Peace (Vintage Contemporaries)
by Richard Bausch
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Book Summary Information
Author: Richard BauschEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-04-07
ISBN: 0307388581
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of Peace (Vintage Contemporaries)
Book Review: A Small Haunt
Summary: 4 Stars
"Peace" is Richard Bausch's eleventh novel, and it is very small. Only 171 pages, it is about a troop of American soldiers fighting in Italy during World War II. The team of seven is trying to find the enemy, the Nazis, and they are marching through the cold rain and snow to find them. None of them are comfortable physically so the mental strain is big as well, particularly since two of their men were killed the day before by a Nazi soldier and a whore. The centering of this novel is three of the soldiers being led up a hill that they quickly discover is a mountain by a old Italian guide who was trying to save his life by helping them. As they ascend the mountain, always aware that the chance of getting killed was just around the corner, the tensions are high. Two of the three soldiers do not like each other and blame one another for the shortfalls of the mission, the cold, the discomfort.They all fight with one another, but when it comes to fighting the enemy, they are closer than anyone, getting vengeance and justice for everything that happens.
This novel reminded me a great deal of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". In both, there is a search for survival. One of them being the food and the other being the enemy. Maybe it is because of the setting, the cold rain and snow in "Peace" and the cold rain and snow in "The Road." This searching for something that you do not know if you are going to find, if you are going to get killed instead (and eaten in the case of "The Road"), makes for a compelling story because the reader does not know if there is going to be triumph or disaster. In both novels, the ending is bittersweet, and I think that there is satisfaction in knowing that even though you are looking, you might not get exactly what you want. This concept goes back further to The Grapes of Wrath (Penguin Classics) with the Joads always searching for work, not finding what they needed, and the end being desperation with no more outlets. In "Peace," the end is more uplifting than "Grapes of Wrath" but there is still the same sort of feeling.
The writing by Richard Bausch is simple and easy to read, but the subject is not. There is something terrible about all war and this causes war novels to have the certain tone that cannot be avoided, a mood that is set by having a gun in your hands. And even though this novel is called "Peace," all the peace is in things outside of the current situation.
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