23 July 2023

And a Hard Rain Fell: A Gi’s True Story of the War in Vietnam by John Ketwig – a review

This review is just going to be some comments I made about it on the Diaspora Social Network this past week or so…

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In the last 45 years or so, I’ve read MANY books on this event/era; some written by generals or politicians, but the most truly gut-wrenching and informative were the ones written by the “grunts in the mud” getting their asses shot off. This book here is one of those. I devoured the first 100 pages last night… it is stark, visceral, horrifying and completely lacking in the political/military bullshit you’d find in other “histories” of Vietnam times and events.

You can NEVER know what it was like unless you were there in that muddy jungle, but you can read books like this and maybe gain just a wee bit of understanding about the lifelong effects these horrific events had on young men and women who were sent to that place at that time in history. It’s NOT a happy story, folks. The phrase “War is Hell” doesn’t even come close to the actual living Hell that 3.4 million youths of this generation experienced in that place.

It’s a DAMNED SHAME that the U.S. and other nations of this world can’t learn from their mistakes. The U.S. repeated their Vietnam mistakes in Afghanistan. The politicians and military leaders of the U.S. continue to make the same goddamned mistakes over and over again. It’s literally criminal.

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And a Hard Rain Fell: A Gi’s True Story of the War in Vietnam by John Ketwig | Goodreads

I didn’t set out to write a book. It was 1982, fourteen years after I had last set foot in Vietnam, and thirteen years after I returned to The World. I had a family and a career. I’d never written more than an occasional letter to the editor in my life. My twisted insides had spawned ulcers. The nightmares were more frequent. I needed to get Vietnam out into the open, but I couldn’t talk about it. Not after all those years.

Thus begins John Ketwig’s powerful memoir of the Vietnam War. Now, over 15 years after its initial publication, Sourcebooks is proud to bring …and a hard rain fell back into print in a newly updated edition, with a new introduction by the author and eight pages of never-before-published photographs. From the country roads of upstate New York to the jungles of Vietnam, and finally to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., …and a hard rain fell is a gripping and visceral account of one young man’s struggle to make sense of his place in a world gone mad.

enter image description here

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This fellow here (Ketwig) was talked into enlisting by recruiters who told him that if he got drafted, he would be sent to Vietnam immediately. They said he would be stationed in W. Germany if he voluntarily enlisted. Of course, the recruiter lied because even though Ketwig did enlist, just three days after basic training he was on a military transport plane to Vietnam.

Yes! The draft is awful, and illegal, as far as I’m concerned (a violation of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution):

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

When draft registration was reactivated in 1977 or so, I wrote a very long letter with the 13th Amendment as my basis to numerous major newspapers protesting this. I don’t even think any of the papers I sent it to ever published it. I did register. I had to. It was a Federal crime punishable my prison time if I did not. I wasn’t happy about it, having grown up during the Vietnam Era.

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Some other related books that I highly recommend:

If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by Tim O’Brien | Goodreads

I would recommend everything by Tim O’Brien… his fiction stories are wonderful, too, especially:

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien | Goodreads

I also recommend Karl Marlantes:

What It is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes | Goodreads

Read his fiction books, also… very good stuff!

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It amazes me the difference in the attitudes and the portrayals of histories, books, and movies about WWII compared to Vietnam.

When I was a wee lad, I was a serious student of WWII (and WWI to some extent). This was due to my father and numerous uncles having participated in that war as part of The Greatest Generation. The kids who participated in Vietnam were part of The Most FUCKED Generation.

WWII movies and books were all about heroes and fighting those nasty Nazis and Japs who were portrayed in propaganda and the movies, books, news media as some sort of horrible non-human creatures.

In Vietnam, the enemy was indistinguishable from the “good” Vietnamese in South Vietnam. This was a problem, of course. The little Vietnamese barber who was cutting a G.I.’s hair in the morning in Saigon, was the same one cutting his throat out in the boonies after dark.

The nighttime belonged to Victor Charlie (the Viet Cong). There were no “safe” places for anyone. For G.I.s, the only safety was in numbers, and even then that was no guarantee of safety, as they quickly learned during the Tet Offensive of January ’68.

The constant fear took its toll on these young men (and women). They often turned to heroin, pot, and huge amounts of alcohol in order to maintain their sanity. It didn’t always work, though. That 365 day stretch (tour of duty) in country would affect those young boys forever.

By the way, here’s a tidbit for you… the average age of a U.S. soldier in WWII was 26. The average age of a U.S. soldier in Vietnam was 19 years old. Can you remember what a foolish, wide-eyed kid you were at 19. Now, imagine your foolish, wide-eyed self sitting in the mud out in a jungle in Southeast Asia surrounded by darkness and all the monsters your mind could imagine just ahead of (or behind) you, and ALL of them trying to KILL YOU!

And yet, there are still people these days who can’t seem to understand what was so wrong with these kids when they came back from Nam.

Never forget… NEVER!

enter image description here

The U.S. War in Vietnam – Statistics & Facts provided by Statista.com

I saw the traveling Vietnam Wall a few years ago. It had such an impact on me. I have always felt those that served in the military then never got the recognition they deserved. I’ve known and been friends with many Nam vets. Some had an easy time of it there, but the majority did not… and were scarred permanently by the experiences.

This was a difficult read; yet, very much worth reading! If you have the slightest interest in this era and this event and would like to understand more about how/why it happened the way it did, I strongly recommend that you read this book. It definitely isn’t your typical political/military bullshit history book. It’s from one man who pulled it out of himself from way down deep. It’s probably one of the most truthful and accurate Vietnam era books I’ve ever read.

READ THIS FUCKING BOOK!

Posted by on 23 July 2023 in Books and Literature, History and tagged , , , , , , , .

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11 July 2023

J.F.K. and Vietnam by John M. Newman – a review

JFK and Vietnam: Deception, Intrigue, and the Struggle for Power by John M. Newman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was one HELLUVA book. I’ve had this on a shelf in my house for quite a few years. I should have read it long before now.

I’ve studied the U.S.’s involvement in Vietnam for most of my adult life. I realized early on in my studies what a clusterfuck the entire situation was, but Newman’s book really dug down deep into the beginnings of that situation like no other book I’ve read before.

Those truly at fault for this dark time in U.S. history were definitely NOT the U.S. servicemen and women who were out there in the jungles or being shot down out of the skies. It was ALL the fault of upper-level U.S. government administrators, politicians, advisors, and the highest ranking military personnel of the U.S. Armed Forces.

The story behind JFK’s handling of the communist threat in Southeast Asia was a horrendously misguided and poorly organized shitshow of assorted groups and self-serving fools, with myriad personal motivations and views, who criminally mishandled this issue. Kennedy himself was not completely innocent, either.

If you have an interest in this era of U.S. history, I strongly suggest that you find this book at your local library or somewhere and give it a read. You’ll be amazed and horrified at how inept the U.S. handling of this really was. The truly scary part of this lesson in History is that similar things are going on in the U.S. right this very minute with regards to Russia, the Ukraine, the Middle East, China and Taiwan, etc.

Some things never change, it seems.



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Posted by on 11 July 2023 in Books and Literature, History and tagged , , .

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28 May 2023

Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors by John Densmore – a review

Riders on the Storm: My Life with Jim Morrison and the Doors by John Densmore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Damn! And I thought The Band had a story to tell. Densmore’s reminiscences about The Doors, the era, his personal struggles, etc. are a glorious tapestry of tales of joy, woe, fears, accomplishments, and ultimately… acceptance.

His 1st person narrative directly to the reader is excellent, but he intersperses a secondary narrative into the book which is written in the unique form of a personal letter to his band mate and brother, Jim Morrison. It is eerily compelling and deeply satisfying to be in the position, as a reader of this book, to experience this very personal thing of John Densmore’s.

As a lifelong hobbyist of Psychology and Philosophy, it was also very interesting for me to experience Jim Morrison through the experiences of Densmore. The man was a warped genius, as many of the greatest of them sometimes are. He was a walking Greek tragedy who was consumed by his inner demons, eventually.

Densmore states this near the last page of the book:

I now know the reason I stayed in the band through all the insanity was because music had become my new religion. It is a major theme through my life.

Music is your only friend…

With that, I’ll end this little mini-review with this very appropriate song:

When the Music’s Over – The Doors on YouTube

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Posted by on 28 May 2023 in Books and Literature and tagged , , , , .

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15 May 2023

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles – a Review

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

See those five stars up above there? I often say that I try to not give a book a 5-Star review unless it’s made quite an impression on me. Well, I was about a third of the way through this book a couple days back and I already knew that I wasn’t going to be able to go just three or four stars. Sometimes, you just know.

As I always say, though, books are very subjective things. You just don’t know until you try it. It’s the same for any art form, any music, even which of those 33 flavors at Baskin-Robbins you’re going to enjoy most. You have to experience it to know if you like it or not. This book is no exception. I’m going to, of course, recommend highly that you read it. How it affects you is up to you.

“What’s it about?“, you might ask. Well, that’s a bit complicated. I was thinking about how I was going to write this review about two or so hours before I actually finished the book. Normally, I might give you a synopsis of the story line similar to one you’d read on GoodReads or any other book review site. However, I’ll let you read that somewhere else.

It’s not that the story line isn’t important; it’s actually a wonderful story. The problem is that, as with most artists, particularly the very talented ones, the story isn’t necessarily what they’re trying to convey to you when you read their book, poem, look at their painting, listen to their song, etc.

Within this book are many stories. No, I don’t mean that as it sounds. It’s not a series of short stories in one book. It’s a complicated story, a journey, you might say, with many memorable characters, memorable places, memorable things. It’s a Greek tragedy. It’s a farcical comedy with characters like Kilgore Trout. It’s a mystery. It’s an adventure. It’s Don Quixote tilting at windmills, fair Shakespearean maidens awaiting their beaus, heroes plying the seas in search of golden fleeces. It’s all these things.

You will laugh often while reading this book. You may even shed a tear or two. I did, I admit it. Ah, but you’re still wondering what the damned book is about, huh? Well, I said it was complicated, didn’t I. I’ll sum it up, though, in one word. This book is about Life… with all it’s ups, downs, unexpected drawbacks, best laid plans, good, bad, and indifferent people. It’s about you, and me, and Bill down the street, and Mary the grocery clerk.

There are many priceless gems woven into the fabric of this book that many of you who read it won’t even see. You may still enjoy the story, but will have missed what the author was trying to give you from the very beginning. That’s OK, too. If it doesn’t “click” for you, that’s OK. We all have our short lists of book that truly spoke to us. This one will be added to my list. It will also be re-read, I believe. Grab it from the library, buy it, borrow it from a friend… just read it. It might just speak to you.

Posted by on 15 May 2023 in Books and Literature and tagged , , , .

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5 May 2023

Every Moment…

I woke this morning with an old tune playing away in my head. That’s not an unusual thing for me; I often wake to music. This particular song was an earworm the entire morning until I had the chance to come in here at the computer and actually play it…

This song is a reminiscence of many of us my age and slightly older. As I’ve aged, I tend to look backwards more often than forwards; looking at that path forward seems much shorter than the very long already trod trail behind me. It’s an “old” thing, folks. You young ones out there will understand that better as you age… if your luck holds out.

I was thinking whilst drinkin’ my coffee and suckin’ on that first cigarette while staring out my kitchen window on a scene I’ve seen change over the last 55 or so years. I was thinking of all the moments — every one of them from that primal scream as I was exiting my mother’s birth canal to the one just a moment previous — each and every one of those moments made me who I am as I sit here and type this.

That’s what we all are, folks. We are a compilation of every moment we’ve ever lived and experienced in this life. It MAKES us who we are; be those moments good, bad, or indifferent. Were just one wee little thing to have been different in any one of those moments it would make us different in the now. This is something that I realized and understood a quite a young age. I’ve always been amazed by it.

I grew up in the early 1960s; the son of Depression Era/WWII parents and the grandson of WWI/Roaring Twenties grandparents. Their influences on me most definitely have shaped me, as did my older brother, his friends, and the Vietnam Era, which to this day still haunts me somewhat. I was a wee too young to have participated in that conflict, but my brother and his friends were definitely illegible for that HELL. My brother was lucky. Many others were not.

Even the music of my parents’ era and my own has affected me in many ways. You can look at my custom playlists on YouTube to see that influence. I occasionally post music on social media (Diaspora Network). Many folks that interact with me on that site can relate to that music. Yes, I tend to play the same songs over and over, but each and every song is a memory. People can take away many things from you throughout your life, but they cannot take your memories; short of maiming you/killing you.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the tragedy at Kent State in Ohio back in 1970. I clearly remember the news stories on TV and in the newspapers back then. I look back now and am struck by the fact that these were all just kids; the students and the Guardsmen involved in this event. Those were also just kids stepping on punji sticks and getting their asses blown off by rigged dud 105mm rounds in the mud and muck of Vietnam.

War, any war, is a horrendously Hellish thing. I have conflicting feelings about never having personally experienced it, yet being damned happy that I didn’t. I’ve know and have known many friends, family members, co-workers, etc. who did have those experiences. It affected them throughout their entire lives. Somethings cannot be unseen.

So, when you’re sitting around reminiscing during your day, don’t fret that you are wasting time. You’re not. You are experiencing all that you have experienced. Without those moments, our experiences of them, and our memories, we are truly nothing but mist. My father told me once, “Son, you’re never truly gone from this place until everyone who remembers you is gone.” There is some truth to that.

I tip a glass of whiskey occasionally, as some of you know. I’ve had a toast for my first drink for many years now. If alone, I speak it aloud; if in company of others, I speak it in my head… “To all those whom I love and miss…” Remember, you can’t change what’s past, but you can look back on it and learn from it, cherish it, and know that EVERY MOMENT made you.

Peace!

Posted by on 5 May 2023 in Philosophica, Reminiscences and tagged , , , , , .

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29 March 2023

PBS American Experience – Aired March 28, 2023

This is just a quickie posting here, folks. I wanted to alert my three readers that there was a very interesting episode of American Experience on PBS last night. You can watch it any time by visiting the American Experience website.

The Movement and the “Madman”

The Movement and the “Madman” shows how two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969 — the largest the country had ever seen — pressured President Nixon to cancel what he called his “madman” plans for a massive escalation of the U.S. war in Vietnam, including a threat to use nuclear weapons. At the time, protestors had no idea how influential they could be and how many lives they may have saved.

Any folks out there who, like me, lived through the Vietnam Era or just have an interest in that time period in American History should click the link above and stream this program. You’ll be amazed. You’ll also see parallels to today’s issues.

I’ve always had and always will have extreme respect for that generation of kids who stood up and said, “We’re NOT taking this bullshit anymore!” Their efforts, work, risks, and sorrows/successes will remain in my heart for the rest of my life. We should all be thankful for what they accomplished. Learn from this, you younger folks out there. Learn from it!

Ta-Ta for now…

~E.

Image credit – wagingnonviolence.org

Posted by on 29 March 2023 in History and tagged , , , , , .

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29 March 2023

Technology and Its Negative Effects on the Psyche

In psychology, the psyche/ˈsaɪki/ is the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious.[1] Many thinkers, including Carl Jung, also include in this definition the overlap and tension between the personal and the collective elements in man.[2]*

Initially I was going to post this on my Nocturnal Slacker v2.0 blog, which is a more general topic blog as opposed to this more “technical” blog here. However, the topic involves technical and non-technical items, so I decided to just post it on both blogs.

I’m sure many of you younger folks out here have heard some old codger (dad, uncle, etc.) make a statement thus: “Yeah, things were a lot simpler back in …” It seems that the older one gets, the more one seems to long for the fondly remembered past. I sat around with my parents, aunts & uncles for years listening to conversations like that. Then one day, I woke up and realized I was an old codger.

So, a little explanation about that longing for the past…

Don’t misunderstand them when they mention their regret about losing those “simpler” times in their youths. The word “simpler” here is meant as “less complicated”; not necessarily easier, though. This is an important distinction that you need to understand, so I’ll explain a bit further.

Yes, times were quite a bit simpler back in my youthful days. They were simpler because they lacked the technologies that have since made the world a much different place. This happens from generation to generation. When I was a young man, everyday things such as telephones, television, modern automobiles, tools & gadgets and such, were “normal” for me, but my parents had none of those things in their youths.

Nowadays, we have the Internet, portable telephone devices, digital cameras, etc. I had none of that in my youth. The world was still out there doing its thing when my parents were young and when I was young, we just weren’t as exposed to it as much as we are currently in 2023. Back in my youth, most “news” was of the “local” variety. There were, of course, stories of worldwide events. I was a child of the Vietnam Era. I’m quite familiar with the effects of watching the “world’s first ever” televised war. I also watched the Watergate hearings, the moon landing, and many other events back then.

However, I was not BARRAGED with this news on a daily basis as I am every morning nowadays when I login to the Internet. It’s splattered constantly on social networks, in my email newsletters, on forums/boards and other sites all over the Internet. It begins to cause sensory overload. In spite of the fact that I’ve been a relatively cynical and jaded individual for most of my life, this constant tsunami of horrendously bad news that I receive each day on the Internet is having a negative effect on my daily life.

So, yes… I long for the simpler days. They weren’t any easier. I still had to struggle for my daily bread. I still had to deal with things I hated… traffic, senseless laws/rules, asshole bosses, illness, heartache, etc. Every generation of mankind deals with similar difficulties every day of their lives. It’s nothing new, folks. However, what is new is the added broadband splatter interference of IN-YOUR-FACE media coverage from all sources. Good news doesn’t sell ad space, folks. The more horrendous the news is the more profitable it becomes for the purveyors of it.

Yesterday morning, I realized something that I had probably realized long ago, but it came to a head yesterday. I realized that my mornings started out pretty wonderful, but shortly after getting online, happiness would degrade. It wasn’t bad everyday, but some days were definitely worse than others. It made me think, “Why am I dealing with this shit?” I don’t have to do it. I can “simplify” my own life a bit.

So, I decided to remove myself from my social networks, email newsletters, some forums/boards, etc. Is this a viable solution? Probably not. We have all become addicted to modern technologies like the Internet, cell phones, streaming TV, etc. It’s going to be a hard habit to break, I believe.

Which leads me to the main point of this article…

Is this detrimental to humans? Is it causing undo stress, strife, belligerence, passivity, etc. in our psyches? Think about this, as you’ve been reading here, do you experience this overload? Does it sometimes change your outlook or demeanor throughout your day? If it is having this effect on many of us, how is that going to turn out? How, more importantly, is it affecting our children? What warpage in their understanding and image of the world will this cause for them? Is our technology creating tomorrow’s psychopathic killers? Think about it for a while.

What are the solutions to today’s information overload?

The creators of the modern technologies, particularly the Internet, that we all “enjoy” on a daily basis mostly had wondrous and stupendously beautiful dreams of what their technology would do for mankind. Sadly, though, the big-brained monkeys (H. sapiens) have an extremely well-developed talent for corrupting beauty in this world.

I have no solutions.

PEACE & Keep on Rockin’, friends!

~E.

Image credits:

s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com (image 1)

technofaq.org (image 2)

iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu (image 3)

*from THIS Wikipedia article

Posted by on 29 March 2023 in Mind and Body and tagged , , , , , .

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10 January 2023

Death and Mr. Pickwick by Stephen Jarvis – a review

Death and Mr. Pickwick by Stephen Jarvis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A 5-Star rating is something I try not to give too often. However, in the case of this book, I’m going to have to do just that; mostly because of the time and effort the author must have put into the writing of this tome. The content, of course, is also an important aspect of my rating.

A funny little story about this book…

Quite a few years ago, a group of friends were having an ongoing discussion about Dickens and his books/stories. We had a specific thread going just for The Pickwick Papers, formerly known as The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, written in series fashion by Charles Dickens starting in March of 1836. The first two monthly serials were illustrated by Robert Seymour.

A fellow (the author – Stephen Jarvis) contacted me after seeing our Pickwick discussion. He introduced himself and explained to me that he was in the process of writing a book that would be following the history of Seymour’s involvement along with Dickens’ input in the publication of this serial. He asked me to take a look at his forthcoming book once it was published. He may have even reminded me of this when the book actually did come out in the stores. I don’t remember.

Anyway, I always remembered this fellow and the conversation we had back and forth a couple times regarding Dickens, Seymour, and this fellow’s upcoming book. When the book finally did come out back in 2015, I think, I jotted a note to give it a go, but Life, as it often does, butted in. I had forgotten this book until scrolling through my ebook library on my Nook and remembered acquiring the book a few years previous to now.

Well, I’ve read this book… and am thoroughly impressed, and slightly awed by what I know must have been a MAJOR research and writing effort for Mr. Jarvis. I’m also quite sure this was a long, long time labor of love for him; possibly a bit of an obsession. That’s a good thing because regardless of his motivation, the book was completed and published so that we could read and enjoy it.

The story is a fictionalized (or is it?) very detailed accounting of the history of the initial idea and development of the Pickwick characters and themes. For those of you who don’t know about this, there has been a long running debate on who/when/how Pickwick got its start. Did the illustrator Seymour come up with the idea first or did Dickens? Personally, from my own bits of research over the years, I’ve always leaned toward Seymour. What Mr. Jarvis does in this book, is create a story (or is it just a story?) to explain this longstanding debate.

Any of you out there interested in Dickens, Pickwick, early 19th century England and its literary and other histories will very much enjoy reading this book. It’s an intriguing, detailed, and somewhat sad story. Pick up a copy and give it a go. You may enjoy it as much as I did.



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Posted by on 10 January 2023 in Books and Literature and tagged , , , , , , , .

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21 December 2022

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell – a review

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I had been meaning to read this book since about 2005 when I saw it on the shelf at my local public library. I looked it over at that time and decided against it, but with thoughts of reading at some future time. A few years later, the movie with Tom Hanks came out and I again thought about reading this book, but didn’t. I’ve learned over the years that sometimes you just have to wait till you’re “ready” for a book. I was ready for it this time.

All books are unique in their own ways, of course, but some are just exceptionally unique. This book is one of those. I’ve been a life-long reader and have read thousands of books; some memorable, some not-so-much. Cloud Atlas will stay with me for many years to come. I’ll not summarize the plot for you in this review. It’s actually not possible to do so, as far as I’m concerned.

This book has layer upon layer of meaning. It’s a history book, a suspense novel, a tragi-comic yarn, etc. What it really is, though, is a philosophical thesis disguised as a fiction novel. Mitchell has something to say here. He employees an interesting means of saying it. There’s a moral to the story, folks. I should hope you would see that by the time you’ve reached that last page.

I experienced many emotions while reading Cloud Atlas; ultimately, though, realities of life reminded me of many things in this world that could stand some improvement. Don’t let this scare you away. Read this book! It’s not going to be for everyone, though. Mitchell intertwines much actual history and philosophy mixed with some laugh-out-loud moments and sadness. Some readers may miss much of this as they’re reading the book, though.

I initially rated this book with 4-stars leaning toward 4.5; however, upon writing this review, I decided that 5-stars is just necessary. The only drawback I can truly claim as bothersome to me is also one of the unique aspects of the book itself. The first person accounts written using the actual idiom of the storytellers was difficult to read at times; particularly the dialect of the character Zachry, a Hawaiian islander.

Try this book, folks. You may be pleasantly surprised. As with all good books, it should make you think. It should wrangle some emotions for you. It should cause regret when you’ve turned over that last page in the back of the book. It could possibly entice you to read it again one day.



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Posted by on 21 December 2022 in Books and Literature and tagged , , , , , , .

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11 November 2022

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons – a review

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have a slew of adjectives to use to describe my experience of cramming this 900+ page book down in just 8 days of reading. The very first one that comes to mind, though, even as I was only about 100 pages into this book (not counting the excellent 20th Anniversary 50+ pages of introduction by the author), is DISTURBING. The others that come to mind: raw, excellent, intricate, horrific, detailed, well-researched, interesting, unnecessarily long-ish, etc.

I’ve read many of Simmons’ books over the years. This one was pure Dan Simmons, yet you can also tell (introduction aside) that Carrion Comfort was a bit of an obsession for the author. It took so long and so much wrangling for it to actually get published and put on the shelves at the bookstores and libraries; it had to have been frustrating for Simmons. We all have our windmills; Don Quixote was not that unique in that regard.

I do definitely recommend this book. However, there are some caveats… it’s going to disturb you. It’s going to make you think. It’s going to possibly resemble current events (politics, religion, racism, antisemitism, wars, bloodshed, suffering of innocents, and so on…) in some ways, even though it was written quite a few decades ago. It’s probably going to cause you some discomfort while you’re reading it. All these things are the thoughts and emotions that a talented writer should elicit from his/her readers. Last warning, though… this book is NOT for everyone. Many of you will be horrified and turned away within the first few chapters. Still, if you’re up for it, it is one HELLUVA book!



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Posted by on 11 November 2022 in Books and Literature and tagged , , .

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