Miracle on the River Kwai - Ernest Gordon

Published by Collins: London and Glasgow, 1963.

I had the wrong idea about what this book was to begin with. Not drastically wrong, but just wrong enough that there were points I began questioning whether I was reading what I thought I was reading.

What I thought I was reading was the book that inspired the movie Bridge on the River Kwai. I've never seen that movie, but I know it was popular when it came out, and it is one I'd like to see eventually. It turns out, though, that Bridge is a fictional story based around the building of an actual bridge on an actual River Kwai by British prisoners-of-war, and that Miracle is the non-fiction account of one of those prisoners. The bridge itself is only mentioned briefly.

At points it is quite intense, as many prisoner-of-war stories (and, sadly, especially prisoner-of-war stories set in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps) can be. And this intensity is added to by the way the author describes the spiritual journey of the prisoners in question; the widespread loss of faith and sense of hopelessness spreading through the camps, as well as the author's own dismissive views towards Christianity, were hard to read at some points, especially for a person of faith as myself.

But, it is important to read difficult texts as well. And what is interesting, is that - unexpectedly - the author of Miracle ends up finding a faith within the midst of the prison camps. Perhaps I should have seen it coming (after all, the word 'miracle' is in the title!) but this is where the misconceptions I had about the book's contents actually helped. I was so disorientated by what the book actually was that I was ready to accept the possibility that it wasn't a 'Christian' book despite this copy having a stamp inside the cover that was from a particular church! This made his sudden discovery of faith more surprising, and, yes, miraculous.

Anyway, it is an interesting read overall (and would have been, even without the faith journey). Not my favourite book of this style, and I'm not sure I would call Gordon a natural author, but certainly impacting and thought-provoking. 

Completed 1 May 2024.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Murder of Mr Wickham - Claudia Gray

Image
Published by Vintage Books/Penguin Random House LLC: New York, 2022. 'A Mr Darcy and Miss Tilney Mystery' Book 1. Followed by ' The Late Mrs Willoughby. ' The second book I've read in what could be a developing sub-genre: Jane Austen mysteries! Death Comes to Pemberley was the first, and although that was written using intentionally Austen-style choice of words, The Murder of Mr Wickham is far more successful in creating both the Austen feel and the proper murder-mystery vibe . It is also a little larger in scope than Pemberley was; this time, the characters in the story are not just pulled from Pride and Prejudice , but seemingly from every Austen novel! I say seemingly as I have still not read all of her works, but characters from  Sense and Sensibility   turn up, as do characters from Emma , and the rest seem to be referring to other literature as well. The author has even created her own 'Austen timeline' to make sense of her plot, telling us that the D
Read more

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Image
Published by Allen & Unwin: Crows Nest, NSW, Australia, 2008. Book snobs, block your ears. *whispers* I think the movie was better. Okay, book snobs, you can unblock your ears now. *waves to get the attention of book snobs* To be honest, a huge reason why I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society at this moment in time was that I thought it would be funny to have two books with ridiculously long titles appear back-to-back in my list. For anyone who thought that there were super-deep reasons why I picked the books that I did, I hope this helps you see the error of your ways. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (which I am refusing to shorten for the rest of this review) still tells the same story as that in the movie adaptation (also called  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society ), but does so in a less gripping (though still interesting) manner. This is for a few reasons: firstly,  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society book is e
Read more

Various Picture Books

Image
As I said in my review of Peter Rabbit's Storytime Collection , I am wanting to find a way to acknowledge the books I read to Ezekiel without adding individual picture books to my reading list - I feel that would dilute it a bit much. So in this post, I've decided to look at a group of picture books all together. I've picked five picture books that I like (with a notable and noteworthy exception), and also asked Elise for five picture books she is  enjoying reading to Ezekiel. It's interesting (and helpful for this list) that our lists haven't overlapped at all this time around. So, here are ten picture books (plus one bonus 'book') that Ezekiel has been exposed to in the first 7ish months of his life: Karl's List Bunnies on the Bus - Philip Ardagh and (illustrator) Ben Mantle. Published by Walker Books Ltd: London, 2020 (2019). This is one of my favourites among our current picture books. A group of bunnies hijack a bus and hurtle through the town on th
Read more