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01-18-2012, 10:43 PM | #1 |
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January 2012 Discussion: Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse (spoilers)
Let's discuss the January Book Club selection, Black Rain by Masuji Ibuse. What did you think?
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01-20-2012, 09:30 AM | #2 |
Nameless Being
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Already? I meant to post this in the final voting thread, but lost track of the days passing. So this is a companion ebook that some may find of interest. I know it is late to mention it. It is very short. This is a coldblooded assessment of the effects of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki conducted by the US Military immediately after the end of WWII. As the Inkmesh search reveals it is available for free form PG, and for a nominal amount from most of the usual major ebook sources.
The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Manhattan District Inkmesh. |
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01-20-2012, 11:26 AM | #3 |
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All of things I wanted to share and /or discuss were done while I was reading the book, outside of MR. Its really difficult for me, now, 2+ weeks later, to bring all of it back together....
Black Rain was an emotionally difficult read. It is very hard to "see" people suffer and it doesn't help to know that "your" country was the cause for said suffering. Even now, understanding some of the the basic whats & whys does little to help shield the enormity of the loss and devastation. I left the book feeling angry at the United States for building the bomb and angry at Japan for backing us into such a corner that we felt we had to us it. |
01-20-2012, 12:50 PM | #4 |
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@Hamlet53: thanks for the tip.
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01-20-2012, 01:32 PM | #5 |
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Ouch! I haven't quite finished it yet. That little thing called "life" got in the way... I'll do chapter 16 and maybe some more tonight.
Anyway, I do like this book. It's nowhere bear as dark as I feared it would be. It's very interesting to read about this event from this perspective. Knowing what we know today in contrast to what they knew then. They had no idea what had hit them and what they were dealing with. I also like the insights in their way of life, and not just the story about what happened after the bomb. Better put the computer away and read another chapter now! |
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01-21-2012, 11:03 AM | #6 |
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So much to say about this book! I actually read it weeks ago, finished it New Year's Eve.
I virtual dogeared it while reading it in the PlayBook and then re read it on the Kobo Vox which has better highlighting. Neither allows me to copy the text unless I share the quotes to Facebook from the Vox so I guess I will have to do that... |
01-21-2012, 11:45 AM | #7 |
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Hmm, doesn't quote long passages anyways, so much for that...
A very evenly written, unbiased account of the war. On the one hand a passage at the end of chapter thirteen quotes a school song sung by the volunteer corps: A rifle in your hand, a hammer in mine-- But the road into battle is one, and no more. To die for your country's a mission divine For the boys and girls of the volunteer corps! Sounds very patriotic but in the ninth chapter Ueda says, "That's what happens when you chase after ideals like the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere... War widows on the increase, young men on the decrease, while some people get unfair shares of certain commodities." Chapter ten, "Had this woman who lay dead here--I kept asking myself -- made no move to stop her son from volunteering to be trained as a human torpedo? War, I concluded, paralyzes a people's power of judgement." In eleventh chapter the narrator says, "I hated war. Who cared, after all, which side won? The only important thing was to end it all as soon as possible: rather an unjust peace, than a 'just' war!" and '"If only we'd been born in a country, not a damn fool state," said his companion wistfully.' "Hiroshima was no more....Yet who could have forseen that its end would be of such horror as this?" Ibuse certainly shares the horrors of Hiroshima with us yet he also makes it clear that Japan was ready to fight tooth and nail to defend its soil. And they wanted to drop the same bombs on American forces. |
01-21-2012, 11:48 AM | #8 |
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"The Japanese army in Manchukuo had therefore decided to drop on them a bomb similar to the one the B-29 had dropped on Hiroshima. The army..." Just propaganda or telling wishful thinking but it seems they would have used it if they could have.
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01-21-2012, 11:53 AM | #9 |
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The people with radiation sickness feel bad if they just go for walks as prescribed by their doctors, hence the fishing and fishponds which let them be out doing quiet, light activities without being called laggards. In the war those who didn't at least help to prepare the food feel bad, they need to help out, their sense of obligation runs deep. Their need to pay respect to their dead as well shows this.
There are two storylines, Yasuko is trying to get married but there is worry from all that she is also sick with radiation poisoning. In the end she does get sick and her marriage is called off. |
01-21-2012, 04:39 PM | #10 | ||||
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Yes Caleb as I think I stated at some point the book is more about the ability of people to cope and live on even under the most horrible of circumstances than it is about describing the death and destruction of the atomic bomb.
Hpulley, excellent points so far. I read this early last August, and not anticipating that it would be make it here into a book of the month I did not bother highlighting any text or making notes. I am doing a rapid read through now to remedy that, but as I said I was caught early on this discussion starting. So here is what I have so far. I liked it that Ibuse did not shy away from the fanatical determination of many Japanese to continue fighting to defend their “homeland' to every possible bitter end. As in this quote where the village headman of Shigematsu's home town is sending of a group to provide relief to those from their village in Hiroshima: Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
So anyway that is all I have to offer yet. This might be of related interest to some, but in late December I managed to borrow, through a special request through my library, the film adaption of Black Rain. To a large extent this general plot of this is faithful to the novel, but much less time is spent describing the various characters experiences in the immediate aftermath of the atomic bomb and much more on there life years later. I believe that some of Ibuse's other novels are draw upon as well as there is a character, a former soldier, that has what today we would call PTSD from combat. I also recall that when I first saw this film not long after it was released parallels were drawn, as many thought the film director intended, between the attitudes towards Yasuko and the way much of society looked upon those with AIDS or those positive for HIV. |
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01-22-2012, 07:48 AM | #11 |
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I wish I could get access to the original magazine articles for Kuroiame as there are places where I could tell that the translations didn't quite work, cultural references were missed.
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01-23-2012, 10:43 AM | #12 |
Bah, humbug!
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This was a powerful book which I just finished this morning. I feel the images will stay with me a long time. This must never happen again, especially as today's bombs are so much more powerful than those that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The destructive power of today's nuclear warheads is unimaginable. This book should be required reading for all who would seek their use in war.
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01-23-2012, 04:09 PM | #13 | |
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01-24-2012, 06:21 AM | #14 | |
Bah, humbug!
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01-24-2012, 07:36 AM | #15 |
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I have not seen this movie, but that remark is true for the book as well! I have not read many apocalyptic stories, but the diary in the book felt like what little I have rad, only this was for real!
Last edited by Asawi; 01-24-2012 at 07:44 AM. |
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