Thursday, July 6, 2023 Book Review: The Railway Man

I’ve been writing book reviews on Goodreads for a number of years now. I started writing them to help me remember the content of the books. Have you ever had the experience of starting a book and realizing partway through that it’s eerily familiar? And then you realize…oh, I’m pretty sure I’ve read this before. That’s happened to me a few times, so that’s when I started doing book reviews. In fact, they’re not always “reviews” in the strictest sense of the word, like someone who is assessing the writer’s style and the book content. Most of the time I just write my impressions of the book and even plot summaries if I feel so moved.

So, all of that is just a wordy way of introduction to the fact that I’m going to start sharing some of these book reviews on my blog. I’d love to know if you’ve read the same book and what you thought. Or if you read my review and decided to read the book. Here’s the first one!

Eric Lomax, who just died in 2012, survived enormously cruel torture at the hands of the Japanese as a POW during World War II. His story is eloquently told in this book, written over 50 years after the war. His love and passion for trains is interwoven throughout the book and in his own words, “The passion for trains and railways is, I have been told, incurable. I have also learned that there is no cure for torture. These two afflictions have been intimately linked in the course of my life, and yet through some chance combination of luck and grace I have survived them both. But it took me nearly fifty years to surmount the consequences of torture.” It is not surprising that he found it difficult to talk of his experiences, nor is it surprising that he struggled with anger and seething hatred, particularly for one Japanese man, the interpreter during the interrogations. What is surprising is what happened when he came across, by curious coincidence (I prefer to think of it as Providence) an article written by this very man, reflecting on his own struggles to overcome the effects of the war. Neither the tormented nor the tormentor are immune from the effects of cruelty. The subtitle of the book is “A True Story of War, Remembrance, and Forgiveness.” I will not soon forget the horrors of cruelty told here; however, I will remember even longer the transcendent grace of forgiveness demonstrated in this man’s life and story. (Review written by Lynniebee in 2013, book published in 1996)

I came across a great quote today by John Cheever:

“I can’t write without a reader.
It’s precisely like a kiss – you can’t do it alone.”

That’s how I feel. Writing needs a reader and I need you. Thanks for following me and for the conversations we have through your comments.

I’ll probably derail this in t—