Do you really? You'll have to show it to me sometime -- I'll wear my white gloves. Your copy has only 4 chapters; the version I read has a 5th chapter ("The Aftermath") that Hersey wrote 40 yrs after the original piece, which took up one entire issue of the New Yorker, Aug 31, 1946 -- man would I love to have a copy of THAT.
And that last comment is why I'm currently reading a book called "Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things." I've only read 40 pages and already I think I understand myself better.
You, my dear, are the complete opposite of a hoarder, but you didn't need me to tell you that. (And that's a compliment in case it wasn't clear.)
Sorry I didn't answer my own question sooner. The novel by JC Oates sent me into a week-long mental funk, but Hiroshima, a nonfiction account of the 1945 bombing of that city, was oddly uplifting. Oates' story of the painful disintegration of a family of six -- two nice parents, four nice kids, cats, dogs, and other assorted animals -- got under my skin all too effectively. The sign of a good writer? Maybe, but this is not a subject the mother of two 20-something kids who aren't settled yet needs to read about. Knowing that Japan managed to recover** and even prosper after the horror of a nuclear attack gives me hope about the current nuclear disaster in that country.
**Not that I'm ignoring the thousands of cases of cancer and disfigurement and other side effects of the attack.
4 comments:
Hiroshima? PS - I have a first ed.
Do you really? You'll have to show it to me sometime -- I'll wear my white gloves. Your copy has only 4 chapters; the version I read has a 5th chapter ("The Aftermath") that Hersey wrote 40 yrs after the original piece, which took up one entire issue of the New Yorker, Aug 31, 1946 -- man would I love to have a copy of THAT.
And that last comment is why I'm currently reading a book called "Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things." I've only read 40 pages and already I think I understand myself better.
You, my dear, are the complete opposite of a hoarder, but you didn't need me to tell you that. (And that's a compliment in case it wasn't clear.)
Hmmmm...do I really need to guess?
Sorry I didn't answer my own question sooner. The novel by JC Oates sent me into a week-long mental funk, but Hiroshima, a nonfiction account of the 1945 bombing of that city, was oddly uplifting. Oates' story of the painful disintegration of a family of six -- two nice parents, four nice kids, cats, dogs, and other assorted animals -- got under my skin all too effectively. The sign of a good writer? Maybe, but this is not a subject the mother of two 20-something kids who aren't settled yet needs to read about. Knowing that Japan managed to recover** and even prosper after the horror of a nuclear attack gives me hope about the current nuclear disaster in that country.
**Not that I'm ignoring the thousands of cases of cancer and disfigurement and other side effects of the attack.
Post a Comment