Richard Flannigan's book about Australian POWs in WWII who were tasked with the impossible, building a railroad from Siam to Burma under harrowing conditions,
is a heart wrencher.
The prose is poetic, and a beautiful contrast to the horrific tale he tells.
A haunting love story is peppered through out.
The soul soars, the soul breaks.
“A good book, he had concluded, leaves you wanting to reread the book.
A
great book compels you to reread your own soul. Such books were for him
rare and, as he aged, rarer. Still he searched, one more Ithaca for
which he was forever bound.”
“For the world did not change, this violence had always existed and
would never be eradicated, men would die under the boot and fists and
horror of other men until the end of time, and all human history was a
history of violence.”
“It's only our faith in illusions that makes life possible.
It's believing in reality that does us in every time.”
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