justify the widespread massacre of civilians and the corruption of pre-teens into child soldiers? This is not a book about the beliefs of the people leading one side or the other, but the effect their wars have on the innocent populace.
The front cover of the edition I read had a quote from the Washington Post saying that this memoir should be read by everyone in the world. I agree, just as I think as many people as possible should watch the documentary For Sama, about the Syrian civil war. Neither that film nor this book are great works of art, but they are important testimonials that should be experienced, in order to make us all a little more compassionate, a little more humane and a little more informed about the brutal nature of civil war.