The Vintage Book of War Stories

As I'm a sucker for short story anthologies, I was somewhat disappointed to find out that these are not stories, but mostly excerpts from novels about twentieth-century wars. Still, I can imagine worse stuff to read than, say, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Heinrich Böll, Ernest Hemingway, Italo Calvino, and Shusako Endo. Although the books quoted were written at different moments and in different places, there is an unnerving consistency in the portrayal of cruel, dramatic events. Unlike any other event, it seems, war picks people up and sweeps them away, a bit like a natural disaster, only longer-lasting and much more destructive.
Posted by cronopio at 10:52 PM, April 30, 2004