| SIMON
RECOMMENDS:
"The Last Enemy"
by Richard Hillary
I’ve been
trying to wean myself off fiction for a while. And I have found over the
years, that something which I can always rely on to lend a little gravity
to my existance, is a firsthand account of some major event. Now, there
isn’t an event, in living history certainly, any more major than the Second
World War. Richard Hillary was 22 when he wrote this, his one and only
literary work. It is only a short book; some 176 pages in the copy I have.
But it is in a way the story of his life, certainly the part which mattered
most to him. He joined the RAF in 1939,when he was a 20 year old, Oxford
undergraduate. He gained his commission in the summer of 1940 - The Battle
of Britain; within a year had been flying combat missions, was shot down
and burned terribly, then underwent reconstructive surgery at the hands
of renowned plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe. After persuading the RAF
to allow him to fly again, Hillary was killed when his plane crashed on
a night training mission in 1942. He was 23.
The
account given of these young men and the way they approached their terrifying
missions, the loss of thier comades and probability of their own death,
is profoundly moving. However, this is not a recount of heroic exploit.
At it’s heart is the question of the morality of war and self, what really
motivates the self in war.
When
we come to compare our own lives, to those who risked their lives on a
daily basis so that others might survive and a way of life that they believed
in, might survive — we find that the relative peacetime we know, has trivialized
our existance and if anything, has made us lesser people.
Do
yourself a favour, if you get this book try to find a copy with an Introduction
by Sebastian Faulks this really will help you to understand it all a lot
better than I.
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SIMON
RECOMMENDS:
Nathaniel’s Nutmeg “How One Man’s Courage changed the course
of History”"
by Giles Milton
Very interesting, straightforward history.
I love this kind of stuff. Hey, New Yorkers — you really ought to read
this. Gotcha now, haven’t I.
SIMON RECOMMENDS:
"“Eats, shoots & leaves”
by Lynne Truss
Completely
brilliant. But, it is a bit of an “Oh dear!”
If you consider the written word as a gauge of our cullture, then you
may be horrified by this.
It’s a book about punctuation, not language, not common usage, not grammar
but punctuation i.e.commas, apostrophes, full-stops etc.. How on earth
this magnificent woman managed to make this subject, one of, if not this
year’s most, entertaining read, is a welcome miracle.
Ms
Truss, I am thoroughly indebted to you. I now understand the subtle, yet
crucial importance of say, the semi-colon, which joins related sentances
where a full-stop would be a little heavy handed. By the way, I’m still
practising; I’ve nearly got the hang of ...
Ooh-er— scary isn’t it!
Hang
on, am I suppose to put a question mark after a rhetorical question?
OK, it’s going to take some getting used to, but I’m determined to have
a go.
And I forgot to mention; this book is hilarious.
By the way, those three dots — they’re called an ellipsis.
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