Hiroshima
by John Hersey
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Read in May, 2007
Membaca Hiroshima, membuat aku lupa aku sedang membaca sebuah laporan. Serasa baca novel. Fiksi. Apa ya istilahnya, page turner. Aku sulit berhenti membacanya. Padahal, aku mulai membaca jam 11 malam, dan sampai jam 12 malam, aku masih bersemangat menyelesaikan Hiroshima.
Oya, aku musti bilang, aku tidak suka cerita perang. Aku tidak suka film perang. Kalau aku menonton film perang, syarat utama adalah film itu harus memiliki gambar yang bagus. Bukan gambar indah, tapi gambar yang bagus, gamb...more
Oya, aku musti bilang, aku tidak suka cerita perang. Aku tidak suka film perang. Kalau aku menonton film perang, syarat utama adalah film itu harus memiliki gambar yang bagus. Bukan gambar indah, tapi gambar yang bagus, gamb...more
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Read in March, 2008
about a month ago during (i suppose) a particularly stressful night i had a dream that my father and i had survived the dropping of an atomic bomb on some unnamed city. i remember very clear ducking behind a large rock as the shockwave went past, and the eery silence that accompanied the flash that radiated out from the bomb. in the dream it wasn't clear that surviving was the better option.
it made me realize that i hadn't thought about the fact the united states still is the only country t...more
it made me realize that i hadn't thought about the fact the united states still is the only country t...more
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Read in February, 2008
Meh. I sort of wish I had read a different book about the bombing of Hiroshima. This book is a dramatized account of the experience of six survivors of the first use of an atom bomb.
The fact that it was dramatized really annoyed me. The author supplied dramatic details such as the specific way in which a person walked down a street in japan a decade earlier, or dialog between the survivors and the people that were around them. I would much prefer a book that just told me what happened,...more
The fact that it was dramatized really annoyed me. The author supplied dramatic details such as the specific way in which a person walked down a street in japan a decade earlier, or dialog between the survivors and the people that were around them. I would much prefer a book that just told me what happened,...more
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Read in October, 2005
Hiroshima by John Hersey has become a required reading book for many high schools. I think part of that is due to its brevity, which makes it more likely that teenagers will read it. However, its subject matter - the stories of several survivors of the US bombing of Hiroshima is not light. Hersey depicts the moments before and after the bombing as well as following up on the later lives of each person depicted.
The book is not as poignant as The Diary of Anne Frank. It almost seems as though ...more
The book is not as poignant as The Diary of Anne Frank. It almost seems as though ...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
Everyone
During the 1940s, an atomic bomb was dropped on the grounds of Japan in main cities, Hiroshima&Nagasaki. The description of what happened during this time& period was so realistic and clear. The Americans dropped a massive atomic bomb on December 7, 1941 unexpectedly on the Japanese. It was justlike any other day that the Japanese did not expect anything bad, however it soon became the most tramatizing event in Japan history. Millions of people died when the first bomb was dropped and th...more
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Read in March, 2008
In order to stave off the monotony of watching my students conduct library research, I picked this book up off the workroom shelves last week (I had finished grading my most recent set of essays two days earlier). I've wanted to read the book for quite some time, as it had been recommended by a friend and former colleague and it provides a different perspective on my recent obsession with the Pacific War. The organization of the book itself reminded me of another work I teach, Thorton Wilder's f...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
history fans
This is one of my favortie books because it deals with a very devastating event that occured in the world's history. This book talks about the tragic events that occured in Hiroshima through perspectives of several different people. One of the characters was Ms. Sasaki. She worked in a tin factory and in the moment of the droping of the bomb she was working there when she was crushed by a shelve full of books and metals. She had no chance of surviving and so did many of the Japanese. I l...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in December, 2006
This book vividly paints a picture of what it was like to withness an atomic bomb explosion and survive its effects, through the personal story of six survivors of the Hiroshima attack. As with many disasters -- though somehow I did not expect it from this one -- more people died and suffered from the aftermath (fires, starvation and thirst, untreated injuries, not to mention radiation sickness) than from the explosion itself. The stories of the camps that formed spontaneously, the attempts of...more
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Read in August, 2007
This book was written by the journalist John Hersey. He follows the life of six survivors of the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. Some of the characters knew each other. It tells about all the problems these people had because of the bomb, their return to an almost normal life...The last chapter tells what happend 40 years later.
What I liked about this book,is how it tells the story of the A-bomb, trough the personal experiences of six different people. What I didn't like about it was the way i...more
What I liked about this book,is how it tells the story of the A-bomb, trough the personal experiences of six different people. What I didn't like about it was the way i...more
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
Anyone
This book was a great book that help gave me sort of a first hand view on the attack on Hiroshima with an atomic bomb. It made me realize how dramatic it was and how scary it must had been for the many that were killed in the attack and those who had saw it first hand. This is a life changing book and it will help everyone who reads the book to see how everyone had lived before the attack, during the attack and after the attack.Because of this attack, the citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has t...more
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Read in April, 2008
Shortly after World War II, John Hersey traveled to Japan to interview survivors of the first atomic bomb. Like so many author’s who’ve followed him, Hersey attempted to gather the stories of the refugees who fled, as well as those who stayed in the immediate aftermath, in order to understand the impact the bomb had on the city’s citizens.
The six survivor’s he interviewed provided stark accounts that give an entirely different dimension to the rather bland, almost scientific, repo...more
The six survivor’s he interviewed provided stark accounts that give an entirely different dimension to the rather bland, almost scientific, repo...more
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May we never ever unleash such great violence again, even when provoked. Although so many argue that the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the least violent methods of stopping Militaristic Axis Japan, the ensuing chaos, horrific violence, and complete incineration of Japan; proves to me that there should have been another path. The book provides brutal accounts of the bloody aftermath afterwhich the bombs were dropped over Japan, and countless men, women, and children were left dead,...more
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Read in October, 1998
recommends it for:
Everyone
What I love about this book is that the author manages to paint a very vivid picture of what it was like in Hiroshima the day the atomic bomb was dropped (and the days following as well), without really giving his opinion of whether or not the bomb should or shouldn't have been dropped at all!
This is a true account of survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. It is riveting, terrifying and at times sickening.
After reading this one can't help but ponder how mankind manages to inflict suc...more
This is a true account of survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. It is riveting, terrifying and at times sickening.
After reading this one can't help but ponder how mankind manages to inflict suc...more
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This book should be mandatory reading in schools. It tells the stories of six people who survived the bombing of Hiroshima and what took place in the days following the explosion. People were pulling potatoes that got cooked from the heat of the bomb out of the ground and eating them. People had the patterns of their dresses burned into their skin. Those who were looking at the sky when the bomb went off had their eyeballs melt in their heads. The raindrops that fell after the explosion were the...more
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recommends it for:
anyone
I learned a great deal about the affects of an atomic bomb from this book.
This book is dry...like reading a newspaper article. Despite this, I think it would be a good thing if everyone at least read portions of Hiroshima. I think most people would walk away from this non-fiction book with no desire to ever inflict such harm.
I learned that plastic surgery's roots are in Hiroshima's aftermath. Is this part of why Hiroshima was set off, or pure kindness?
Hiroshima dispells the stup...more
This book is dry...like reading a newspaper article. Despite this, I think it would be a good thing if everyone at least read portions of Hiroshima. I think most people would walk away from this non-fiction book with no desire to ever inflict such harm.
I learned that plastic surgery's roots are in Hiroshima's aftermath. Is this part of why Hiroshima was set off, or pure kindness?
Hiroshima dispells the stup...more
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Read in May, 2007
I'm speechless after reading this book. And I feel more that, despite the best efforts of books like this to describe to us what it was like, we will never know the horrors of war if we have not been there first-hand. On the other hand, I think books like this one are important because it tells a story of something true, horrible, humane and inhumane. I can't even comprehend what a horrible nightmare these kinds of events were, but I hope it never happens again. No one deserves anything remote...more
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Read in January, 1980
I've taught this book at every school I worked it. I have never forgotten some of the images/memories that survivors shared.
Read it. There's nothing else to say.
If you HAVE read it, I HIGHLY recommend a new documentary playing on HBO this month (aug 07) called WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: the destruction of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. It is really well done and for those of us who have read Heresy's HIROSHIMA, the documentary includes the footage described in the book of that god-awful THIS ...more
Read it. There's nothing else to say.
If you HAVE read it, I HIGHLY recommend a new documentary playing on HBO this month (aug 07) called WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN: the destruction of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. It is really well done and for those of us who have read Heresy's HIROSHIMA, the documentary includes the footage described in the book of that god-awful THIS ...more
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Read in October, 2007
I flew through this book in a couple of days. It's a true-life account about the after-effects of the bombing of Hiroshima on six people's lives. Interesting how those in Japan at the time had no idea the kind of bomb they were dealing with - reminds me a bit of the chilling animated film When the Wind Blows. The edition I read also included a chapter following up on the victims' lives 40 years after the bombing. Interesting to note, this story comprised an entire issue of the New Yorker on ...more
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Read in December, 2004
I can't imagine what New Yorker readers thought reading this just a year after WWII ended. For me, it was harrowing, gripping and fascinating. I read it all in a single afternoon. Hersey personalizes the nuclear attack by recounting the experiences of some everyday civilians in Hiroshima the day the bomb was dropped.
I actually read this in the The Complete New Yorker. One advantage to reading it there is that it also includ...more
I actually read this in the The Complete New Yorker. One advantage to reading it there is that it also includ...more
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Read in November, 2007
This was originally written as a story for the New Yorker. The journalistic style of the story tended towards keeping the descriptive details somewhat simple. Even so this simple style, for me at least, seemed to increase the intensity and reality of the horror, pain, and gruesomeness of the scene and the experiences of the people he writes about. Now I'm curious to read something about the rebuilding of Hiroshima and Japan itself. I'm also curious as to how the relations of the Japanese peo...more
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