I have slowly built up a love for everything concise, starting with my first experiences with Ernest Hemingway and carrying over into my appreciation for the likes of McCarthy, Silko, and Salinger. My interest in the styles of these writers hopelessly carried over into my own writing, and as a result, my current vision of the most basic elements of "the story."
I found this book to be a remarkable gem of a story. Its spare and controlled prose paint a somber picture of the effect of War on John at the cusp of his adulthood. I could not help but compare this book to Remarque's All Quiet On The Western Front and notice how similarly--and yet also how differently--the effects of war are presented.
There was much less of an emphasis on the brutality of the war than Remarque's novel, but I appreciated that. I feel as though the focus of the book was on John's transformation from "conscientious objector" to veteran, and all of the emotional weight that the war and his abandonment of Ginny puts on him.
I liked the format of the story--the memoirs of an aging and lonely veteran. I have this thing about books that try and capture real moments and relationships with real ambiguity and real heartache. I think this book succeeds in that it doesn't cross the border to "too depressing" or "unrealistically uneventful" in trying to portray these complex issues.
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