Italy, near Cassino, in the terrible winter of 1944. An icy rain, continuing unabated for days. Guided by a seventy-year-old Italian man in rope-so...
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Sep 03, 2008
Ally
rated it: 
It is rare to read a perfect work, but Bausch's Peace is indeed such a masterpiece. Set in Italy on the brink of WWII, three soldiers journey up a snow fallen mountainside on a reconnaissance mission, only to be met with the cruelty of the cold, haunting memories of innocent civilians slain, an Italian guide whose allegiance is questionable, and a mysterious sniper stalking their every move. In sparse, beautiful language--distilled and serene as the snowfallen landscape of Peace itself--we encou
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Sep 26, 2008
Kathy
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This book reminded me a lot of Hemingway's Farewell to Arms. They style was spare and kind of Hemingwayesque and the subject matter was similar. Just as Hemingway used rain to set a mood in his book, this author used the freezing, snowy weather to heighten the feeling of despair, misery and futility. FTA of course included a love story, and Peace includes no female characters outsides of the memory of the main character Marson, but the theme of the despair, misery and futility of war reminded
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Sep 20, 2011
Sam
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1944, South Italy. The closing stages of the war, the Americans are chasing the Italian Fascists and the Nazis north and out of Italy. A small group of American GIs stop a civilian cart when out of the straw in the back jumps a Nazi officer who shoots dead two Americans before being shot himself. His prostitute girlfriend is also shot despite not being a Nazi or having a weapon. 3 GIs are sent with a local Italian to go ahead of the main group up into the mountains to see if the way is clear. Bu
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Dec 06, 2009
Charles
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If war didn’t exist, novelists would have to invent it. What other pursuit reduces humanity to a raw essence and brings into question the nature of civilization?
Richard Bausch’s Peace is a very short novel. Some would call it a novella, but that diminutive doesn’t do the book justice. For with a kind of magical economy, Bausch packs more into 171 pages than some novelists do with three times that number. He has written 10 previous novels, and he has learned how to propel a story, to More...
Richard Bausch’s Peace is a very short novel. Some would call it a novella, but that diminutive doesn’t do the book justice. For with a kind of magical economy, Bausch packs more into 171 pages than some novelists do with three times that number. He has written 10 previous novels, and he has learned how to propel a story, to More...
Apr 25, 2010
Kathy
rated it:
Now THIS book is excellent. The best I've recently read. It's a novella, granted, but when do I ever start and finish a book in the same day? I simply don't have the luxury anymore, but Bausch hooked me with his eloquent prose, his true sentences, the point of view and insights provided by protagonist, Robert Marston, and his precise descriptions.
I hadn't read it before because I wasn't in the "mood" for a war book. For the past few years, I've been reading "relationship" More...
I hadn't read it before because I wasn't in the "mood" for a war book. For the past few years, I've been reading "relationship" More...
Feb 05, 2009
Bausch's talent in the short form comes through in the 24 chapters that comprise Peace, an abbreviated novel ringing with the clarity and honesty of a master's prose and reminding the reader at every step how much remains to be saidabout the war, about violence, about fear, about the human condition. Critics disagree, however, over the success with which Bausch's condensed effort presents the dilemma of war and its consequences (Peace is less than a third the length of Denis Johnson's recent,
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Oct 18, 2011
Will
rated it:
As Michael Hedges might say, “War is a force that gives us meaning.” Richard Bausch’s Peace offers human character assaulted and revealed by the horror of war.
In bleak 1944 Italy, after the Cassino invasion by the Allies, a reconnaissance company stops a farmer’s cart. A German soldier and whore jump out. The German shoots and kills two soldiers before being himself shot dead by a GI. A sergeant shoots the German whore, who is screaming and struggling, even though she presents no thr More...
In bleak 1944 Italy, after the Cassino invasion by the Allies, a reconnaissance company stops a farmer’s cart. A German soldier and whore jump out. The German shoots and kills two soldiers before being himself shot dead by a GI. A sergeant shoots the German whore, who is screaming and struggling, even though she presents no thr More...
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Dec 13, 2009
Ningerbil
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A small army patrol in Italy has been charged with the task of scouting around and finding any straggling enemy soldiers towards the end of World War II. This is much harder than it seems. The fast-paced novel mostly follows three of the soldiers and their Italian guide, a 70-year-old man whose loyalties are unknown. The reader can feel the oppresive cold rain that pours for days, followed by the heavy mountain snow. The three soldiers suffer not just from the elements but their memories of home
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Oct 03, 2011
Ives LeSpark
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A superb, and near perfect ,"Peace: a novel” is a tale of three U.S Soilders set upon a hill in Italy during World War Two, along with an old Italin villager who is to be their guide. The Three Soilders sent are all different and their characters well written by Richard Bausch. The climb is not easy in freezing relentless rain then unforgiving snow. Their Italian guide speaks little English and his motives are unclear. Higher up the hill they come arcoss horros of war and their wills
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Jan 30, 2010
Kat
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The first paragraph of Richard Bausch’s novella Peace ends: “Everything was in question now.” The “everything” in question apparently refers to questions of time and geography, but is suggestive of the book’s wider theme: The moral confusion that follows soldiers into war, when all the codes they’ve spent their short lives learning are cast aside. Robert Marson, the WWII soldier who is the protagonist of this taut, gripping tale, arrives in Italy just about the time that nation changes from an A
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Dec 25, 2011
Cball
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I'm adding this book to my goodreads account because I read this at least 2 years ago and it is still with me.
Inadvertently, I had recently finished *A Thread of Grace* by Mary Doria Russell. Sitting these two stories side by side just about blew my brain. Same setting, different viewpoints. A-mazing.
Told from a U.S. soldier's view, it is near the end of the war and he is tired. So tired. And yet he is assigned yet another mission of recon. He has to depend upon More...
Inadvertently, I had recently finished *A Thread of Grace* by Mary Doria Russell. Sitting these two stories side by side just about blew my brain. Same setting, different viewpoints. A-mazing.
Told from a U.S. soldier's view, it is near the end of the war and he is tired. So tired. And yet he is assigned yet another mission of recon. He has to depend upon More...
Oct 12, 2011
Felonious
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When this book (Peace) was recommended to me, I read the description and was a bit reluctant to read it at first. The plot sounded all too familiar. A soldier witnesses a murder committed by his Sargent and must decide if he should report it. After seeing the book was only about 170 pages I decided I would give it a try (that and the fact that I trust the person who recommended it to me).
The setting for Peace is Italy during WWII. Most of the story takes place during the mission after More...
The setting for Peace is Italy during WWII. Most of the story takes place during the mission after More...
Mar 01, 2011
Mike
rated it: 
A short, quick read that keeps the book at a consistent pulse-pounding level, but also allows the reader to complete it in a couple hours. The book follows three soldiers who, after coming upon an Italian refugee, force him to guide them over a hill. The entire story develops over a few hours and it keeps the book moving.
While this is a WWII novel, it could be set at anytime. The message of the book is whether murder is a wartime necessity or are there rules to war. I thought the message was cle More...
While this is a WWII novel, it could be set at anytime. The message of the book is whether murder is a wartime necessity or are there rules to war. I thought the message was cle More...
Nov 03, 2011
This quick read paints a cold reality and stark story that must mirror some of the real-life experiences of WWII combat veterans. In the story we follow a small squad of US soldiers as they push through the frozen cold on a quick recon-type mission. Outside of the harsh elements they are forced to deal with enemy soldiers, trust issues and a "sense of purpose", both that have life and death consequences.
What was amazing to me was how quickly I felt cold, lost and anxious. It's not a bi More...
What was amazing to me was how quickly I felt cold, lost and anxious. It's not a bi More...
Jan 28, 2011
Anne
rated it:
If you're going to start reading a book about war, anyplace is fine. And any book about war might be fine, come to think of it.
But when you finish a book about war, you'll want to be in Costa Rica, swinging gently in a hammock, listening to a far-off band of young people practice for the annual celebration of that country's abolition of its own army. It helps if you've just worked to elect a President you really believe will make the world better at home -- and if everyone you meet a More...
But when you finish a book about war, you'll want to be in Costa Rica, swinging gently in a hammock, listening to a far-off band of young people practice for the annual celebration of that country's abolition of its own army. It helps if you've just worked to elect a President you really believe will make the world better at home -- and if everyone you meet a More...
Jul 07, 2009
Lulu
rated it:
Challange #20.2 171 pages
Three soldiers climb a mountain in Italy as recognizance. Rain turns into ice, into snow; anger, fear and pain. It's a personal story told from the view point of the leader of this group.
It's very hard to review this book because I'm not sure how I feel about it. It takes place in Italy during WWII and I realized how much I didn't know about that part of the war. (Probably know most about the action in France and the Pacific.)
The bo More...
Three soldiers climb a mountain in Italy as recognizance. Rain turns into ice, into snow; anger, fear and pain. It's a personal story told from the view point of the leader of this group.
It's very hard to review this book because I'm not sure how I feel about it. It takes place in Italy during WWII and I realized how much I didn't know about that part of the war. (Probably know most about the action in France and the Pacific.)
The bo More...
Aug 05, 2009
Randy
rated it:
I can't help but compare this novella to The Road by Cormac McCarthy...both are short reads about 5 hours for me. Peace centers around three American soldiers in Italy during the allied invasion of World War 2. Working as infantry scouts with a civilian murder stuck in their consciences, the three main characters force an old Italian man with them over a mountain in winter to find the retreating German army. The plot evolves around their tensions and misery and loose freindship. Hard to put do
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Aug 03, 2009
Dan
rated it:
This book is aimed squarely at me by religion, interest, and intellectual agreement, but I have to sadly report that I didnt find it to come close to carrying the weight it set out to. It's not a bad book, and I'm glad I read it, but, with this material, only a blockbuster is going to be acceptable.
There is some chance I am being too rough on it because I accidently came across the fact the author is an academic while I was reading it, but I don't think it's the case.
{cou More...
There is some chance I am being too rough on it because I accidently came across the fact the author is an academic while I was reading it, but I don't think it's the case.
{cou More...
Nov 17, 2009
Mark
rated it:
Occasionally, you encounter a story that seems as though it has been crystallized to its essence. That is my experience with "Peace," which is about peace, but also about war.
Richard Bausch starts with a straightforward story of an ugly and dispiriting moment in WWII. A squad of foot soldiers near Monte Cassino have unexpectedly rousted a German soldier and a prostitute from the back of a hay-covered wagon, and in an instant, two of the GIs are dead, the German has i More...
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Apr 17, 2009
Monte
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An abrupt and chilling act of violence opens Bauch's 11th novel, marking the beginning of a bleak but compelling meditation on the moral dimensions of warfare. Cpl. Robert Marson is trudging up an Italian hillside, leading two of his men on an uncertain mission through the unrelenting winter of 1944. The soldiers are haunted by the cold-blooded murder by their sergeant, Glick, of a woman on the Italian roadside, and highly suspicious of the Italian farmer they have enlisted to act as a guide in
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Dec 18, 2008
Leota
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Bausch is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers...and this book, though about a fairly bleak topic (war), is really beautiful, both on a sentence by sentence level (stunning), and in the way he allows the story to unfold. It's the type book that is so tense, yet so artfully crafted, that you'll probably want to read it several times (well, I do, at least). Luckily, its modest length will allow you to do so.
One star off because the climb up the mountain kept making me think of More...
One star off because the climb up the mountain kept making me think of More...
Jun 14, 2008
Dave
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Richard Bausch's taut novel tells us what happens when civilian soldiers go to war. It's a powerfully atmospheric story about three American soldiers sent up a mountain in Italy near Cassino during the brutal winter of 1944. Their mission: see what the Germans are doing on the other side. Their mental state: conflicted by the shooting of a German woman they witnessed just before they left. Was it murder? An act of war? Should they report it when they return or simply fold it into their psyches?
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Sep 21, 2009
Lyn
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A forthright book (bausch is a 'southern writer'), ultimately the story consisted of page after page bickering, badgering and characters considering things and I found myself not caring what they came up with- because they never came up with anything nor did they stop considering the same thing over and over. If there was an abstract moral in there, I couldn't find it. I picked up the book for it's audacious title. The Whitman quote on the flyleaf was the best thing in it.
Mar 24, 2010
Alix
rated it:
quick read... pretty brutal. don't recommend right before bed. this book does a good job of giving you a feel for how terrifying and bloody uncomfortable war can be... stuck with people you might not really like, and yet they might be the difference between whether you survive or you don't. lots of big ideas about how war plays on your nerves and your consciousness, in all of 175 pages.
Aug 06, 2009
Marjanne
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This was an interesting story about a couple of soldiers, sent on reconnaissance during WWII in Italy. The author manages to fit a relatively short period of time into almost 200 pages. Most of the story occurs in the present (of that moment), but there is a little background story telling going on too. By the time I got to the end I kind of felt like I had been creeping around the woods with the soldiers. The story is well told and shows some research, or experience, in these types of situation
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Jun 28, 2009
Linda
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I read this book in two sittings because it is a fast read, and it is more novella than novel. It takes place in Italy right after WWII, and it is a war story, but more a story about struggles of right and wrong. The writing is so good - really pulled me into the climb up the mountain, the pain of the cold and the conflicts each man faces. It is sad, but realistic.
Apr 22, 2011
Staci
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This book was much more like a novella than a novel. It follows 3 soldiers in Italy in 1944. This book is all about the effects of war and death on soldiers, and the difference between killing and murder. It is beautfiully written, but does contain a boat load of profanity and a few instances of lewd imagery. If these things don't bother you, you may want to read this.
Aug 03, 2009
HBalikov
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A day in the life of a soldier on patrol in WW II Italy. Told in a combination of the day advancing and flashbacks, it is a powerful look at the thoughts, hopes, fears and interaction of a "grunt" in the U.S. Army's assault on fascist-held Italy. Very well-done mix of the trivial and the larger picture as we suffer along with Cpl. Marson and he tries to survive and make sense of it all.
May 14, 2010
Haley
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I'm really not sure how to feel about this book. I can't say that it was good--maybe because it didn't leave me feeling all warm inside. The quality of the writing was great, it drew me in, the characters were real. But this was a difficult one, full of very vivid imagery. Only a tiny piece of WWII, but a very real one.
Sep 12, 2010
Scott
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This book is simply a masterpiece, by a brilliant, underrated writer. He needs to be read by as many people as possible. There just aren't words to describe how good, and moving, this short novel really is. Well, maybe Richard Bausch could come up with the words, but that's why he's so damn talented.
