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Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point
Elizabeth D. Samet and her students learned to romanticize the army "from the stories of their fathers and from the movies." For Samet, it was the old World War II movies she used to watch on TV, while her students grew up on "Braveheart "and "Saving Private Ryan." Unlike their teacher, however, these students, cadets at the United States Mili...more
Hardcover, 259 pages
Published
October 16th 2007
by Farrar Straus Giroux
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Patty
rated it
Shelves:
2009,
2009-book-group,
9-11,
autobiography,
books-and-reading,
current-affairs,
death,
education,
family,
history,
literature,
memoir,
military,
poetry,
politics,
war,
women-writers,
non-fiction
When this book came up as a suggestion for my book group, I was really unsure how I felt about it. West Point? The military? Who teaches literature to soldiers? I think my reaction proved to myself that I had to at least start this book.
Well, I now suggest that more of us need to read this book. These folks work hard. As a former English major, I stand in awe of what is expected of these women and men. I had good professors and they wanted a lot from us. West Point is asking ...more
Well, I now suggest that more of us need to read this book. These folks work hard. As a former English major, I stand in awe of what is expected of these women and men. I had good professors and they wanted a lot from us. West Point is asking ...more
Elizabeth Samet, a civilian literature professor at West Point, recounts, "This is a story about my intellectual and emotional connections to military culture and to certain people in it, but the real drama lies in the way the cadets I teach and the officers with whom I work negotiate the multiple contradictions of their private and professional world....the courage with which they challenge accepted truths; the nuanced way they read literature and culture; and the ingenious methods they ha...more
Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point looked perfectly normal on the NPR website. From the article about it to the accompanying excerpt, I came to expect a book full of humorous stories about the odyssey of a civilian literature professor navigating the military. Instead, Professor Samet messes with your mind. At least, she messed with mine. Over the course of the book, Samet leads the reader, as she leads her students, to question our personal and societal idea...more
I really loved this book. Seems unlikely but reading about an English professor teaching poetry and literature to West Point military cadets who are going off to war, taught me a lot about literature, its importance, the ambiguity and subtlety of the military mind. It is also an important work politically because of its take on the war and on the failure to establish clear rules of war in the War on Terror. The characters who feature in this book are people you would really want to know, which i...more
Elizabeth Samet's book explores the human side of her English literature students. But her students are subject to unique pressures not common amongst college students as her students are cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York and will become the newest officers of the United States Army upon their graduation. Recounting her experiences meeting and teaching these cadets, Samet shows their real humanity and individuality as they are formed to join an organization t...more
This was a good read. I wasn't that interested when I started to read this, but it quickly turned into an engrossing read. Samet is an English Professor at West Point. Her book explores the importance of literature to the cadets that are soon probably going to head off to Iraq. One of the interesting aspects of the book is that it covers a period of time before and after 9/11 so you get a unique look at how things changed after the terrorist attacks. It is divided into chapters that deal with th...more
The daughter of a military man, Elizabeth Samet had some idea what she was in for when she accepted a position as an English professor at West Point. Her interesting and inspiring account of teaching in the predominantly male military academy demonstrates just how vital literature is not only to the development of the individual student but also to the growth of the soul. Confronted with the all-too-real possibility of injury or death in their near future, her students--often incredulous at firs...more
Bookmarks Magazine
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"What's the difference, ma'am? I'll be in Iraq within a year anyway," contends a cadet in Elizabeth Samet's English class. Soldier's Heart responds by making a graceful, compelling case that reading forces her students to slow down and reflect on such timeless themes as courage, honor, and sacrifice, which results in better, more thoughtful soldiers. Part memoir, the book also examines her teaching career and shares her opinions of religion in the military and the war in Iraq. It is he
...more
Okay. I have to be honest. I am politically and socially liberal, and fairly anti-military. So I give myself some credit for choosing to read this book. However, I am also a bibliophile and was fascinated to learn what role literature might play at an institution like West Point. This book was extremely interesting. The choice of literature both classic and contemporary was intriguing. It was such a pleasure to read of the author's attempts to reinforce that one can be ambivalent and comm...more
"The mythology of the citizen-soldier lies at the heart of the American military tradition," writes Elizabeth Samet, English professor at West Point. It's this mythology and the plethora of literature about war in the Western literary cannon Samet delineates in her memoir. Seduced by this mythology and the narrative constructed by the military, Samet teaches her students and, in turn, her reader, that literature permeates military life. "The Army is a giant found poem, its ne...more
James
rated it
Shelves:
arts,
character-studies,
culture-and-politics,
history,
memoirs,
writing,
literature,
poetry
Deeply fascinating, thought-provoking, and moving. The author describes her experiences teaching literature and writing at West Point. Her accounts of a number of cadets she's taught, with some of whom she's stayed in close touch, are intriguing. It's inspiring to know that one of our military academies is doing such a good job of teaching officers to be critical thinkers who are exposed to all perspectives and deeply aware of history and their place in the world. Anyone who thinks that people i...more
I've read a few reviews that compare this book to "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and I rather resent those comparisons. The only similarities between the two books are that both authors are women and they teach literature - that's where it ends. In this book, the author explains her regular curriculum, which is authorized and sanctioned by the US Army. In "Lolita" the women must meet in a clandestine way and all the works of literature are banned in Iran.
Otherwise...more
Otherwise...more
It was either NPR's Weekend Edition or All Things Considered that introduced me to Elizabeth Samet, literature professor at West Point. Either way, I kept her book, Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point, on my reading list a good long time before picking it up.
Samet does what I think she needed to accomplish in here book, describe why teaching literature to future soldiers is so important. I thought it was a given, but Samet describes the thinking of...more
Samet does what I think she needed to accomplish in here book, describe why teaching literature to future soldiers is so important. I thought it was a given, but Samet describes the thinking of...more
Very well-written and thoughtful/thought-provoking. In spite of the density of the book, I found myself wanting to know more about various facets of West Point, Army life, and specific events to which Samet referred.
More than that though, I feel like I am coming away from reading this book with a better vision of soldiers as people. It's painfully easy to look at people who do things we don't understand and to assume things. This seems to have been made even easier in recent years du...more
More than that though, I feel like I am coming away from reading this book with a better vision of soldiers as people. It's painfully easy to look at people who do things we don't understand and to assume things. This seems to have been made even easier in recent years du...more
a book about a literature professor at west point military academy. she weaves stories about her teaching experience and her students with examples from literature and her musings about the purpose of literature and reading, especially in the context of training young men and women for war. a really interesting study about how west point operates and an inside look into some of the people serving our country. i really enjoyed this book.
Well, finally I'm getting around to updating this to my list. It's been four months now, but I have to say that I remember liking it. I was kind of hoping that it would be more of a daily-life book, but it wasn't. That said, it did talk about literature and how important it is, and how you'd think that at a school like West Point, literature wouldn't be seen as important, but it really is. It was an interesting read.
Fascinating look at a world few of us will ever see first-hand. As a former college professor (marketing - business schools), I must admit I wish I could have demanded perfect attendance from students.
Samet does not provide a linear narrative so we don't get a sense of how she changed. I would have liked to get more of a sense of a typical day, week and month. And I wish she had speculated more about her own role as a civilian who was beginning to think like a military person.
...more
Samet does not provide a linear narrative so we don't get a sense of how she changed. I would have liked to get more of a sense of a typical day, week and month. And I wish she had speculated more about her own role as a civilian who was beginning to think like a military person.
...more
I stopped reading this book after the first chapter. Ms. Samet is patronizing of the USMA cadets that she teaches - despite meeting them in class she does not seem to have any sense of cadets themselves or what they put themselves through - it is as if she were writing from afar, perhaps Cambridge (she is quick to mention that she herself went to Harvard).
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I never thought I'd read a book about lit classes at a military college and run out to the library to get collections of Neruda and Auden, but there you have it. This book made me want to rediscover poetry. On the flip side of that coin, I did enjoy to first-hand accounts and literary analysis, but sometimes it got too academically obtuse.
I was looking for more insight into the soldier's heart & mind by way of literature but I couldn't ever get thru the obscure references and round about storytelling. Samet definitely writes in the language of academia (re: English Major) and seems to need help getting to her point. Though insightful at times it reads like a thesis itself.
I read this one for school. It was not my favorite, and I thought that it was a little boring. Basically, it was about a literature teacher at West Point teaching the cadets how literature relates to military life. There are other things, but that is the main theme. If I read it again, I may find it more interesting.
This is one of those poor books which will suffer from being just ever so slightly too academic (another reason in my secret why-I-dropped-out-of-grad-school saga: you just can't get rid of that icky dry style! It clings like eczema!) Samet has a lot of fine insights on a real, honest-to-God intersection of literature and reality: the reading habits of soldiers and their effect on how they think, act, and conduct war and peace (not to mention the ways in which literature helped her understand ...more
A fascinating account of an English teacher's classes at West Point academy. She uses a verbose, erudite style I can only admire as she describes the struggles her students ("plebes" is the nickname for freshmen) go through in the classroom and with the military culture overall, even as she compares the microcosm of the military society with the gamut of commentary within the annals of literature on subjects such as duty, obedience, unquestioning loyalty, and the like. She also records...more
This is a really good book, full of wise observations about literature, teaching, community, and warfare. But the book's central problematic feature can be summed up in this line from it:
Once again I have retreated--or advanced--to literature perhaps because I'm more comfortable analyzing it than I am my own relationship to war and to the people who wage it.
There's a lot of emotional attachment and...sadness?...under the surface in the book that's continually overtaken b...more
Once again I have retreated--or advanced--to literature perhaps because I'm more comfortable analyzing it than I am my own relationship to war and to the people who wage it.
There's a lot of emotional attachment and...sadness?...under the surface in the book that's continually overtaken b...more
Katie Banks
added it
Thought-provoking discussion of kinds of courage and detailed analysis and bibliography of literature concerning itself with the inner lives of soldiers. A little self-absorbed and overly-biographical at times.
Great read, thought it might be boring but it was anything but. Really enjoyed her insights into the challenges of teaching English at West Point and the role of literature for West Point grads. Highly recommended.
Andre Zollars
added it
If you have any affiliation with the military, especially the Army Officer Corps, then you will truly enjoy this book. It is written by a civilian woman who taught language arts for years at West Point. It is a moving book with enough references to classical literature to make you feel you've never read anything. You truly get a sense of the completeness of the West Point education and how the liberal arts impact a soldier's life. Excellent book.
Why the "liberal arts" are not for bleeding hearts only. And why we should be very glad soldiers read, especially when civilians delegate to them all the hard decisions about keeping our democracy "safe."
This is a really interesting idea for a book -- the author is a civilian English professor who teaches at West Point, and she writes about her experiences teaching literature to young men and women who are preparing to go to war. I think the idea is for a combination memoir/literary criticism like "Reading Lolita in Tehran." This book isn't really on that level, and a lot of parts feel unfocused, but there are some really interesting insights -- particularly when she talks about the ex...more
A rich, thought-provoking, challenging text. I am always fascinated by how literature intersects with life, and Samet conveys this with poignancy. Her prose is masterful.
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