Another Gift Suggestion
Dec 22nd, 2007 at 1:50 pm by Susie
If you’re headed to a bookstore, you might want to think about picking up a copy of “Soldier’s Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point.” Truly engrossing - and heartbreaking.
Here’s an excerpt from the Publisher’s Weekly review:
Azar Nafisi meets David Lipsky in this memoir/meditation on crossing the border between the civilian world of literature and the world of the military during 10 years of teaching English at West Point. Samet’s students sometimes respond to literature in ways that trouble her, but she lauds their intellectual courage as they negotiate the multiple contradictions of military life.
Considering the link between literature and war, Samet insightfully explores how Vietnam fiction changed American literary discourse about the heroism of military service. Beyond books, Samet also examines how televised accounts of the Iraq War have turned American civilians into war’s insulated voyeurs, and discusses the gap separating her from the rest of the audience watching a documentary on Iraq.
