No comments about A Japanese Artist in London.

2 comments about A World Overturned: A Burmese Childhood 1933-1947 (Literature).

1. This is a marvelous memoir of a young girl's surviving in Burma during the years leading up to and during World War II. Details are remembered with astonishing clarity and sharpness, the characters of those around her are quietly drawn, and the author stands forth as a bright child full of curiosity, resilience, and determination.

   As the Japanese forces advance, young Maureen is left in a Catholic boarding school by her parents, a Burmese woman married to an Irish colonial administrator. Deprived of her mother's affection and language, she finds herself with a couple of British girls in the care of the Italian nuns who run the school, although speaking neither English nor Italian. When the Japanese military occupation arrives, with fairly dire effects, the author observes and describes the enemy soldiers with the same dispassionate clarity that she sees her teachers and companions. At the end of the War she is returned to her paternal grandmother in Ireland where the extreme culture shock after her life in Burma is dealt with briefly. The reader's heart yearns for her to be given the love and affection she has been deprived of during the War, but it is not forthcoming, yet the ending is neither bitter nor depressing. Clearly, the author has lived to become a successful person and parent in her own right, in Great Britain.

   All this needs to become a terrific movie is dialogue to be added (there isn't very much--my only reason for not giving it 5 stars). The background is described sufficiently for the set-makers to get right to work building them.

   To current discussions of racism and racial conflict, this adds an unusual Anglo-Burmese perspective.




2. This is an autobiographical jewell! I lived in Burma as a teenager from late 1958 to mid-1962 and am familiar with the history and cultural crosscurrents that are interwoven so skillfully throughout Maureen Baird-Murray's focused and economical, but never dull text. One does not,however, need such a background to appreciate the work, although watching "Empire of the Sun" on a video is good preparation for the "World Overturned" part of it.

   Born in the Shan States of Burma to an Anglo-Irish (Portestant) father of the Burma Frontier Service and a Burmese Buddhist mother, Maureen is, for her first 5 years, raised essentially as a happy Burmese child knowing only the Burmese language, which she and her parents speak exclusively. Disturbing things happen in her life and she is packed off to a convent run, ironically, by an order of Italian nuns who force her to speak only English and sort of cold-forge her into a more European type of young lady.

   After the Japanese occupy Burma, she loses contact with her parents, and for three and a half years (1942-1945) lives a rather hardscrabble life with the nuns, whose Italian nationality shields them from the worst of the brutalities which the invaders exacted upon Europeans who had to stay behind. Following liberation, by then an adolescent, she discovers the fate of her parents and a story of heartbreaking betrayal. Nevertheless, ultimately reclaimed by friends of her father just before Burma's independance from Britain, she is taken away to a new homeland with its own astonishing revelations.

   This story could be a soap opera script, but it is not so. The author has just cause for great resentment, but she evinces nothing of the kind. Rather, in the delightful reminiscences of a child's perspective of a Burma socity that is long gone, including the hurtful and the humorous parts in rapid succession, Maureen Baird-Murray reveals a thoughtful appraisal of her own personal experiences, and a compassionate, forgiving character.

   Although limited in the period it covers, with leap to when the author is an adult, "A World Overturned" is likely the best autobiographical account ever written to date by the child of a mixed marriage in colonial Burma. Always a page-turner, it is informative, gripping, sometimes heart-rending, but ultimately soul satisfying.

2 comments about The Emperor's Angry Guest: A World War II Prisoner of the Japanese Speaks Out.

1. The Emperors Angry Guest was an excellent book and I would recommend it. Mr.Knox narrated his story well. The book was carefully documented. A very good example of the US government's propensity in not paying close attention what is really, truly going on with their own sons lives. These kids were 18-20 years old. The Battan Death March was real and so were the men who were forced at gunpoint to participate in it. A very good historical account...



2. The range of emotion you feel as a reader has its highs and lows to such an extent that one can not put it down until it is finished. The real things in war are not always felt by those who never went to war, but in this book you feel what war is all about, including all of its flaws.

5 comments about We Were Next to Nothing: An American POW's Account of Japanese Prison Camps and Deliverance in World War II.

1. Nordin's experiences differ from most previously published narratives of American prisoners of war in the Philippines not in describing cruel treatment by their Japanese captors but in being located in the southern island of Mindanao rather than Bataan or Corregidor. He has carefully checked his half century-old memory against a secretly kept notebook and a return to the jungle camps where he was starved and beaten. The publisher maintains its usual high standards of acid-free paper, library binding and illustrations but fails to provide an accurate map



2. This is the best account of life as a prioner-of-war that I have ever read. It deals with the day-to-day experiences Carl and I encountered, and it is the first time that anyone has been able to put into writing an account that can be understood by all whether you were there or not. I bought six copies for each of my children because it was so close to my own experience, and they were all very pleased to finally be able to fully understand what I had gone through. Bill Lowe, Riverside, CA



3. Carl Nordin author of "We Were Next to Nothing..." accounts his day to day experiences as a prisoner of war during World War II in Japanese POW Camps. This book does not dwell on the horrors of war or the cruelty that he must have experienced, but instead reveals to the reader what his daily experiences were, and how he survived. I strongly urge every American, young or old, to read this book and understand what our fellow Americans did and suffered to keep our freedom.



4. This book gave a realistic account of what those men went through on a daily basis. He captures the small moments of compassion and frustrations without dwelling on the well deserved resentment. This book truly shows how hard it is to dominate the human spirit. One of the best books I have ever read.



5. This is a very enlightening, but sad, account of POW's. Much to my surprise Mr. Nordin is from Siren, WI. So this book was doubly interesting to me as it contained information about people I actually know of and others who lived near to me. I live in NW WI. It just seemed like it brought the experience closer to home for me, and I could actually feel what some of these POW's must have been going through. The things these people endured for 4 long years is unbelievable and really makes me appreciate what these people have gone through for myself and others. I always knew of POW prisons and their treatment but never really realized how demeaning some of the treatment and conditions were and marvel at how they managed to survive. Highly reccommended to those interested in knowing the truth of such events.

No comments about Biography Of Anne Frank (Bunshun Bunko) Japanese Language Book.

No comments about Letters Home: A Reflection of a Man's Survival.

No comments about Four Thousand Bowls of Rice: A Prisoner of War Comes Home.

2 comments about Old Taoist.

1. Translations of and commentary on one author's Taoist poems are presented in a warm blend of spiritual, religious and philosophical inspection which considers the last of the great poet-painters of Japan. Over 150 of his poems are treated to an appraisal which considers both form and content in a fine coverage worthy of inclusion in any strong Asian collection.



2. A good, continually absorbing study of a contemporary though tradtional Japanese poet names Kodojin(d. 1943). The writing style holds one's interest throughout and the story of the poet's life along with his poems,paintings and drawings is always delightful and interesting. If you love Japanese haiku by such masters as Bassho and chinese poetry from the Tang you will find this study worthy of your attention. I have never read a book quite like it.

No comments about My Brother Hideo Kobayashi (University of Sydney East Asian Series).

No comments about TN Your Biography (Gospel Hall Paperback) Japanese Language Book.