JULY 28, 2024 – (Cont.) Every so often you read a book that changes who you are; I mean alters the way you look at the world and in a manner that you can’t forget or “undo.” For me the biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Taylor Branch was one such book—or rather, “books,” since the work filled three volumes. Robert Caro’s four-volume “book” about the life and times of LBJ was another. Inferno: The World at War 1939 – 1945 by Max Hastings’ comprehensive survey of World War II was yet another book that changed me. So did Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon and The Warmth of Other Suns by Isobel Wilkerson. I could name many more.
Now to the list I must add Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat.
This book is about the Japanese-American experience during WW II. The story splits between the appalling treatment of Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor and these citizens’ unparalleled contribution to the American war effort. It is a tale of outrageous racial discrimination and heart-breaking cruelty by Americans against Americans; of extraordinary toughness, creativity and resilience of the human spirit; of intellectual courage and physical bravery; of overcoming not only the improbable but the impossible; it’s about faith, family, history and politics. But it’s mostly about us—about America; both the best and the worst of this unusual country of ours.
Facing the Mountain is not a book you finish and return to the shelf so you can attend to whatever demands or distractions await you. It’s a book you turn over in your hands, then place on the table before you take a walk to take measure of the person you now are, which is not the person you were when you first cracked open the cover.
I have much to say about my reactions to the story, not the least of which is that I will never, ever again complain about anything in my remarkably pampered and privileged life. But a fuller description of my experience reading this book must wait for tomorrow’s post and perhaps beyond it. Instead of writing this evening, I chose to read Facing the Mountain all the way through to the finish along with the epilogue. My binge-reading session even pre-empted my usual chore of washing the supper dishes (to spare our septic system the extra water load, we have no dishwasher at the Red Cabin). The book was that riveting—and disturbing . . . and uplifting.
Now in the U.S. Central Time Zone the hour is late, and I have much to ponder before I sleep, much to ponder before I sleep. (Cont.)
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
