This past unit in humanities we have been learning about WWII, and we all ended up reading a book related to our unit. We had three choices, Code Name Verity, All the Light We Cannot See and Unbroken. I chose unbroken as I was intrigued by the fact that it is a true story from the Second World War. It was also made obvious that it was a good story as it was made into a movie. Here is my reveiw on it.
Unbroken
This is a spellbinding book that takes the reader on an incredible journey of a battle of wit, endurance and power. The story unfolds following a young Louie Zamperini who is a precocious precocious younger brother who in his mind believes he never measures up to his older brother. Louie is always getting in trouble and having to use his innate natural skills to escape situations. His skills were running away to evade capture. He turns this running skill to refocus his life into ability to run really fast and qualify to compete in the 1936 Olympics.
In the early stages of Louie’s life he figures out that if he stops focusing on negative activities like stealing, and focusing on something positive like long distance running he can become really proficient. You follow Louie as his brother pushes him to become one of the best runners in the country. Soon enough Louie is a celebrity winning races left, right and centre. The story follows Louie breaking records and training for the Olympics at a very young age. Louie does not win gold but he is determined to go to the next Olympics and be more successful. “He didn’t run from something or to something, not for anyone or in spite of anyone; he ran because it was what his body wished to do. The restiveness, the self-consciousness, and the need to oppose disappeared. All he felt was peace.”
As Louie becomes a young adult he is thrust into the centre of the early days of America’s entry into the Second World War in 1941. Then as many young men in their prime he must enter the service of the United States Air Force. What starts as an elite group of Bombers who take to the sky to confront the Japanese as they battle rages in the Pacific War Theatre. This tight knit group after successful missions finds themselves on a rescue mission. Encountering a life alerting situation the surviving bombers find themselves in a very perilous situation testing resolve and survival skills. After days adrift on the ocean with limited food and supplies they must dig deep to stay positive and remain above all hopeful they will be rescued. That their lives will not end.
This journey leads the reader through the difficult weeks before they are rescued. Enduring tests of inner strength they must all remain united over survival. Wind, storms, unrelenting sun and open exposure to dangerous predators of the oceans. They also had to confront the worst in human nature which is the selfishness of human being in the struggle for survival.
After being crushed by the unrelenting elements of both nature and the sometimes dark corners of human nature, they are then thrust into the next test as they are captured by the enemy. Already their bodies weekend by the basic necessities of life, food and water. The survivors must now dig deep to find the inner strength to push on. Push on and remain hopeful with the will to survive a prison of war camp. These camps are not hospitable. They are austere places with the very basics of food. Rice and rancid rations doled out sparingly. Crude conditions which run rife with disease spreading and only creating once more challenge they must overcome. Work camps test the very sole of these brave soldiers who are humiliated and treated as slaves.
The leader of these camps assigned to rule over the prisoners is not of the calibre of the warriors in the war theater flying the Japanese planes. This anger and resentment makes the prisoners easy targets of the fury and frustration. Compound this with the fact that Louie is recognized as an “Olympian” he becomes the very personal target of a very cruel leader. Louie Zamperini and Camp leader Matsushirio Watanabe go head to head. What ensues is now a battle of wit, will, and strength of the human body and spirit.“Dignity is as essential to human life as water, food, and oxygen. The stubborn retention of it, even in the face of extreme physical hardship, can hold a man’s soul in his body long past the point at which the body should have surrendered it.”
It is a true story that exemplifies the worst and the best of human beings. By having a positive mindset and spirit can triumph over the darkest of moments in our lives.
