about a book

jaclynday:

What I’ve Read: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

When I first read Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit many years ago, I was pleasantly surprised by how (through an incredible amount of research) she managed to make a biographical story (of a horse, no less) into a book that read like a novel. Hillenbrand’s writing feels like a departure from the typical biography. She is extremely confident of her subjects (Seabiscuit in Seabiscuit and Louie Zamperini in Unbroken), helped by the fact that both events happened in the past century. It’s no wonder they made Seabiscuit into a film: almost every page would prompt me to think, “This would be a great movie.”

It was the same way throughout Unbroken. The story lends itself perfectly to becoming a Hollywood war hero film and is better than any possible fiction they could create. This book isn’t just about survival and resilience: the fact that Zamperini lived to see the end of World War II is really just astonishing.

Here’s a basic outline of the book: Zamperini, an Olympic track star, becomes a bombardier in World War II and is assigned to the Pacific theatre. Him and his flight crew fly B-24 aircraft, then known as “flying coffins” because of the incredible accident rate and all-around unreliability of the plane. Zamperini is involved in a crash that leaves him and two other surviving crew members aboard a raft in the Pacific Ocean for 47 (47!) days, only to end up in the hands of Japanese forces as POWs for the remainder of the war.

There have been some fantastic books about American POWs in the Pacific (definitely read Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides), and Unbroken, while primarily about Zamperini and his experiences, sheds greater light on a major aspect of World War II that is not usually the first thing people think of when the war is mentioned. It’s probably not even on the top 5 list. The WWII Pacific theatre, with the exception of Pearl Harbor, is covered less thoroughly in textbooks, modern media and films, books, etc. WWII tends to bring to mind images of Hitler, concentration camps, Saving Private Ryan, Nazi propaganda, etc. I appreciate and admire recent books and films (like Flags of Our Fathers by James Bradley) for helping to bring more attention to the conflict in the Pacific.

You can’t help but fall in love with Zamperini. He’s a mischievious (borderline unstoppable) child who grows into a monster athlete, beating running records all over the place. His Olympic debut put him against far more experienced athletes, and although he did not win, he stunned the crowd with his speed in the final lap of the race.

Fast forwarding from the tales of his athletic exploits to his snagging small sharks on a raft in the Pacific Ocean and slicing them open for their livers is almost unbelievable. His journey from California to Berlin to the Pacific to Japan is incredibly surreal and epic. The gruesome stories of his life in POW camps is particularly harrowing—and this AFTER you’ve read about him surviving in a raft for seven weeks.

I appreciated that Hillenbrand did not end the book with Zamperini’s return to the United States—a point in Zamperini’s story that other writers may have felt would be the most climactic ending. Instead, Hillenbrand follows him throughout the rest of his life. Zamperini spoke candidly to her about his post-traumatic stress disorder that nearly toppled his marriage and how alcoholism and rage consumed him for years after. (Interestingly enough, he finally rid himself of the flashbacks and murderous impulses after attending a Billy Graham evangelistic series in California and converting to Christianity.)

I think this book deserves all the accolades and attention it has been receiving. It’s borderline embarrassing to read a story like this and think, “How did we not know about this guy before?” Hillenbrand makes a poignant point in her notes at the end: stories, just like this one, are dying with World War II veterans who have never spoken about their experiences.

Have you read this book? What did you think?