Unbroken
22/02/11 13:38 Filed in: Book Review
I’ve just finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand—in a word (albeit made-up), it is unputdownable. Reviews on Amazon speak of staying up all night to get it finished. A friend of mine did likewise starting it one morning and not stopping until late evening. I had to exercise a little more discipline, but it was hard.
From the author of Seabiscuit, which was recently made into a film, comes an incredible story of ‘survival, resilience, and redemption’ to quote the tagline. One May afternoon in 1943, an American B-24 bomber crashes into the Pacific Ocean and disappears; only three crew escape—one of which is Louis Zamperini. And so begins one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
Zamperini stole and fought his way through childhood. His older brother Pete encouraged him to take up running, and Louis becomes one of the fastest men in the world, a man likely to have broken the 4 minute mile mark long before Roger Bannister’s 1954 triumph. All that is interrupted by the war, which finds Louis breaking more records as they struggle for survival adrift in the Pacific for an incredible 47 days.
After fighting off madness, starvation, thirst, leaping sharks who sought a tasty morsel, and coping with enemy planes shooting at them, he and his pilot are eventually picked up by the Japanese. And then the real story starts.
The brutality of the Japanese POW camps is sadly legendary and Louis, because of his fame and perhaps too his stubborn refusal to be broken, became a target for extra savage treatment at the hands of one particular guard.
Louis survives the camps, returns home to his family, who although told he was dead refused to believe it. But even this isn’t a happy ending. The title of the book isn’t quite accurate: Louis is eventually broken, not by the camps, but by the aftermath. Like many POWs the trauma of returning is too much—he suffers horrifying flashbacks, attempts to drown his memories with alcohol, and watches as his marriage disintegrates.
It is here that the book reaches its climax. It is in this context that this broken man finds himself being remade, set free by a power much greater than his own rugged determination. At a meeting Billy Graham was speaking at, Zamperini finds that ultimate redemption that only God can give. So powerful was this that he was transformed, his marriage rescued, his flashbacks gone, and he travelled to Japan to meet his former guards—to embrace them, and to speak to them of the forgiveness he had found and that they needed.
It put me in mind of a verse in the Bible - "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." (2 Cor 5:17)
It’s no surprise that this book was named by Time magazine as its top book of 2010, and still sits at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. This book is a perfect read for virtually anyone—even if you aren't drawn to war stories, I suspect that you will find yourself engrossed in this captivating tale of a struggle for survival and much more.
From the author of Seabiscuit, which was recently made into a film, comes an incredible story of ‘survival, resilience, and redemption’ to quote the tagline. One May afternoon in 1943, an American B-24 bomber crashes into the Pacific Ocean and disappears; only three crew escape—one of which is Louis Zamperini. And so begins one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
Zamperini stole and fought his way through childhood. His older brother Pete encouraged him to take up running, and Louis becomes one of the fastest men in the world, a man likely to have broken the 4 minute mile mark long before Roger Bannister’s 1954 triumph. All that is interrupted by the war, which finds Louis breaking more records as they struggle for survival adrift in the Pacific for an incredible 47 days.
After fighting off madness, starvation, thirst, leaping sharks who sought a tasty morsel, and coping with enemy planes shooting at them, he and his pilot are eventually picked up by the Japanese. And then the real story starts.
The brutality of the Japanese POW camps is sadly legendary and Louis, because of his fame and perhaps too his stubborn refusal to be broken, became a target for extra savage treatment at the hands of one particular guard.
Louis survives the camps, returns home to his family, who although told he was dead refused to believe it. But even this isn’t a happy ending. The title of the book isn’t quite accurate: Louis is eventually broken, not by the camps, but by the aftermath. Like many POWs the trauma of returning is too much—he suffers horrifying flashbacks, attempts to drown his memories with alcohol, and watches as his marriage disintegrates.
It is here that the book reaches its climax. It is in this context that this broken man finds himself being remade, set free by a power much greater than his own rugged determination. At a meeting Billy Graham was speaking at, Zamperini finds that ultimate redemption that only God can give. So powerful was this that he was transformed, his marriage rescued, his flashbacks gone, and he travelled to Japan to meet his former guards—to embrace them, and to speak to them of the forgiveness he had found and that they needed.
It put me in mind of a verse in the Bible - "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." (2 Cor 5:17)
It’s no surprise that this book was named by Time magazine as its top book of 2010, and still sits at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. This book is a perfect read for virtually anyone—even if you aren't drawn to war stories, I suspect that you will find yourself engrossed in this captivating tale of a struggle for survival and much more.