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The Young Lions
The Young Lions is a vivid and classic novel that portrays the experiences of ordinary soldiers fighting World War II. Told from the points of view of a perceptive young Nazi, a jaded American film producer, and a shy Jewish boy just married to the love of his life, Shaw conveys, as no other novelist has since, the scope, confusion, and complexity of war.
662 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1948
About the author
Irwin Shaw
247 books407 followersShaw was born Irwin Gilbert Shamforoff in the South Bronx, New York City, to Russian Jewish immigrants. Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for his novels, The Young Lions (1948) and Rich Man Poor Man (1970).
His parents were Rose and Will. His younger brother, David Shaw (died 2007), became a noted Hollywood producer. Shortly after Irwin's birth, the Shamforoffs moved to Brooklyn. Irwin changed his surname upon entering college. He spent most of his youth in Brooklyn, where he graduated from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934.
Shaw began screenwriting in 1935 at the age of 21, and scripted for several radio shows, including Dick Tracy, The Gumps and Studio One.
Shaw's first play, Bury the Dead (1936) was an expressionist drama about a group of soldiers killed in a battle who refuse to be buried. During the 1940s, Shaw wrote for a number of films, including Talk of the Town (a comedy about civil liberties), The Commandos Strike at Dawn (based on a C.S. Forester story about commandos in occupied Norway) and Easy Living (about a football player unable to enter the game due to a medical condition). Shaw married Marian Edwards. They had one son, Adam Shaw, born in 1950, himself a writer of magazine articles and non-fiction.
Shaw enlisted in the U.S. Army and was a warrant officer during World War II.He served with an Army documentary film unit. The Young Lions, Shaw's first novel, was published in 1949. Based on his experiences in Europe during the war, the novel was very successful and was adapted into a 1958 film.
Shaw's second novel, The Troubled Air, chronicling the rise of McCarthyism, was published in 1951. He was among those who signed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo convictions for contempt of Congress, resulting from hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Falsely accused of being a communist by the Red Channels publication, Shaw was placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses. In 1951 he left the United States and went to Europe, where he lived for 25 years, mostly in Paris and Switzerland. He later claimed that the blacklist "only glancingly bruised" his career. During the 1950s he wrote several more screenplays, including Desire Under the Elms (based on Eugene O'Neill's play) and Fire Down Below (about a tramp boat in the Caribbean).
While living in Europe, Shaw wrote more bestselling books, notably Lucy Crown (1956), Two Weeks in Another Town (1960), Rich Man, Poor Man (1970) (for which he would later write a less successful sequel entitled Beggarman, Thief) and Evening in Byzantium (made into a 1978 TV movie). Rich Man, Poor Man was adapted into a highly successful ABC television miniseries in 1976.
His novel Top of the Hill, about the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid in 1980, was made into a TV movie, starring Wayne Rogers, Adrienne Barbeau, and Sonny Bono.
His last two novels were Bread Upon the Waters (1981) and Acceptable Losses (1982).
Shaw died in Davos, Switzerland on May 16, 1984, aged 71, after undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.
His parents were Rose and Will. His younger brother, David Shaw (died 2007), became a noted Hollywood producer. Shortly after Irwin's birth, the Shamforoffs moved to Brooklyn. Irwin changed his surname upon entering college. He spent most of his youth in Brooklyn, where he graduated from Brooklyn College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1934.
Shaw began screenwriting in 1935 at the age of 21, and scripted for several radio shows, including Dick Tracy, The Gumps and Studio One.
Shaw's first play, Bury the Dead (1936) was an expressionist drama about a group of soldiers killed in a battle who refuse to be buried. During the 1940s, Shaw wrote for a number of films, including Talk of the Town (a comedy about civil liberties), The Commandos Strike at Dawn (based on a C.S. Forester story about commandos in occupied Norway) and Easy Living (about a football player unable to enter the game due to a medical condition). Shaw married Marian Edwards. They had one son, Adam Shaw, born in 1950, himself a writer of magazine articles and non-fiction.
Shaw enlisted in the U.S. Army and was a warrant officer during World War II.He served with an Army documentary film unit. The Young Lions, Shaw's first novel, was published in 1949. Based on his experiences in Europe during the war, the novel was very successful and was adapted into a 1958 film.
Shaw's second novel, The Troubled Air, chronicling the rise of McCarthyism, was published in 1951. He was among those who signed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the John Howard Lawson and Dalton Trumbo convictions for contempt of Congress, resulting from hearings by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Falsely accused of being a communist by the Red Channels publication, Shaw was placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses. In 1951 he left the United States and went to Europe, where he lived for 25 years, mostly in Paris and Switzerland. He later claimed that the blacklist "only glancingly bruised" his career. During the 1950s he wrote several more screenplays, including Desire Under the Elms (based on Eugene O'Neill's play) and Fire Down Below (about a tramp boat in the Caribbean).
While living in Europe, Shaw wrote more bestselling books, notably Lucy Crown (1956), Two Weeks in Another Town (1960), Rich Man, Poor Man (1970) (for which he would later write a less successful sequel entitled Beggarman, Thief) and Evening in Byzantium (made into a 1978 TV movie). Rich Man, Poor Man was adapted into a highly successful ABC television miniseries in 1976.
His novel Top of the Hill, about the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid in 1980, was made into a TV movie, starring Wayne Rogers, Adrienne Barbeau, and Sonny Bono.
His last two novels were Bread Upon the Waters (1981) and Acceptable Losses (1982).
Shaw died in Davos, Switzerland on May 16, 1984, aged 71, after undergoing treatment for prostate cancer.
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November 11, 2019
”This time it is not a simple, understandable war, within the same culture. This time it is an assault of the animal world upon the house of the human being. I don’t know what you saw in Africa and Italy, but I know what I saw in Russia and Poland. We made a cemetery a thousand miles long and a thousand miles wide. Men, women, children, Poles, Russians, Jews, it made no difference. It could not be compared to any human action. It could be compared to a weasel in a henhouse. It was as though we felt that if we left anything alive in the East, it would one day bear witness against us and condemn us. And, now, we have made the final mistake. We are losing the war.”
After World War II there was a rush by writers to throw off their uniforms , blow the dust off their typewriters, and write the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. There were four big contenders two of which came out in 1948, The Naked and the Dead and The Young Lions. The other two came out a few years later From Here to Eternity and The Caine Mutiny.
James Jones
All four were blockbuster bestsellers and were sold to Hollywood to make movies. The desire by the public for those weighty World War Two books was nearly insatiable. I have had the pleasure to read three of the four of these books. The Caine Mutiny I read and reviewed this year and was surprised at how much I liked it. The Naked and the Dead I read fifteen years ago and remember it being clunky with brief blips of brilliance. Norman Mailer staked most of his reputation on that book and I can’t believe as he got older he didn’t get itchy fingers to go back through that book and streamline the narrative. From Here to Eternity I have not read, but for those of you that have been following my reading progress long enough you can probably guess I will be reading it.
John Cheever knew Irwin Shaw and I recently read the Bailey bio Cheever which recorded a few of John’s reactions to Shaw. Cheever had attempted to have a Hollywood career with very disappointing results especially early on, but Shaw on the other hand embraced Hollywood and was hauling wheelbarrows full of cash out of Hollywood a situation that Cheever could only dream about. Shaw had the flashy clothes, the sporty cars, and the girls pretty enough to be mistaken for starlets. He was LIVING LARGE. Cheever had every right to be mystified and jealous of Shaw’s success.
If Shaw had been so fortunate to have the great Maxwell Perkins as his editor this book might have ended up mentioned in the same breath as The Great Gatsby. Oddly enough Perkins’s last great find was James Jones. A young man he convinced to abandon the novel he was working on and start working on From Here to Eternity. Unfortunately Perkins died in 1947 so his editing genius did not come into play on From Here to Eternity. Now Irwin Shaw is a great writer, in fact I remember reading two of his short stories in college "The Eighty-Yard Run" and "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses," and they were excellent. Some might even say they are classics. From some of the commentary I have read those who know better than me feel that Shaw excelled at the short form of writing.
An earnest, Young Irwin Shaw
The thing of it is you don’t become famous, generally, for writing short stories. Nobody talks about writing the GREAT AMERICAN SHORT STORY. You can be respected and whispered about at cocktail parties and even land a nice teaching gig at a prestigious college with the bonus of fawning coeds, but you will always look with longing at the figure of the writer that walks into the room and at least has the illusion that he has written a great American novel (and yes I’m thinking of Norman Mailer). Plus there is the added irritation of everyone saying great story in the New Yorker, but when are you going to write a novel?
Irwin Shaw had everything he needed to write the Great American Novel. He shot photography during the war which provided a wonderful source of material. He developed three wonderful characters with different backgrounds which allowed Shaw to explore all aspects of human nature and cultural divides. He wrote these sparkling, witty conversations and showed an understanding of psychology and desire. Most important of all he had THE WAR to provide the epic backdrop to display the human pageantry at its best and worst.
He wrote a great novel.
A novel that needed a trim...just a smidgen off the top...we aren’t talking Thomas Wolfe hedge clippers just a pair of scissors that could snip a little here and a little there.
The scope of what he took on in this novel is simply astounding. I can only imagine the wrestling matches he had with his own brain to keep the faith and keep banging away at the keys. I can only speculate as to the copious amounts of alcohol that was required to keep him feeding more pages into the maw of the tiger. In fact I’m thinking if I keep writing I’m going to need stiff martini to get to the meat of this review.
As I mentioned earlier there are three fascinating characters that Shaw created to build his plots around. The first was Noah Ackerman, a newlywed, who at first is classified 4F because of scars on his lungs, but as the war goes on he is reclassified. The scars on his lungs have miraculously disappeared as the Army finds itself in need of more and more bodies. He feels he has a bigger stake in the war because he is Jewish. After meeting and marrying his darling Hope his desire to go to war has been greatly reduced, but once he is at basic training he is determined to show everyone that Jews are worthy to be in this fight. He is disappointed to discover that the majority of the men he is training with are anti-semitic and feel that Jews are the reason they have been drafted.
Montgomery Clift as Noah Ackerman in the movie version
One exception is Michael Whiteacre a producer of plays who turned down all offers from the people he is connected with to land a cushy commission. He is determined to go into the army as a buck private. As one friend said to him. ”You won’t be content until you get a bullet in the balls.” Whiteacre quickly regrets his decision once he finds out that the men that will be forming up his company are mostly made up of uneducated hillbillies who spend most of their minuscule brain power trying to find new ways to torture Noah. The glamorous life he took for granted: drinking gin martinis, squiring a bevy of beauties from one hotspot to the next, and engaging in shallow, but entertaining conversations with writers does not translate to the Army. The skills he had in civilian life that made him comfortably wealthy are of little value to the military. He swallows his pride and makes a call to a friend who pulls some strings and gets him attached to a group providing entertainment to the troops overseas.
Dean Martin as Michael Whiteacre in the movie version.
When Michael Whiteacre comes before the draft board, consisting of pinched, gray faced old men it reminded me of a guy I used to work for named Norm. Whenever my Dad didn’t have me on a tractor or stacking hay or delivering salt blocks to pastures I would run over to the local greenhouse and see if Norm had anything for me to do. Usually I planted trees or mixed up planting soil or unpacked boxes of plants. With his greenhouse he also had a flea market and ever so often there would be a crate of books that Norm had bought usually with a whole load of other crap. Norm didn’t ever buy books on purpose. He always allowed me to take whatever books I wanted. He also paid me a pittance that at least could keep gas in my 1972 Pontiac LeMans.
One day Norm was out helping me dig irrigation channels and said out of the blue that he used to own a grocery store. He was called into the draft board for Korea which was surprising since he was on the high end of the age requirements. Chairing the draft board was his competitor who we will just call Greedy Bastard. Now GB owned the only other grocery store in the county and after he sent Norm in the army to dig missile silos in South Dakota he doubled the size of his store. Norm had to close his store and move his mother, who he supported, in with one of his siblings. When he was discharged from the army, where I’m sure he performed some wonderful shovel work for the government, he just didn’t have the capital to compete against GBs store anymore. It took years and years for him to scrape together enough money to finally open the greenhouse. He wasn’t alone I’ve heard many other stories about decisions made by draft boards that may have been more personal than professional.
The third character is Christian Diestl, a German soldier who was a ski instructor before the war. He comes under the influence of a Lieutenant Hardenberg. A man he despises, but begins to admire. Hardenberg is always sharing his version of soldier wisdom. ”Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven.
When Christian gets leave to go to Berlin, Hardenberg sends him with a gift to give his wife. When Christian meets Gretchen Hardenberg he becomes obsessed with her. He wanted to devour her and all her thoughts, possessions, vices, desires.She is living a lifestyle much different from her former life as a school teacher. She has beaus from Generals down to Corporals. She tells them what she wants and they provide it in the hopes that they can spend more time with her. Christian is no exception.
Marlon Brando as Christian Diestl in the movie version
Diestl turns out to be a good soldier, a man I even admired early in the book, but as his sense of honor is eroded and his intent to survive outweighs all other considerations he becomes a man that finds he has a knack for killing and adjusting back to civilian life would not only be difficult, but nearly impossible. He does speculate about his life after the war and realizes that a man with no conscious is still very useful even in peacetime to those willing to pay to have problems disappear. Shaw shows how war will take this average man and turn him into a stone cold killer, a man unfit to live amongst us anymore.
Communism is touched on. Whiteacre is denied the opportunity to go to officer training later in the novel because he once donated money to a communist cause in Spain. Diestl is also denied a much needed transfer back to Berlin, to be near Gretchen, because he had once belonged to the Communist party. Both sides were already more than suspicious of any hint of Communist attachment.
Women are not depicted in the best light in this novel, most are opportunistic, unfaithful, and treacherous, not exactly my vision of the prettier half of THE GREATEST GENERATION. As our protagonists work their way across Europe there are whole hosts of married women in England, France, and Germany who provide companionship for each new wave of soldiers while their husbands are probably off in Africa, Italy, Russia or France sleeping with someone else’s wife. Wives back home are writing letters explaining the new baby that arrived even though their husband has been away at war for two years. World War Two might have been one of the largest wife swapping events in the history of the world, or at least Shaw would lead one to think so.
1958 Movie Poster
Shaw handles the three plot lines deftly. I did not find myself frustrated as I have been with other books when the author trundles away from a more interesting plot line to pick up the threads of another. I was hooked from the beginning to see how Shaw intended to bring the three plot lines together. The movie is reported to be not as grim as the novel, which doesn't surprise me, but I am looking forward to seeing it. I feel there was an opportunity missed to write a magnificent novel; but even so, I enjoyed the novel immensely and will even say it had moments of greatness.
If you would like to read what I thought about the other World War Two blockbuster The Caine Mutiny my review is here My Caine Mutiny Review
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
After World War II there was a rush by writers to throw off their uniforms , blow the dust off their typewriters, and write the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. There were four big contenders two of which came out in 1948, The Naked and the Dead and The Young Lions. The other two came out a few years later From Here to Eternity and The Caine Mutiny.
James Jones
All four were blockbuster bestsellers and were sold to Hollywood to make movies. The desire by the public for those weighty World War Two books was nearly insatiable. I have had the pleasure to read three of the four of these books. The Caine Mutiny I read and reviewed this year and was surprised at how much I liked it. The Naked and the Dead I read fifteen years ago and remember it being clunky with brief blips of brilliance. Norman Mailer staked most of his reputation on that book and I can’t believe as he got older he didn’t get itchy fingers to go back through that book and streamline the narrative. From Here to Eternity I have not read, but for those of you that have been following my reading progress long enough you can probably guess I will be reading it.
John Cheever knew Irwin Shaw and I recently read the Bailey bio Cheever which recorded a few of John’s reactions to Shaw. Cheever had attempted to have a Hollywood career with very disappointing results especially early on, but Shaw on the other hand embraced Hollywood and was hauling wheelbarrows full of cash out of Hollywood a situation that Cheever could only dream about. Shaw had the flashy clothes, the sporty cars, and the girls pretty enough to be mistaken for starlets. He was LIVING LARGE. Cheever had every right to be mystified and jealous of Shaw’s success.
”My father’s a black market grocer,
My mother makes illegal gin,
My sister sells sin on the corner,
Kee-rist, how the money rolls in!”
If Shaw had been so fortunate to have the great Maxwell Perkins as his editor this book might have ended up mentioned in the same breath as The Great Gatsby. Oddly enough Perkins’s last great find was James Jones. A young man he convinced to abandon the novel he was working on and start working on From Here to Eternity. Unfortunately Perkins died in 1947 so his editing genius did not come into play on From Here to Eternity. Now Irwin Shaw is a great writer, in fact I remember reading two of his short stories in college "The Eighty-Yard Run" and "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses," and they were excellent. Some might even say they are classics. From some of the commentary I have read those who know better than me feel that Shaw excelled at the short form of writing.
An earnest, Young Irwin Shaw
The thing of it is you don’t become famous, generally, for writing short stories. Nobody talks about writing the GREAT AMERICAN SHORT STORY. You can be respected and whispered about at cocktail parties and even land a nice teaching gig at a prestigious college with the bonus of fawning coeds, but you will always look with longing at the figure of the writer that walks into the room and at least has the illusion that he has written a great American novel (and yes I’m thinking of Norman Mailer). Plus there is the added irritation of everyone saying great story in the New Yorker, but when are you going to write a novel?
Irwin Shaw had everything he needed to write the Great American Novel. He shot photography during the war which provided a wonderful source of material. He developed three wonderful characters with different backgrounds which allowed Shaw to explore all aspects of human nature and cultural divides. He wrote these sparkling, witty conversations and showed an understanding of psychology and desire. Most important of all he had THE WAR to provide the epic backdrop to display the human pageantry at its best and worst.
He wrote a great novel.
A novel that needed a trim...just a smidgen off the top...we aren’t talking Thomas Wolfe hedge clippers just a pair of scissors that could snip a little here and a little there.
The scope of what he took on in this novel is simply astounding. I can only imagine the wrestling matches he had with his own brain to keep the faith and keep banging away at the keys. I can only speculate as to the copious amounts of alcohol that was required to keep him feeding more pages into the maw of the tiger. In fact I’m thinking if I keep writing I’m going to need stiff martini to get to the meat of this review.
As I mentioned earlier there are three fascinating characters that Shaw created to build his plots around. The first was Noah Ackerman, a newlywed, who at first is classified 4F because of scars on his lungs, but as the war goes on he is reclassified. The scars on his lungs have miraculously disappeared as the Army finds itself in need of more and more bodies. He feels he has a bigger stake in the war because he is Jewish. After meeting and marrying his darling Hope his desire to go to war has been greatly reduced, but once he is at basic training he is determined to show everyone that Jews are worthy to be in this fight. He is disappointed to discover that the majority of the men he is training with are anti-semitic and feel that Jews are the reason they have been drafted.
Montgomery Clift as Noah Ackerman in the movie version
One exception is Michael Whiteacre a producer of plays who turned down all offers from the people he is connected with to land a cushy commission. He is determined to go into the army as a buck private. As one friend said to him. ”You won’t be content until you get a bullet in the balls.” Whiteacre quickly regrets his decision once he finds out that the men that will be forming up his company are mostly made up of uneducated hillbillies who spend most of their minuscule brain power trying to find new ways to torture Noah. The glamorous life he took for granted: drinking gin martinis, squiring a bevy of beauties from one hotspot to the next, and engaging in shallow, but entertaining conversations with writers does not translate to the Army. The skills he had in civilian life that made him comfortably wealthy are of little value to the military. He swallows his pride and makes a call to a friend who pulls some strings and gets him attached to a group providing entertainment to the troops overseas.
Dean Martin as Michael Whiteacre in the movie version.
When Michael Whiteacre comes before the draft board, consisting of pinched, gray faced old men it reminded me of a guy I used to work for named Norm. Whenever my Dad didn’t have me on a tractor or stacking hay or delivering salt blocks to pastures I would run over to the local greenhouse and see if Norm had anything for me to do. Usually I planted trees or mixed up planting soil or unpacked boxes of plants. With his greenhouse he also had a flea market and ever so often there would be a crate of books that Norm had bought usually with a whole load of other crap. Norm didn’t ever buy books on purpose. He always allowed me to take whatever books I wanted. He also paid me a pittance that at least could keep gas in my 1972 Pontiac LeMans.
One day Norm was out helping me dig irrigation channels and said out of the blue that he used to own a grocery store. He was called into the draft board for Korea which was surprising since he was on the high end of the age requirements. Chairing the draft board was his competitor who we will just call Greedy Bastard. Now GB owned the only other grocery store in the county and after he sent Norm in the army to dig missile silos in South Dakota he doubled the size of his store. Norm had to close his store and move his mother, who he supported, in with one of his siblings. When he was discharged from the army, where I’m sure he performed some wonderful shovel work for the government, he just didn’t have the capital to compete against GBs store anymore. It took years and years for him to scrape together enough money to finally open the greenhouse. He wasn’t alone I’ve heard many other stories about decisions made by draft boards that may have been more personal than professional.
The third character is Christian Diestl, a German soldier who was a ski instructor before the war. He comes under the influence of a Lieutenant Hardenberg. A man he despises, but begins to admire. Hardenberg is always sharing his version of soldier wisdom. ”Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven.
When Christian gets leave to go to Berlin, Hardenberg sends him with a gift to give his wife. When Christian meets Gretchen Hardenberg he becomes obsessed with her. He wanted to devour her and all her thoughts, possessions, vices, desires.She is living a lifestyle much different from her former life as a school teacher. She has beaus from Generals down to Corporals. She tells them what she wants and they provide it in the hopes that they can spend more time with her. Christian is no exception.
Marlon Brando as Christian Diestl in the movie version
Diestl turns out to be a good soldier, a man I even admired early in the book, but as his sense of honor is eroded and his intent to survive outweighs all other considerations he becomes a man that finds he has a knack for killing and adjusting back to civilian life would not only be difficult, but nearly impossible. He does speculate about his life after the war and realizes that a man with no conscious is still very useful even in peacetime to those willing to pay to have problems disappear. Shaw shows how war will take this average man and turn him into a stone cold killer, a man unfit to live amongst us anymore.
Communism is touched on. Whiteacre is denied the opportunity to go to officer training later in the novel because he once donated money to a communist cause in Spain. Diestl is also denied a much needed transfer back to Berlin, to be near Gretchen, because he had once belonged to the Communist party. Both sides were already more than suspicious of any hint of Communist attachment.
Women are not depicted in the best light in this novel, most are opportunistic, unfaithful, and treacherous, not exactly my vision of the prettier half of THE GREATEST GENERATION. As our protagonists work their way across Europe there are whole hosts of married women in England, France, and Germany who provide companionship for each new wave of soldiers while their husbands are probably off in Africa, Italy, Russia or France sleeping with someone else’s wife. Wives back home are writing letters explaining the new baby that arrived even though their husband has been away at war for two years. World War Two might have been one of the largest wife swapping events in the history of the world, or at least Shaw would lead one to think so.
1958 Movie Poster
Shaw handles the three plot lines deftly. I did not find myself frustrated as I have been with other books when the author trundles away from a more interesting plot line to pick up the threads of another. I was hooked from the beginning to see how Shaw intended to bring the three plot lines together. The movie is reported to be not as grim as the novel, which doesn't surprise me, but I am looking forward to seeing it. I feel there was an opportunity missed to write a magnificent novel; but even so, I enjoyed the novel immensely and will even say it had moments of greatness.
If you would like to read what I thought about the other World War Two blockbuster The Caine Mutiny my review is here My Caine Mutiny Review
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
September 6, 2015
A 1948 classic I am extremely happy to have read. It was among a handful of novels about World War 2 written in its aftermath which were both popular and had high literary aims. I owe the read to Howard’s ranking it so high among WW2 fiction and to Jeffrey’s enticing and colorful review.
Shaw was a Brooklyn Jew who already had some success as a playwright and short story author before serving in the Army as a photographer with the Signal Corps. This provides some assurance of authenticity in his coverage of America preparing for war and of both the virtues and inefficiencies of the Army’s methods of training and deploying its forces. The critic Jonathan Yardley, in a 2009 re-read of a work that inspired him in his youth, nicely encapsulates the scope of the book in the Washington Post :
The novel's strengths, and they are considerable, lie in its depiction of America on the brink of war, of the brutal training conditions in the U.S. Army, of warfare itself, and of the evolving lives of the three young men who are its protagonists. These are Christian Diestl, a sergeant in the German army, a loyal but scarcely fanatical Nazi; Michael Whitacre, a stage manager for Broadway productions and, according to Salter, "in many respects, Shaw's representative in the novel"; and Noah Ackerman, a young Jewish American whose life has been "wandering and disordered" but who has begun to put things together after moving to New York.
… It begins in prewar America and Germany, marches resolutely through many of the war's most dramatic moments, and ends with the Allies on the brink of victory, the ironic aspects of which Shaw does not shy away from making clear.
Each of the three are engaging and are sympathetically portrayed as they undergo major transformations of character development from their experiences. In the first half of the book, as the American characters are in pre-war phases, Diestl progresses from, a lowly ski instructor in Austria to an efficient killing machine in North Africa and Italy. Eventually, his disgust with the aristocracy and corruption in the high Nazi command puts him at odds with the powers that be, and loyalty to some of his fellow soldiers is the only grace in his soul.
Spoiler zone--character activities
Noah, a secular Jewish boy from rural Vermont on the drift in New York City, gets motivated to enlist after the U.S. is dragged into the war by Pearl Harbor. Like so many others, the impending war adds some desperation to his search for love, and he marries his sweetheart before shipping out. At training in Florida, he is subjected to extreme bullying driven by anti-Semitism, which the officers do nothing to mitigate. His courage in standing up to the system and in the process becoming an effective soldier was very moving to me. His experiences in D-Day and Normandy were realistic and a tiny window on the action, far from the glorifying or overdramatic treatment these battles usually lend themselves to.
Michael is older, more cultured, wealthier, and more cynical and disengaged before the war. Still, he faces his fate after becoming drafted with courage and progressively becomes both more human and more interested in playing a significant role. However, his taint over communist sympathies from the time of the Spanish Civil War keeps the Army from placing him where he can play a meaningful role in the fighting. He ends up with losers in a group destined to be used as cannon fodder as replacements. He pulls strings with his connections to get placed with another ex-literati serving as a colonel in a supply corps. Eventually, he gets a taste of fighting and enough instances of lives thrown away by amoral officers or cases of friendly fire that he becomes set on simply surviving the war. He ends up in the same platoon with Noah, whom he befriended in basic training, and near the end of the book experiences with him the horrors of liberating a concentration camp.
If you have seen the movie you know the ending has the expected intersection in the plot between Diestl (Marlon Brando( and the two Amricans. An allure you you to read the book is to experience a very different ending. One that Shaw objected to but let it happen.
Yardley makes the judgment that this book serves more in documenting aspects of the war than in making the lasting literary achievement Shaw aspired to. I think it excels in character development and restrained focus on well drawn examples of courage and moral conflicts of average soldiers. The pacing is good, and it doesn’t get sidetracked with details of military campaigns and strategy. I liked how at times the larger issues are framed by linking omniscient narrative or certain characters. Yardley finds fault with these parts:
It is loaded with, and weighed down by, extended ruminative passages in which Shaw expresses his views on various moral and other questions provoked by the war, and though the sincerity of these sections is beyond dispute, their overall effect is more soporific than enlightening.
In response, I have to supply an example so you can judge for yourself. Here we have part of a sermon by a minister in Dover where Noah takes a leave before D-Day:
We are Channel-dwellers, but we do not dwell on the banks of the Channel, we live among the sea moss and polished wrecks, among the waving salt ferns and bitter bones of the drowned at the dark bottom, and above us roll the deep torrents of man’s hatred of man and God. Our tide now comes all from the north and nourishes us on the polar juice of despair. We live among the guns and the brass sound of their speaking drowns out the soft voice of God, and only the wild crying of vengeance can be heard above their thunder. We see our cities crumble under the enemy’s bombs, and we mourn for our children struck at their early tasks by the enemy’s bullets, and we strike back, cruelly and wildly, from the seabed of our hatred, at his cities and his children. The enemy is more savage than the tiger, hungrier than the shark, crueler than the wolf; in honor and in defense of our moderate way of life, we stand up to him and combat him, but in doing so we out-tiger him, out-shark the shark, over-wolf the wolf. Will we at the end of all this then pretend to ourselves that the victory is ours? The thing we defend perishes from our victory as it would never perish from our defeat. Can we sit here, deep in our underwater hardness of heart, and think that our Sunday words swim up to God, after we have spent the week killing the innocent, dropping bombs on the churches and museums, burning the libraries, burying the children and the mothers in the jagged steel and broken concrete which is the special filth of our century?
Do not boast to me in your newspapers of the thousands of tons of bombs you have let loose at random on the unhappy land of Germany, because I will tell you that you have let loose these bombs on me, on your church, on yourselves and on your God. Tell me, rather, how you have wept for the single German soldier you have been forced to kill as he stood before you armed and dangerous, and I will say, you are my defender and the defender of my church and my England.
…How does a soldier love his enemy? I say it is this way—to kill sparingly and with a sense of sin and tragedy, sin that is yours equally with the sin of the man who falls at your hand. For was it not your indifference, your weakness of spirit, your greed, your deafness earlier in the day which armed him and drove him into the field to slay you? He struggled, he wept, he cried out to you, and you said, ‘I hear nothing. The voice does not carry across the water.’ Then, in his despair, he picked up his rifle, and, finally, you said, ‘His voice is clear. Now let us kill him.’
…Though we strive against butchers, let us not wet our hands in butchery.
Shaw was blacklisted in the McCarthy era and moved to Europe. He eventually made a commercial success with his melodramatic saga “Rich Man, Poor Man” and its serialization for TV. He never did get the literary acclaim he sought. To me, “The Young Lions” was a valuable contribution and still worth reading today.
Shaw was a Brooklyn Jew who already had some success as a playwright and short story author before serving in the Army as a photographer with the Signal Corps. This provides some assurance of authenticity in his coverage of America preparing for war and of both the virtues and inefficiencies of the Army’s methods of training and deploying its forces. The critic Jonathan Yardley, in a 2009 re-read of a work that inspired him in his youth, nicely encapsulates the scope of the book in the Washington Post :
The novel's strengths, and they are considerable, lie in its depiction of America on the brink of war, of the brutal training conditions in the U.S. Army, of warfare itself, and of the evolving lives of the three young men who are its protagonists. These are Christian Diestl, a sergeant in the German army, a loyal but scarcely fanatical Nazi; Michael Whitacre, a stage manager for Broadway productions and, according to Salter, "in many respects, Shaw's representative in the novel"; and Noah Ackerman, a young Jewish American whose life has been "wandering and disordered" but who has begun to put things together after moving to New York.
… It begins in prewar America and Germany, marches resolutely through many of the war's most dramatic moments, and ends with the Allies on the brink of victory, the ironic aspects of which Shaw does not shy away from making clear.
Each of the three are engaging and are sympathetically portrayed as they undergo major transformations of character development from their experiences. In the first half of the book, as the American characters are in pre-war phases, Diestl progresses from, a lowly ski instructor in Austria to an efficient killing machine in North Africa and Italy. Eventually, his disgust with the aristocracy and corruption in the high Nazi command puts him at odds with the powers that be, and loyalty to some of his fellow soldiers is the only grace in his soul.
Spoiler zone--character activities
Noah, a secular Jewish boy from rural Vermont on the drift in New York City, gets motivated to enlist after the U.S. is dragged into the war by Pearl Harbor. Like so many others, the impending war adds some desperation to his search for love, and he marries his sweetheart before shipping out. At training in Florida, he is subjected to extreme bullying driven by anti-Semitism, which the officers do nothing to mitigate. His courage in standing up to the system and in the process becoming an effective soldier was very moving to me. His experiences in D-Day and Normandy were realistic and a tiny window on the action, far from the glorifying or overdramatic treatment these battles usually lend themselves to.
Michael is older, more cultured, wealthier, and more cynical and disengaged before the war. Still, he faces his fate after becoming drafted with courage and progressively becomes both more human and more interested in playing a significant role. However, his taint over communist sympathies from the time of the Spanish Civil War keeps the Army from placing him where he can play a meaningful role in the fighting. He ends up with losers in a group destined to be used as cannon fodder as replacements. He pulls strings with his connections to get placed with another ex-literati serving as a colonel in a supply corps. Eventually, he gets a taste of fighting and enough instances of lives thrown away by amoral officers or cases of friendly fire that he becomes set on simply surviving the war. He ends up in the same platoon with Noah, whom he befriended in basic training, and near the end of the book experiences with him the horrors of liberating a concentration camp.
If you have seen the movie you know the ending has the expected intersection in the plot between Diestl (Marlon Brando( and the two Amricans. An allure you you to read the book is to experience a very different ending. One that Shaw objected to but let it happen.
Yardley makes the judgment that this book serves more in documenting aspects of the war than in making the lasting literary achievement Shaw aspired to. I think it excels in character development and restrained focus on well drawn examples of courage and moral conflicts of average soldiers. The pacing is good, and it doesn’t get sidetracked with details of military campaigns and strategy. I liked how at times the larger issues are framed by linking omniscient narrative or certain characters. Yardley finds fault with these parts:
It is loaded with, and weighed down by, extended ruminative passages in which Shaw expresses his views on various moral and other questions provoked by the war, and though the sincerity of these sections is beyond dispute, their overall effect is more soporific than enlightening.
In response, I have to supply an example so you can judge for yourself. Here we have part of a sermon by a minister in Dover where Noah takes a leave before D-Day:
We are Channel-dwellers, but we do not dwell on the banks of the Channel, we live among the sea moss and polished wrecks, among the waving salt ferns and bitter bones of the drowned at the dark bottom, and above us roll the deep torrents of man’s hatred of man and God. Our tide now comes all from the north and nourishes us on the polar juice of despair. We live among the guns and the brass sound of their speaking drowns out the soft voice of God, and only the wild crying of vengeance can be heard above their thunder. We see our cities crumble under the enemy’s bombs, and we mourn for our children struck at their early tasks by the enemy’s bullets, and we strike back, cruelly and wildly, from the seabed of our hatred, at his cities and his children. The enemy is more savage than the tiger, hungrier than the shark, crueler than the wolf; in honor and in defense of our moderate way of life, we stand up to him and combat him, but in doing so we out-tiger him, out-shark the shark, over-wolf the wolf. Will we at the end of all this then pretend to ourselves that the victory is ours? The thing we defend perishes from our victory as it would never perish from our defeat. Can we sit here, deep in our underwater hardness of heart, and think that our Sunday words swim up to God, after we have spent the week killing the innocent, dropping bombs on the churches and museums, burning the libraries, burying the children and the mothers in the jagged steel and broken concrete which is the special filth of our century?
Do not boast to me in your newspapers of the thousands of tons of bombs you have let loose at random on the unhappy land of Germany, because I will tell you that you have let loose these bombs on me, on your church, on yourselves and on your God. Tell me, rather, how you have wept for the single German soldier you have been forced to kill as he stood before you armed and dangerous, and I will say, you are my defender and the defender of my church and my England.
…How does a soldier love his enemy? I say it is this way—to kill sparingly and with a sense of sin and tragedy, sin that is yours equally with the sin of the man who falls at your hand. For was it not your indifference, your weakness of spirit, your greed, your deafness earlier in the day which armed him and drove him into the field to slay you? He struggled, he wept, he cried out to you, and you said, ‘I hear nothing. The voice does not carry across the water.’ Then, in his despair, he picked up his rifle, and, finally, you said, ‘His voice is clear. Now let us kill him.’
…Though we strive against butchers, let us not wet our hands in butchery.
Shaw was blacklisted in the McCarthy era and moved to Europe. He eventually made a commercial success with his melodramatic saga “Rich Man, Poor Man” and its serialization for TV. He never did get the literary acclaim he sought. To me, “The Young Lions” was a valuable contribution and still worth reading today.
March 16, 2017
YES & NO :
Yes : "Young Lions" is one of the major American novels dealing with World War II. And Yes! I am glad I have read it - it was epic, rich in detail and in human interest stories, professionally written and often emotionally moving. The fact that Irwin Shaw talks from direct experience is clear and confers an almost documentary quality to the material.
& NO : It didn't have quite the same impact on me as the other majors I've read, "The Naked and the Dead" and "From Here to Eternity." My complaints are not easuly articulated, but there is a certain awkwardness in a lot of the set pieces: they feel staged, theatrical, unnecessarily melodramatic, especially when one of the characters starts on a long rant or an internal monologue. The pacing is also off for most of the first half of the novel during the long civilian life scenes before boot camp, only picking up after the Normandy landing. The best scenes are the ones where the author lets the facts speak for themselves and refrains from editorial comments. I could also mention that I appreciate the inclusion of both the acts of heroism and the discrimination and atrocities perpetrated by both sides in the conflict, but when it comes to the German side of the equation, the balance is clearly tilted towards reinforcing the monstrous propaganda image.
>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<
The scope of the novel is big, but luckily for me, most of the readers are probably already familiar with the subject and with the sequence of events, World War II being still one of the most written about and filmed subjects. No need for me to write a lengthy reresume. Irwin cuts a world war down into a manageable size by focusing on the parts that he witnessed himself (American boot camp, North Africa, England, Italy, France) and telling the story through the eyes of only three major characters - the three young lions of the title.
Christian Diestl was a tall, slender young man, with a solemn, abstracted face and close-cut hair, his skin burned dark by the sun, his eyes light and almost golden with the yellow flecks you find in an animal's eyes.
Diestl is the closest of the three to resemble a lion : a predator, athletic, ruthless, courageous. He is also the first to see actual combat, as we follow him through the blitz advance to Paris, then, after a quiet interlude on garrison duty and a short steamy leave in Berlin, fighting in North Africa, both on the offensive and during a disastrous retreat. Later on, after wounds and betrayals and witnessing the collapse of the Nazi Reich from Italy to the coast of Normandy all the way back to the Fatherland, Diestl loses what is left of his humanity and becomes in truth a wild beast.
---
He got a glimpse of himself in a dimly lit shop window. He looked shadowy and unreal in the reflection, but, as usual, he was annoyed with what he saw. Self-consciously, he straightened his shoulders. I must remember not to slouch, he thought, and I must lose fifteen pounds. I look like a fat grocer.
Michael Whitacre is a young man on top of the world before the war starts : a successful Broadway producers with access to the highest echelons of high society, a beautiful wife in Hollywood and numerous liaisons on both coasts. Yet Michael is slowly killing himself with alcohol, debauchery and sterile political discussions. He joins the army both because he is drafted and because he hopes to finnally discover some sort of direction in his life.
This tent, this blanket, these snoring men have been waiting for me for thirty-three years, and now they have caught up with me and I have caught up with them. The expiration has begun. I have begun to pay up. Pay for my opinions, pay for my easy life, for the good meals and the soft beds, pay for the easy girls and all the easy money. Pay for the thirty-three year holiday that ended this morning when the sergeant said, "You. Pick up that butt."
Michael is probably the closest Irwin comes to including autobiographical elements in the novel, although it is probably incorrect to try to draw to many parallels between the author and his creation. Michael Whitacre joins as an ordinary private in the infantry, but he discovers he is not exactly fit for the role, and later drifts into a non-combatant role with a propaganda / human relations outfit. His two highest achievements during the campaign are a visit to the 'liberated' city of Caen, witnessing the high const paid by civilians caught in the middle between two iron juggernauts, the Germans and the Allies, and the liberation of the concentration camp at Buchenwald, the only scene where the three POV finally meet.
- - - -
The Army. They sure love to make speeches in the army.
Arguably, the one true hero of the story is private Noah Ackerman, a second generation immigrant Jew who feels duty bound to defend his adopted country, despite being rejected repeatedly by the draft board for weak lungs. Once accepted in the army, the troubles of private Ackerman are only beginning, as in boot camp he is the target of vicious bullying for his ethnicity. No matter how hard he tries and how brave he is, the Jew Ackerman will not be considered as part of the team. Noah's troubled relationship with his father, his tentative friendships with a couple of regular WASP Americans and his moving romance with a young woman from Bronx are adding depth and texture to an introverted personality that sees his early patriotic impulses and dreams of brotherhood shattered on the battlefields of France. In the end, Noah dreams only of survival and of coming back to his wife and newborn son.
>><<>><<>><<>><<
I remember, many years ago, I saw the movie version and I believe the casting was spot on with Marlon Brando as Christian, Dean Martin as Michael and Montgomery Clift as Noah. I am tempted to see it again, but in the meantime I have one more BIG American war novel to read to make my set complete : "The Caine Mutiny"
Yes : "Young Lions" is one of the major American novels dealing with World War II. And Yes! I am glad I have read it - it was epic, rich in detail and in human interest stories, professionally written and often emotionally moving. The fact that Irwin Shaw talks from direct experience is clear and confers an almost documentary quality to the material.
& NO : It didn't have quite the same impact on me as the other majors I've read, "The Naked and the Dead" and "From Here to Eternity." My complaints are not easuly articulated, but there is a certain awkwardness in a lot of the set pieces: they feel staged, theatrical, unnecessarily melodramatic, especially when one of the characters starts on a long rant or an internal monologue. The pacing is also off for most of the first half of the novel during the long civilian life scenes before boot camp, only picking up after the Normandy landing. The best scenes are the ones where the author lets the facts speak for themselves and refrains from editorial comments. I could also mention that I appreciate the inclusion of both the acts of heroism and the discrimination and atrocities perpetrated by both sides in the conflict, but when it comes to the German side of the equation, the balance is clearly tilted towards reinforcing the monstrous propaganda image.
>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<
The scope of the novel is big, but luckily for me, most of the readers are probably already familiar with the subject and with the sequence of events, World War II being still one of the most written about and filmed subjects. No need for me to write a lengthy reresume. Irwin cuts a world war down into a manageable size by focusing on the parts that he witnessed himself (American boot camp, North Africa, England, Italy, France) and telling the story through the eyes of only three major characters - the three young lions of the title.
Christian Diestl was a tall, slender young man, with a solemn, abstracted face and close-cut hair, his skin burned dark by the sun, his eyes light and almost golden with the yellow flecks you find in an animal's eyes.
Diestl is the closest of the three to resemble a lion : a predator, athletic, ruthless, courageous. He is also the first to see actual combat, as we follow him through the blitz advance to Paris, then, after a quiet interlude on garrison duty and a short steamy leave in Berlin, fighting in North Africa, both on the offensive and during a disastrous retreat. Later on, after wounds and betrayals and witnessing the collapse of the Nazi Reich from Italy to the coast of Normandy all the way back to the Fatherland, Diestl loses what is left of his humanity and becomes in truth a wild beast.
---
He got a glimpse of himself in a dimly lit shop window. He looked shadowy and unreal in the reflection, but, as usual, he was annoyed with what he saw. Self-consciously, he straightened his shoulders. I must remember not to slouch, he thought, and I must lose fifteen pounds. I look like a fat grocer.
Michael Whitacre is a young man on top of the world before the war starts : a successful Broadway producers with access to the highest echelons of high society, a beautiful wife in Hollywood and numerous liaisons on both coasts. Yet Michael is slowly killing himself with alcohol, debauchery and sterile political discussions. He joins the army both because he is drafted and because he hopes to finnally discover some sort of direction in his life.
This tent, this blanket, these snoring men have been waiting for me for thirty-three years, and now they have caught up with me and I have caught up with them. The expiration has begun. I have begun to pay up. Pay for my opinions, pay for my easy life, for the good meals and the soft beds, pay for the easy girls and all the easy money. Pay for the thirty-three year holiday that ended this morning when the sergeant said, "You. Pick up that butt."
Michael is probably the closest Irwin comes to including autobiographical elements in the novel, although it is probably incorrect to try to draw to many parallels between the author and his creation. Michael Whitacre joins as an ordinary private in the infantry, but he discovers he is not exactly fit for the role, and later drifts into a non-combatant role with a propaganda / human relations outfit. His two highest achievements during the campaign are a visit to the 'liberated' city of Caen, witnessing the high const paid by civilians caught in the middle between two iron juggernauts, the Germans and the Allies, and the liberation of the concentration camp at Buchenwald, the only scene where the three POV finally meet.
- - - -
The Army. They sure love to make speeches in the army.
Arguably, the one true hero of the story is private Noah Ackerman, a second generation immigrant Jew who feels duty bound to defend his adopted country, despite being rejected repeatedly by the draft board for weak lungs. Once accepted in the army, the troubles of private Ackerman are only beginning, as in boot camp he is the target of vicious bullying for his ethnicity. No matter how hard he tries and how brave he is, the Jew Ackerman will not be considered as part of the team. Noah's troubled relationship with his father, his tentative friendships with a couple of regular WASP Americans and his moving romance with a young woman from Bronx are adding depth and texture to an introverted personality that sees his early patriotic impulses and dreams of brotherhood shattered on the battlefields of France. In the end, Noah dreams only of survival and of coming back to his wife and newborn son.
>><<>><<>><<>><<
I remember, many years ago, I saw the movie version and I believe the casting was spot on with Marlon Brando as Christian, Dean Martin as Michael and Montgomery Clift as Noah. I am tempted to see it again, but in the meantime I have one more BIG American war novel to read to make my set complete : "The Caine Mutiny"
June 18, 2015
This is a review that was written on another site in 2011:
I had always believed that there were three great American World War II novels that shared the common characteristics of being written by veterans of that conflict and by being published within five years of the war's conclusion.
They are: The Naked and the Dead (1948) by Norman Mailer; The Caine Mutiny(1951) by Herman Wouk; and From Here to Eternity(1951) by James Jones. But I need to add a fourth book that belongs in the same company: The Young Lions(1949) by Irwin Shaw.
I first read The Young Lions about twenty-five years ago. Based on my memory, I gave it four stars when I added it to my shelf. As a result of my recent re-reading of the book, I see that I was too stingy. It is better than I remembered.
With one exception, these novels are enriched by the fact that they are based upon the writers’ personal experiences during the war. The exception is The Naked and the Dead. Mailer did serve in the Pacific, but saw little combat and ended the war as a cook in the Philippines. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it is probable that his classic story of a reconnaissance mission on a Pacific island was not based on his personal experience.
One of the ways that I judge my enjoyment of a book (or a movie) is whether or not I am willing to revisit it. Well, I have now read The Young Lions twice and the others three times each. Twenty-five years from now I plan to read Shaw’s book for a third time.
P.S. ~ There is another WWII novel that I have read at least three times. It is James Jones' The Thin Red Line. I rank it with the above novels, but since it was published in 1962, I did not include it in the review.
I had always believed that there were three great American World War II novels that shared the common characteristics of being written by veterans of that conflict and by being published within five years of the war's conclusion.
They are: The Naked and the Dead (1948) by Norman Mailer; The Caine Mutiny(1951) by Herman Wouk; and From Here to Eternity(1951) by James Jones. But I need to add a fourth book that belongs in the same company: The Young Lions(1949) by Irwin Shaw.
I first read The Young Lions about twenty-five years ago. Based on my memory, I gave it four stars when I added it to my shelf. As a result of my recent re-reading of the book, I see that I was too stingy. It is better than I remembered.
With one exception, these novels are enriched by the fact that they are based upon the writers’ personal experiences during the war. The exception is The Naked and the Dead. Mailer did serve in the Pacific, but saw little combat and ended the war as a cook in the Philippines. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but it is probable that his classic story of a reconnaissance mission on a Pacific island was not based on his personal experience.
One of the ways that I judge my enjoyment of a book (or a movie) is whether or not I am willing to revisit it. Well, I have now read The Young Lions twice and the others three times each. Twenty-five years from now I plan to read Shaw’s book for a third time.
P.S. ~ There is another WWII novel that I have read at least three times. It is James Jones' The Thin Red Line. I rank it with the above novels, but since it was published in 1962, I did not include it in the review.
February 8, 2023
Irwin Shaw's first novel although he was already an experienced writer before The Young Lions was published in 1948. Shaw served with the U.S. Army during World War II. He was a warrant officer and assigned to an army documentary film unit. The film units were an interesting operation. You've seen much of their work over the years. The black and white footage (as well as color) of marines, soldiers and airmen fighting from Africa to the Pacific is their product. Often, they would be in the very thick of the action, but instead of a rifle they were carrying a film camera. Their mission was to document and as a result they saw and smelled (smell is important) war. This was what Irwin Shaw experienced.
As a writer Shaw was already an observer of people. Couple that natural ability with his experiences in World War II and you get The Young Lions. The story is interesting. This is a novel written by one of the members of the so-called "Greatest Generation". Only this is a book written just a couple of years after the war had ended. Long before the gauzy sentimentality that has settled on that time period came about.
For those who have built that generation up into Frank Capra heroes (they did have to go through one hell of an experience mind you, never take that away from them) this book might be disturbing. Amongst the service members there is cynicism, selfish behavior, racism on both sides, stupidity and cowardice. In the civilian ranks there are draft dodgers (something that many from the generation would have us believe was only practiced by their children during the Vietnam War), war profiteers and fake heroes.
The U.S. Army isn't presented as an admirable organization. The Army exists to fight wars after all - it's not about the arts and the study of Humanity. The U.S. Army is shown as being somewhat amateurish (it grew so fast after Pearl Harbor), cloddish and burdened with inefficient leadership, cloddish while the Germans are portrayed as being much better soldiers - regardless of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. It's made clear that one of the reasons why the U.S. Army won was that it (and the allies) just had more. More people, more food, more fuel, more tanks, more of everything. The Germans were basically overwhelmed.
One of the characters, speaking for Shaw I'm sure, describes the U.S. Army like this:
When I went into the Army, I made up my mind that I was putting myself at the Army's disposal. I believe in the war. That doesn't mean I believe in the Army. I don't believe in any army. You don't expect justice out of an army, if you're a sensible, grown-up human being, you only expect victory. And if it comes to that, our Army is probably the most just one that ever existed. . .. I expected the Army to be corrupt, inefficient, cruel, wasteful, and it turned out to be all those things, just like all armies, only much less so than I thought before I got into it. It is much less corrupt, for example, than the German Army. Good for us. The victory we win will not be as good as it might be, if it were a different kind of army, but it will be the best kind of victory we can expect in this day and age, and I'm thankful for it.
Nor do the Allied political leaders don't get away unscathed. There is criticism, most notably of Winston Churchill who is described as having "a hollow and old-fashioned ring to him like a bugle blowing for a war three years ago". This is powerful stuff and not what we associate with that generation and time period. Frank Capra, his peers in Hollywood and at Life magazine did their job very well. America's World War II is their creation not Irwin Shaw's.
Is the book perfect? Of course not. Shaw wrote plays and short stories. There were times when I felt like I was reading a movie script or a play from the late thirties with too much time in the character's heads and their observations and musings drag on. The combat sequences have a strangely detached feeling to them and lack the blood and grit that we have come to associate with fictional combat accounts in recent decades. Though it's my understanding that veterans often have that detached air when recounting combat. Perhaps it's a way of coping.
Female characters are supporting characters at best. At the beginning of the book, we follow one of the female characters, but after the first chapter that same character only returns for a couple more chapters and she never takes front stage again. Several of the female characters are also portrayed as being unfaithful wives, sluts and opportunistic bitches. One has to wonder if this was how Shaw saw women in general or if it was a reflection of how the men in uniform felt about women during World War II.
Yet, despite these faults, The Young Lions is a powerful work of fiction. Coming so soon after the war's end it lacks the slickness and self-confidence that would later settle upon that decade - at least from the American perspective. The warts and blemishes of that time are visible which makes The Young Lions an invaluable primary source for anyone who is trying to understand how that generation felt at the time the war was happening, not seventy-five years later.
One last thing before wrapping up this review. For those who have seen the 1958 movie adaptation with Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin and Marlon Brando be prepared for a much grimmer atmosphere than that of the movie. Things often don't work out for the best (there is that lack of American idealism that we associate with WWII and had already taken hold just thirteen years later) and the ending is much darker. This is not a happy story, but then approximately fifty-five million people died in World War II. Hardly the stuff of happy endings.
As a writer Shaw was already an observer of people. Couple that natural ability with his experiences in World War II and you get The Young Lions. The story is interesting. This is a novel written by one of the members of the so-called "Greatest Generation". Only this is a book written just a couple of years after the war had ended. Long before the gauzy sentimentality that has settled on that time period came about.
For those who have built that generation up into Frank Capra heroes (they did have to go through one hell of an experience mind you, never take that away from them) this book might be disturbing. Amongst the service members there is cynicism, selfish behavior, racism on both sides, stupidity and cowardice. In the civilian ranks there are draft dodgers (something that many from the generation would have us believe was only practiced by their children during the Vietnam War), war profiteers and fake heroes.
The U.S. Army isn't presented as an admirable organization. The Army exists to fight wars after all - it's not about the arts and the study of Humanity. The U.S. Army is shown as being somewhat amateurish (it grew so fast after Pearl Harbor), cloddish and burdened with inefficient leadership, cloddish while the Germans are portrayed as being much better soldiers - regardless of the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis. It's made clear that one of the reasons why the U.S. Army won was that it (and the allies) just had more. More people, more food, more fuel, more tanks, more of everything. The Germans were basically overwhelmed.
One of the characters, speaking for Shaw I'm sure, describes the U.S. Army like this:
When I went into the Army, I made up my mind that I was putting myself at the Army's disposal. I believe in the war. That doesn't mean I believe in the Army. I don't believe in any army. You don't expect justice out of an army, if you're a sensible, grown-up human being, you only expect victory. And if it comes to that, our Army is probably the most just one that ever existed. . .. I expected the Army to be corrupt, inefficient, cruel, wasteful, and it turned out to be all those things, just like all armies, only much less so than I thought before I got into it. It is much less corrupt, for example, than the German Army. Good for us. The victory we win will not be as good as it might be, if it were a different kind of army, but it will be the best kind of victory we can expect in this day and age, and I'm thankful for it.
Nor do the Allied political leaders don't get away unscathed. There is criticism, most notably of Winston Churchill who is described as having "a hollow and old-fashioned ring to him like a bugle blowing for a war three years ago". This is powerful stuff and not what we associate with that generation and time period. Frank Capra, his peers in Hollywood and at Life magazine did their job very well. America's World War II is their creation not Irwin Shaw's.
Is the book perfect? Of course not. Shaw wrote plays and short stories. There were times when I felt like I was reading a movie script or a play from the late thirties with too much time in the character's heads and their observations and musings drag on. The combat sequences have a strangely detached feeling to them and lack the blood and grit that we have come to associate with fictional combat accounts in recent decades. Though it's my understanding that veterans often have that detached air when recounting combat. Perhaps it's a way of coping.
Female characters are supporting characters at best. At the beginning of the book, we follow one of the female characters, but after the first chapter that same character only returns for a couple more chapters and she never takes front stage again. Several of the female characters are also portrayed as being unfaithful wives, sluts and opportunistic bitches. One has to wonder if this was how Shaw saw women in general or if it was a reflection of how the men in uniform felt about women during World War II.
Yet, despite these faults, The Young Lions is a powerful work of fiction. Coming so soon after the war's end it lacks the slickness and self-confidence that would later settle upon that decade - at least from the American perspective. The warts and blemishes of that time are visible which makes The Young Lions an invaluable primary source for anyone who is trying to understand how that generation felt at the time the war was happening, not seventy-five years later.
One last thing before wrapping up this review. For those who have seen the 1958 movie adaptation with Montgomery Clift, Dean Martin and Marlon Brando be prepared for a much grimmer atmosphere than that of the movie. Things often don't work out for the best (there is that lack of American idealism that we associate with WWII and had already taken hold just thirteen years later) and the ending is much darker. This is not a happy story, but then approximately fifty-five million people died in World War II. Hardly the stuff of happy endings.
October 2, 2021
“THE TOWN SHONE IN the snowy twilight like a Christmas window, with the electric railway’s lights tiny and festive at the foot of the white slope, among the muffled winter hills of the Tyrol. People smiled at each other broadly, skiers and natives alike, in their brilliant clothes, as they passed each other on the snow-draped streets, and there were wreaths on the windows and doors of the white and brown houses because this was the eve of the new and hopeful year of 1938.”
As the novel opens Christian Diestl, an Austrian ski instructor, speaks with a young American woman and warns her that war is coming. The storyline follows him as he fights in France, Northern Africa, Italy, and Germany. Noah Ackerman, a young Jewish American, is living in California. He is feeling lonely and disconnected when he meets and falls in love with Hope Plowman. He enters the Army and faces anti-Semitism in his own ranks. He is deployed to England before being sent into battle. Michael Whiteacre is a writer and film producer living the “good life” in New York. He is determined to enter the Army as a private but is soon disillusioned, so he pulls strings to get assigned to non-combat duty.
Published in 1948, this book is historical fiction at its finest. It is written in realistic fashion. Shaw was a writer before joining the US Army during World War II, and the story is based on his first-hand experiences. It is a beautifully crafted novel. It is told in chronological order alternating among the three protagonists. The characters are deeply defined, and the reader senses that their stories will eventually converge.
The narrative focuses on the personal lives and military experiences of the soldiers. It does not attempt to address the military strategies or leadership decisions. It is a sweeping epic of a literary work that examines the moral quandaries presented by war. I found it easy to get immersed in the characters’ lives. At 700 pages of dense writing, it requires a significant time commitment, but I found it well worth the effort.
As the novel opens Christian Diestl, an Austrian ski instructor, speaks with a young American woman and warns her that war is coming. The storyline follows him as he fights in France, Northern Africa, Italy, and Germany. Noah Ackerman, a young Jewish American, is living in California. He is feeling lonely and disconnected when he meets and falls in love with Hope Plowman. He enters the Army and faces anti-Semitism in his own ranks. He is deployed to England before being sent into battle. Michael Whiteacre is a writer and film producer living the “good life” in New York. He is determined to enter the Army as a private but is soon disillusioned, so he pulls strings to get assigned to non-combat duty.
Published in 1948, this book is historical fiction at its finest. It is written in realistic fashion. Shaw was a writer before joining the US Army during World War II, and the story is based on his first-hand experiences. It is a beautifully crafted novel. It is told in chronological order alternating among the three protagonists. The characters are deeply defined, and the reader senses that their stories will eventually converge.
The narrative focuses on the personal lives and military experiences of the soldiers. It does not attempt to address the military strategies or leadership decisions. It is a sweeping epic of a literary work that examines the moral quandaries presented by war. I found it easy to get immersed in the characters’ lives. At 700 pages of dense writing, it requires a significant time commitment, but I found it well worth the effort.
February 18, 2022
Хиляди, хиляди звезди за този magnum opus на Ъруин Шоу.
Изпитвам огромно възхищение от любимия си писател, голяма радост от присъствието на романа в жанра на (анти)военната литература, който е от любимите ми, и удовлетворена преситеност от многото емоции, преживени по време на четенето. Това е много мащабна творба (700 страници в по-голям формат е изданието на „Сиела“) и всъщност представлява цяла сага. Ъруин Шоу е безпощаден и към своите, и към чуждите, просто защото мъката и несправедливостта са навсякъде, независимо от произхода, нацията и континента...
Една дума за Християн Дистл: в началото много му се възхищавах и радвах, после го защитавах, оправдавайки го, след това се отвратих и погнусих от него, а във финала ми дожаля, но не докрай, и все пак в известен смисъл не ми се искаше да спирам да го обичам. Събуждането на толкова различни по вид чувства към един герой не ми се е случвало никога, струва ми се, винаги е било еднозначно от самото начало (дори при злодеите). Но в „Младите лъвове“ нищо не е еднозначно, защото борбата за оцеляване е изпълнена както със сила и светлина, така и с много кал и мръсотия.
Толкова плътни характери съм срещала в истинския живот много рядко, за съжаление. Уелбек казва, че четенето е утеха и затова още от малък четял много; и наистина е съвсем прав. Когато човек чете добра литература, изискванията му към околните стават почти непоносимо високи :-)
Изпитвам огромно възхищение от любимия си писател, голяма радост от присъствието на романа в жанра на (анти)военната литература, който е от любимите ми, и удовлетворена преситеност от многото емоции, преживени по време на четенето. Това е много мащабна творба (700 страници в по-голям формат е изданието на „Сиела“) и всъщност представлява цяла сага. Ъруин Шоу е безпощаден и към своите, и към чуждите, просто защото мъката и несправедливостта са навсякъде, независимо от произхода, нацията и континента...
Една дума за Християн Дистл: в началото много му се възхищавах и радвах, после го защитавах, оправдавайки го, след това се отвратих и погнусих от него, а във финала ми дожаля, но не докрай, и все пак в известен смисъл не ми се искаше да спирам да го обичам. Събуждането на толкова различни по вид чувства към един герой не ми се е случвало никога, струва ми се, винаги е било еднозначно от самото начало (дори при злодеите). Но в „Младите лъвове“ нищо не е еднозначно, защото борбата за оцеляване е изпълнена както със сила и светлина, така и с много кал и мръсотия.
Толкова плътни характери съм срещала в истинския живот много рядко, за съжаление. Уелбек казва, че четенето е утеха и затова още от малък четял много; и наистина е съвсем прав. Когато човек чете добра литература, изискванията му към околните стават почти непоносимо високи :-)
April 27, 2021
I've only got a couple things to say about this much-reviewed classic WWII novel: that a more polished writing and some editorial cuts would've avoided the loss of one star, and that a better ending the loss of another.
The latter was perhaps the one factor that contributed most to my disappointment in this story. I never watched the film, nor had I read any reviews past some comments recommending it and blurbs, so when I found myself hooked and extremely interested while reading the first chapter to decide whether to borrow the book or not, it was entirely the novel's merit. No expectations, no other opinions ringing in the back of my head. The first chapter told me it was worth it to invest my time in this brick, and although I did notice some decline as the plot unrolled, I still was hoping the ending would be more satisfying. Instead, it only does justice to one of the three main arcs (Michael), whilst the other two (Noah, Christian) get a closure that rings unfairly hollow in my opinion, especially for the ex-ski instructor.
But then, I might be about the only one whose favourite was Christian Diestl, and that had nothing to do with Marlon Brando looking all hot in a tailor-cut Wehrmacht uniform. Ahem, well, it was still a good ride and I'm handing over my 3.5 stars with no rancour.
The latter was perhaps the one factor that contributed most to my disappointment in this story. I never watched the film, nor had I read any reviews past some comments recommending it and blurbs, so when I found myself hooked and extremely interested while reading the first chapter to decide whether to borrow the book or not, it was entirely the novel's merit. No expectations, no other opinions ringing in the back of my head. The first chapter told me it was worth it to invest my time in this brick, and although I did notice some decline as the plot unrolled, I still was hoping the ending would be more satisfying. Instead, it only does justice to one of the three main arcs (Michael), whilst the other two (Noah, Christian) get a closure that rings unfairly hollow in my opinion, especially for the ex-ski instructor.
But then, I might be about the only one whose favourite was Christian Diestl, and that had nothing to do with Marlon Brando looking all hot in a tailor-cut Wehrmacht uniform. Ahem, well, it was still a good ride and I'm handing over my 3.5 stars with no rancour.
November 23, 2020
Книга зацепила с первого момента и не отпускала до конца. Здесь было все: простые человеческие слабости, низменные страсти, любовь, зависть, страдания. Понравилось, что война была показана с разных углов: и со стороны немцев и союзников. В какой то момент ты понимаешь позицию и тех и других. Прекрасный предвоенный Нью Йорк, военная Франция и разбомбленный Лондон заслуживают отдельного внимания. Хотелось бы более счастливой развязки... но это с чисто человеческой точки зрения... автор выписал каждый персонаж на ура. Объяснил их амбиции и переживания, наделил сильными характерами, одарил сложными судьбами. Объяснил их вроде бы необъяснимые причины поступков, ты им прощаешь их слабости и даже сочувствуешь им... одна из лучших книг про Вторую Мировую войну.
August 22, 2011
Irwin Shaw's "The Young Lions" was exhausting to read, but at the same time very fulfilling. This was actually the third time I picked up the book, and I intended to read it the entire way through.
His tale of three men amidst WWII - Noah, Michael, and Christian - was compelling and refreshing. I find that all too often novels that take place in WWII gloss over the experiences of the soldiers in light of having perhaps a bit more romance, or a bit more action. While we are afforded those things, "The Young Lions" takes it to another level. With this book, you really get into the heads of the three soldiers, and get to see an unromanticized outlook on what in many books is romanticized to the point of nausea.
That being said, Shaw's style of writing is extremely verbose, and the prose not the least bit beautiful. I admire his writing style to a degree, but at times the book seemed like a very daunting read. And while every time I picked it up, I was excited to see what would happen next, there were a lot of moments when I just wished that I could be done with it. There are also many moments when the prose is very graphic; I am not squeamish in this regard, but I would caution those who might be.
I would recommend this novel to those who feel that they can commit to it. The book, as stated, is lengthy, but is probably one of the most delightful books I have read taking place during WWII in quite some time.
His tale of three men amidst WWII - Noah, Michael, and Christian - was compelling and refreshing. I find that all too often novels that take place in WWII gloss over the experiences of the soldiers in light of having perhaps a bit more romance, or a bit more action. While we are afforded those things, "The Young Lions" takes it to another level. With this book, you really get into the heads of the three soldiers, and get to see an unromanticized outlook on what in many books is romanticized to the point of nausea.
That being said, Shaw's style of writing is extremely verbose, and the prose not the least bit beautiful. I admire his writing style to a degree, but at times the book seemed like a very daunting read. And while every time I picked it up, I was excited to see what would happen next, there were a lot of moments when I just wished that I could be done with it. There are also many moments when the prose is very graphic; I am not squeamish in this regard, but I would caution those who might be.
I would recommend this novel to those who feel that they can commit to it. The book, as stated, is lengthy, but is probably one of the most delightful books I have read taking place during WWII in quite some time.
July 24, 2018
El libro es la historia de como tres hombres vivieron la guerra mundial, un maestro de esquí austriaco, un joven judío y un productor de teatro, ambos de Estados Unidos. La guerra los lleva por diferentes caminos, que en algunos momentos convergen, estos caminos pones a prueba todas sus capacidades y los hará ver la realidad de nuevas maneras.
Algo que me gustó mucho es que los personajes tienen muchos matices, no es tan sencillo encasillarlos dentro de un carácter, y esto es muy bueno, les da realidad, uno piensa que de verdad fueron personas enfrentando la situación que tenían frente a ellos.
Se lee muy fácil, en realidad es como ver una película, imágenes de batallas, heridos (y en esto no es tan impresionante, hablando de sangre) aunque no , y algunas reflexiones sobre el presente y el futuro. Aunque el libro es bastante largo, corre rápido por la sencillez con la que está escrito, lo recomiendo bastante.
Algo que me gustó mucho es que los personajes tienen muchos matices, no es tan sencillo encasillarlos dentro de un carácter, y esto es muy bueno, les da realidad, uno piensa que de verdad fueron personas enfrentando la situación que tenían frente a ellos.
Se lee muy fácil, en realidad es como ver una película, imágenes de batallas, heridos (y en esto no es tan impresionante, hablando de sangre) aunque no , y algunas reflexiones sobre el presente y el futuro. Aunque el libro es bastante largo, corre rápido por la sencillez con la que está escrito, lo recomiendo bastante.
August 6, 2020
In dit boek ben ik wel een paar dagen bezig geweest: 'De jonge leeuwen' van Irwin Shaw.
Een klassieker uit 1949; deze editie betreft de 24e druk uit 2015 met herziene vertaling van Jan-Jaap Spies.
Wat een boek, een 'Im Westen nichts Neues' voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Shaw beschrijft het leven van drie soldaten gedurende de oorlog: Amerikaan Michael uit de filmindustrie, de Duitse skileraar Christian, de Amerikaanse jood Noah.
Je volgt hen met tussenpozen bij voor hen beslissende momenten voor en tijdens de oorlog. Zo lees je over hun beweegredenen om zich aan te melden, trainingskampen, Noord-Afrika, Normandië, Londen, verlof, D-Day, Parijs, opmars richting Duitsland...
De drie levens kruisen elkaar soms en komen aan het eind onherroepelijk bij elkaar.
Het goede aan het boek vond ik dat Shaw achtergrondkennis bij de lezer activeert. A.d.h.v. gebeurtenissen weet je ongeveer waar in de oorlog je je bevindt. De rauwste passages waren het best: alle drie komen ze erachter dat het voornaamste is je eigen hachje te redden. Daarbij lijkt de goed-foutbalans vooral negatief uit te slaan voor Christian (hoe klassiek voor de eerste naoorlogse jaren). D-Day en z'n nasleep hadden ook een prominente plaats in het verhaal, maar helaas lees je dit alleen vanuit Michaels en Noahs perspectief.
Benieuwd naar de verfilming uit 1958, met o.a. Marlon Brando.
'De jonge leeuwen' is een klassieker van 720 pagina's die iedereen gelezen moet hebben.
Een klassieker uit 1949; deze editie betreft de 24e druk uit 2015 met herziene vertaling van Jan-Jaap Spies.
Wat een boek, een 'Im Westen nichts Neues' voor de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Shaw beschrijft het leven van drie soldaten gedurende de oorlog: Amerikaan Michael uit de filmindustrie, de Duitse skileraar Christian, de Amerikaanse jood Noah.
Je volgt hen met tussenpozen bij voor hen beslissende momenten voor en tijdens de oorlog. Zo lees je over hun beweegredenen om zich aan te melden, trainingskampen, Noord-Afrika, Normandië, Londen, verlof, D-Day, Parijs, opmars richting Duitsland...
De drie levens kruisen elkaar soms en komen aan het eind onherroepelijk bij elkaar.
Het goede aan het boek vond ik dat Shaw achtergrondkennis bij de lezer activeert. A.d.h.v. gebeurtenissen weet je ongeveer waar in de oorlog je je bevindt. De rauwste passages waren het best: alle drie komen ze erachter dat het voornaamste is je eigen hachje te redden. Daarbij lijkt de goed-foutbalans vooral negatief uit te slaan voor Christian (hoe klassiek voor de eerste naoorlogse jaren). D-Day en z'n nasleep hadden ook een prominente plaats in het verhaal, maar helaas lees je dit alleen vanuit Michaels en Noahs perspectief.
Benieuwd naar de verfilming uit 1958, met o.a. Marlon Brando.
'De jonge leeuwen' is een klassieker van 720 pagina's die iedereen gelezen moet hebben.
August 10, 2013
Is this A book about World War 2 or is it THE book about World War 2? I think it is the latter. 3 soldiers, two Americans and one German from the early days of the war to the end. There is no underlying plot and there is no attempt to tell the history of the war. It is the story of three soldiers and scores of other participants in this war; the human and inhumane face of the war. The book was written in 1948, before the reviews, reflections and revisions could alter the impressions of the war on its participants. I think it is an "important" book, but more relevant than that, it is a very, very good book.
August 31, 2019
Genial, una obra magistral.
Engancha desde el principio y desde él te sumerges en el campo de batalla de la segunda guerra mundial
Ésta la vemos desde tres puntos de vista; dos norteamericanos y uno perteneciente al ejército nazi.
El protagonista que más me ha gustado ha sido Noah, pero todos están genialmente descritos y llevados en sus diferentes personalidades e ideales.
Una auténtica delicia de lectura, muy recomendable.
Engancha desde el principio y desde él te sumerges en el campo de batalla de la segunda guerra mundial
Ésta la vemos desde tres puntos de vista; dos norteamericanos y uno perteneciente al ejército nazi.
El protagonista que más me ha gustado ha sido Noah, pero todos están genialmente descritos y llevados en sus diferentes personalidades e ideales.
Una auténtica delicia de lectura, muy recomendable.
December 11, 2021
Dulce et decorum est…
As 1937 draws to a close, we are introduced to three young men, very different in terms of social background and beliefs, whom we will follow through to the end of the war in Europe in 1945. Christian is German, drawn to the Nazis because they have restored a sense of pride to Germany following the defeat of WW1. He passively accepts the anti-Semitism at the heart of the regime as something that simply is. Noel is an American Jew, who is left alone when his father, his only relative in the US, dies. He has heard something of what is happening to the Jews in Europe and is concerned, but he is also falling in love with Hope and that takes up most of his emotions. Michael is a theatre producer, wealthy and surrounded by shallow, artsy types who don’t appear on the surface to care much about anything. But Michael is already a little guilty that he hasn’t, as some of his friends have, gone to Spain to fight the fascists. Oh, he’s raised money for the fight, but as the Nazi threat grows he feels he should do more.
There is so much in this book, both in terms of incident and depth, that it’s impossible to do it justice in a short review, so I’m going to concentrate on the things that most stood out to me, and strongly recommend you read it for yourself.
First off, the writing is superb, and Shaw uses beautiful control in the timing so that the thoughtful passages, of which there are many, don’t get in the way of the action, and vice versa. The book starts slowly, taking time to ensure we know these three men as they are before war has become a reality for them, so that we see throughout how their experiences gradually change them. He manages to be very even-handed, which surprised me in a book first published in 1948, so soon after the war ended. I don’t mean even handed between the Nazis and the Allies – there is no doubt in the book about the evil of the Nazi regime. But Christian is shown sympathetically at first as a patriotic German rather than a Nazi zealot, as of course most Germans were. And the Americans are shown warts and all, with a good deal of criticism for the army and the way the war was run.
Christian is in the war from the beginning in 1939, whereas the Americans only came in after Pearl Harbor and even then it was a long time before they set foot in Europe, so for Noah and Michael most of their war is spent in relative safety, and by the time they are facing action in France it is against a force that is already beaten but not yet ready to admit it. So although they all face danger Christian is the one who experiences most and we see him gradually coarsened by what he witnesses, still patriotic, but losing his moral integrity as he comes to behave in ways he could never have imagined when he started out so full of pride. It’s wonderfully done – this destruction of a fundamentally decent man, poisoned by the evil of the regime he serves. By the end, Christian is monstrous but, because Shaw made us care about him in the beginning, it’s hard to hate him even while abhorring what he does.
Michael and Noah, on the other hand, grow from their experiences and although they become hardened to an extent, they are on the winning side, and Shaw shows how different that is. As the German forces fall apart and Christian faces the shame and despair of going home defeated, the Americans develop the camaraderie of men fighting for good against evil, confident of victory and a glorious homecoming, if only they can survive. But Shaw shows that there were atrocities on the Allied side too, not to the same degree, of course, but it gives the message that the potential is there just as much in America or Britain or France for evil to thrive as in Germany, if the circumstances arise. And he also shows that civilians suffer as much or more than soldiers, especially with the new horror of air warfare, and its bastard offspring – collateral damage and “friendly fire”.
There are many horrors, as is to be expected – deaths, injuries, atrocities, betrayals, despair – but portrayed with authenticity and without gratuitousness, and there is humour and friendship along the way which prevents the tone from becoming too unrelievedly bleak. There is a wonderful scene in London of a theatre company relentlessly continuing with their opening night performance of Hamlet as the air raid sirens wail and bombs explode outside.
However, the thing I will remember most from the book is Shaw’s depiction of anti-Semitism, horrible enough when it’s coming from the Nazis, but so much worse when it’s perpetrated by the very people who are supposed to be on the right side. Noah is victimised wherever he goes – in civvy street, by the men in his company, by hotel owners who won’t allow him and his wife to have a room on the rare occasions he gets a weekend pass. Shaw was an American Jew himself, and sadly this makes it all feel even more authentic. The Holocaust may have been exclusive to the Nazis, but again Shaw gets home the message that anti-Semitism is pretty much universal.
A truly wonderful book, harrowing, thought-provoking, emotional and beautifully written, this one gets my highest recommendation.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
As 1937 draws to a close, we are introduced to three young men, very different in terms of social background and beliefs, whom we will follow through to the end of the war in Europe in 1945. Christian is German, drawn to the Nazis because they have restored a sense of pride to Germany following the defeat of WW1. He passively accepts the anti-Semitism at the heart of the regime as something that simply is. Noel is an American Jew, who is left alone when his father, his only relative in the US, dies. He has heard something of what is happening to the Jews in Europe and is concerned, but he is also falling in love with Hope and that takes up most of his emotions. Michael is a theatre producer, wealthy and surrounded by shallow, artsy types who don’t appear on the surface to care much about anything. But Michael is already a little guilty that he hasn’t, as some of his friends have, gone to Spain to fight the fascists. Oh, he’s raised money for the fight, but as the Nazi threat grows he feels he should do more.
There is so much in this book, both in terms of incident and depth, that it’s impossible to do it justice in a short review, so I’m going to concentrate on the things that most stood out to me, and strongly recommend you read it for yourself.
First off, the writing is superb, and Shaw uses beautiful control in the timing so that the thoughtful passages, of which there are many, don’t get in the way of the action, and vice versa. The book starts slowly, taking time to ensure we know these three men as they are before war has become a reality for them, so that we see throughout how their experiences gradually change them. He manages to be very even-handed, which surprised me in a book first published in 1948, so soon after the war ended. I don’t mean even handed between the Nazis and the Allies – there is no doubt in the book about the evil of the Nazi regime. But Christian is shown sympathetically at first as a patriotic German rather than a Nazi zealot, as of course most Germans were. And the Americans are shown warts and all, with a good deal of criticism for the army and the way the war was run.
Christian is in the war from the beginning in 1939, whereas the Americans only came in after Pearl Harbor and even then it was a long time before they set foot in Europe, so for Noah and Michael most of their war is spent in relative safety, and by the time they are facing action in France it is against a force that is already beaten but not yet ready to admit it. So although they all face danger Christian is the one who experiences most and we see him gradually coarsened by what he witnesses, still patriotic, but losing his moral integrity as he comes to behave in ways he could never have imagined when he started out so full of pride. It’s wonderfully done – this destruction of a fundamentally decent man, poisoned by the evil of the regime he serves. By the end, Christian is monstrous but, because Shaw made us care about him in the beginning, it’s hard to hate him even while abhorring what he does.
Michael and Noah, on the other hand, grow from their experiences and although they become hardened to an extent, they are on the winning side, and Shaw shows how different that is. As the German forces fall apart and Christian faces the shame and despair of going home defeated, the Americans develop the camaraderie of men fighting for good against evil, confident of victory and a glorious homecoming, if only they can survive. But Shaw shows that there were atrocities on the Allied side too, not to the same degree, of course, but it gives the message that the potential is there just as much in America or Britain or France for evil to thrive as in Germany, if the circumstances arise. And he also shows that civilians suffer as much or more than soldiers, especially with the new horror of air warfare, and its bastard offspring – collateral damage and “friendly fire”.
There are many horrors, as is to be expected – deaths, injuries, atrocities, betrayals, despair – but portrayed with authenticity and without gratuitousness, and there is humour and friendship along the way which prevents the tone from becoming too unrelievedly bleak. There is a wonderful scene in London of a theatre company relentlessly continuing with their opening night performance of Hamlet as the air raid sirens wail and bombs explode outside.
However, the thing I will remember most from the book is Shaw’s depiction of anti-Semitism, horrible enough when it’s coming from the Nazis, but so much worse when it’s perpetrated by the very people who are supposed to be on the right side. Noah is victimised wherever he goes – in civvy street, by the men in his company, by hotel owners who won’t allow him and his wife to have a room on the rare occasions he gets a weekend pass. Shaw was an American Jew himself, and sadly this makes it all feel even more authentic. The Holocaust may have been exclusive to the Nazis, but again Shaw gets home the message that anti-Semitism is pretty much universal.
A truly wonderful book, harrowing, thought-provoking, emotional and beautifully written, this one gets my highest recommendation.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
March 7, 2019
I saw the movie a very long time ago, and was fascinated by it. The book has been in the house for a long time and I often gave thoughts to reading it.Some six months ago, a time when there was nothing new and significant, I thought this could be the time. I started it, read about 200 pages and then escaped into something newer. I did come back-often as I was intrigued with the characters and their differences and of course the war.i have read the other great ww2 books and wanted to finish this. Shaw was a great writer and used the language beautifully. There are so many moments in each of he characters lives that are significant and beautiful. The persistence and determination of Ackerman to fight 10 bullies is amazing. The uncertainty and ambivalence of Christian, the German soldier is somewhat shocking. The emergence of Michael, a man committed to nothing or no one is enlightening. This is a novel well worth reading. I'm glad I finished it. I mourn the loss of Shaw and so many like him who left so much for all of us
June 18, 2023
Uno dei più bei romanzi sulla seconda guerra mondiale, personaggi indimenticabili.
December 16, 2022
Երկրորդ համաշխարհայինի մասին լավագույն ստեղծագործություններից մեկը
Թող Ձեզ չվախացնի այն փաստը, որ գիրքը բավական երկար է: Հավատացեք, մի շնչով կարդացվում է: Ու չնայած գիրքը պատերազմի մասին է, այն կարող են կարդալ անգամ նրանք, ովքեր այդ թեմայի գրականության սիրահար չեն:
Պատմությունը... Պարզապես հարգանքներս, իսկապես կատարյալ է ներկայացված: Մեզ պատմում են երեք զինվորների մասին՝ առանձին առանձին, և նրանց ճակատագրերն այս կամ այն կերպ ժամանակ առ ժամանակ խաչվում են: Ամենահետաքրքիրն այն է, որ երկուսը Ամերիկայի բանակում են ծառայում, իսկ մեկը՝ Գերմանիայի: Եվ վերջինս ուղն ու ծուծով նացիստ է, ինչն ավելի հետաքրքիր է դարձնում պատմությունը:
Սյուժեն նույնպես շատ լավ է մշակված, բավական հետաքրքիր շրջադարձերով և արագ, չձանձրացնող զարգացումներով:
Գրելաոճը, իհարկե, կատարյալ չէ, բայց ավելի քան լավն է:
Բավական լավ է մշակված նաև զգացմունքային ֆոնը: Գիրքը չի օգտագործում այսօր այդքան տարածված, պարզ «լացացնելու մեթոդները», բայց կարողանում է ազդել իր խորությամբ, վերոնշյալ պատմության մատուցմամբ:
Անպայման կարդացեք: Վստահ եմ՝ չեք փոշմանի:
Թող Ձեզ չվախացնի այն փաստը, որ գիրքը բավական երկար է: Հավատացեք, մի շնչով կարդացվում է: Ու չնայած գիրքը պատերազմի մասին է, այն կարող են կարդալ անգամ նրանք, ովքեր այդ թեմայի գրականության սիրահար չեն:
Պատմությունը... Պարզապես հարգանքներս, իսկապես կատարյալ է ներկայացված: Մեզ պատմում են երեք զինվորների մասին՝ առանձին առանձին, և նրանց ճակատագրերն այս կամ այն կերպ ժամանակ առ ժամանակ խաչվում են: Ամենահետաքրքիրն այն է, որ երկուսը Ամերիկայի բանակում են ծառայում, իսկ մեկը՝ Գերմանիայի: Եվ վերջինս ուղն ու ծուծով նացիստ է, ինչն ավելի հետաքրքիր է դարձնում պատմությունը:
Սյուժեն նույնպես շատ լավ է մշակված, բավական հետաքրքիր շրջադարձերով և արագ, չձանձրացնող զարգացումներով:
Գրելաոճը, իհարկե, կատարյալ չէ, բայց ավելի քան լավն է:
Բավական լավ է մշակված նաև զգացմունքային ֆոնը: Գիրքը չի օգտագործում այսօր այդքան տարածված, պարզ «լացացնելու մեթոդները», բայց կարողանում է ազդել իր խորությամբ, վերոնշյալ պատմության մատուցմամբ:
Անպայման կարդացեք: Վստահ եմ՝ չեք փոշմանի:
November 5, 2021
One of the classic novels of World War II. Considered in the rank of Thin Red Line, From Here to Eternity and The Naked and the Dead. Shaw served in the European Campaign so he writes with authority as he follows three characters from the start of the war through it. Particularly interesting is his take on Diestl, the German soldier.
December 11, 2017
4,5 звезди. Отначало й бях сложила 4, но всъщност, като се замислих, по-коректната й оценка е 5. Затова я коригирам. Книгата е страхотна и наистина си заслужава!
September 19, 2008
Human nature at its best. An epic tale, an epic emotional journey for the characters and especially for us the readers! Using WWII as a backdrop, Shaw presents us with conflicting emotions, human flaws and virtues, and above all he exposes the reality of human behaviour. I simply loved this book.
Don't read it... LIVE IT!
Don't read it... LIVE IT!
April 30, 2013
Excellent movie with great actors such as Marlon Brando, a German officers who dislikes the war, Montgomery Clift, the Jewish-American soldier who has to deal with the antisemitism and Dean Martin, who from playboy becomes a hero.
February 5, 2018
Обожавам книги, които ме карат да съпреживявам! Брилянтен Ъруин Шоу! 800 страници с Мъка, жестока мъка: душевни бездни, телесни рани, разбити животи, изгубени мечти. Не очаквах, че ще ме завладее до такава степен, но явно е излял сърцето и душата си,, имайки предвид неговото родословие. Толкова пронизваща сетивата книга не бях чела от доста време!
February 12, 2019
Deserving it's praise
The Young Lions is on of the great dramas to come out of WWII. For me it was a great read. I feel it is more drama than war book The soul of the book is the characters. Not the strum and drank of battle. I rated it s 4 because I feel Shaw spend more time with the internal dialogue of his characters then is sought by many "modern" readers.
The Young Lions is on of the great dramas to come out of WWII. For me it was a great read. I feel it is more drama than war book The soul of the book is the characters. Not the strum and drank of battle. I rated it s 4 because I feel Shaw spend more time with the internal dialogue of his characters then is sought by many "modern" readers.
June 12, 2023
I think that if I had read this book as a young adult, I would have given it 5* and it would have filled me with outrage and anger. Now it made me sad and filled with despair so I can't say that I loved it.
As a young person, novels like this were key to opening my eyes to some of the horror of war and the unjustness of prejudice. Now as an older adult, I know these things (though thankfully not from personal experience) and also no longer have the energy or hope that society can be made better. Well, I do hope that society can become better - more equitable, more compassionate - but my hope is dimmer now especially that it will happen in my lifetime. So the book just made me unhappy about all the things Noah had to go through while finding his ordeals all too plausible.
As a young person, novels like this were key to opening my eyes to some of the horror of war and the unjustness of prejudice. Now as an older adult, I know these things (though thankfully not from personal experience) and also no longer have the energy or hope that society can be made better. Well, I do hope that society can become better - more equitable, more compassionate - but my hope is dimmer now especially that it will happen in my lifetime. So the book just made me unhappy about all the things Noah had to go through while finding his ordeals all too plausible.
October 28, 2018
Трудно ми е да опиша колко адски противни са ми и тримата герои. И мадамите им. Толкова отблъскващи по толкова много начини, че аз това няма да го дочета. Две звезди, защото знам, че авторът по принцип не е толкова лош. И идеята е хубава като цяло. Страшно много харесвам "Богат, беден"... Явно, че предпочитам друг вид "американска класика", ако можем да числим Шоу към този тип писатели.
January 21, 2018
Военната драма проследява периода от 1938 г. до края на Втората световна война и ни пренася на фронта във Франция, Северна Африка и Германия, за да ни запознае с американеца Майкъл, германеца Християн и италианеца Ноа. И тримата са много различни един от друг и крайно неподготвени за сблъсъците млади хора.
С напредването на военните действия Шоу постепенно разкрива вътрешния им свят, копнежите и мечтите им, като всеки от героите успява да добави нова черта в характера си до края на творбата. Останах безкрайно изненадана от подхода на автора да преплете съдбите им по един трудно предвидим начин. Факт е, че с богатия си стил, изключително умение и прецизност Шоу несъмнено е успял да създаде пълнокръвни герои, които дишат от всеки ред, живеят в сърцето ти, карат те да им съчувстваш или да ги низвергваш от самото начало до последния ред.
Няма да ви лъжа, „Младите лъвове“ е въздействаща и възхитителна книга, но не се чете лесно. Думите на писателя често се преглъщат трудно и на моменти човек има нужда да остави романа, преди да е събрал сили отново да продължи напред. Който има търпението да стигне до финала, без съмнение ще оцени този епичен литературен шедьовър. И като заговорих за финала, той се оказа брилянтен, неочакван, от онези, които те стискат за гърлото и помниш дълго, много дълго време…
Цялото ревю - тук: http://azcheta.com/mladite-lavove-irw...
С напредването на военните действия Шоу постепенно разкрива вътрешния им свят, копнежите и мечтите им, като всеки от героите успява да добави нова черта в характера си до края на творбата. Останах безкрайно изненадана от подхода на автора да преплете съдбите им по един трудно предвидим начин. Факт е, че с богатия си стил, изключително умение и прецизност Шоу несъмнено е успял да създаде пълнокръвни герои, които дишат от всеки ред, живеят в сърцето ти, карат те да им съчувстваш или да ги низвергваш от самото начало до последния ред.
Няма да ви лъжа, „Младите лъвове“ е въздействаща и възхитителна книга, но не се чете лесно. Думите на писателя често се преглъщат трудно и на моменти човек има нужда да остави романа, преди да е събрал сили отново да продължи напред. Който има търпението да стигне до финала, без съмнение ще оцени този епичен литературен шедьовър. И като заговорих за финала, той се оказа брилянтен, неочакван, от онези, които те стискат за гърлото и помниш дълго, много дълго време…
Цялото ревю - тук: http://azcheta.com/mladite-lavove-irw...
October 8, 2021
I thought I was going to really like this, it started out very well. But, as I realize from the other two Shaw books I've read, I don't end up feeling much for his characters for some reason. He does not write women well, in this one particularly the female characters are just awful, either dull nice-girls or rapacious sluts. I realize that war is unpleasant, and I expect when reading a war novel to be disturbed, but the gore level here was often unreadable for me. (and one of the grossest chapters takes place stateside) I guess I have a grudging admiration for the ending....although I tossed the book a couple of feet in dismay.
October 9, 2020
Thrillingly ambitious in scope, and I think Shaw just about manages to make it work. There are moments where the narrative seems to drop just a bit, but on the whole I thought it depicted WWII and its destruction well. One of those works where you get the sense that tragedy is just around the corner, and when it hits, you're devastated.
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