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Loading... Ordinary Heroes (original 2005; edition 2006)by Scott Turow
Work InformationOrdinary Heroes by Scott Turow (2005)
  
None No current Talk conversations about this book.   dgmathis | Mar 15, 2023 |  First, the positives. The beginning of this book is setup in an interesting manner and generates curiosity in the reader. It is well-written, and the WWII era feels authentic. The author clearly shows the horrors of war (it is not for people easily disturbed by gruesome descriptions of war-related violence). I listened to the audio CDs, narrated by Edward Herman. He does an excellent job of voice modulation and his reading voice is pleasing to the ear. The primary downside is the construct. A manuscript, written by David Dubin at the request of his legal counsel, is the vehicle to be used in his defense. Unfortunately, this document contains intimate details of sexual nature, and it is a stretch to believe Dubin would have included such information. I think the reader is supposed to like the supporting characters, Robert Martin, the alleged spy, and Gita Lodz, his accomplice, but I found it difficult – they struck me as extremely unpleasant. The WWII storyline is more compelling and better developed than the present-day narrative. I liked it but cannot say I liked it a lot. (  ) Castlelass | Oct 30, 2022 |  ) rsutto22 | Jul 15, 2021 | camharlow2 | Aug 27, 2019 |  ) overlycriticalelisa | Jun 29, 2017 |
 More brilliantly than his previous works, Turow shows what happens when "ordinary" people are placed in extraordinary circumstances. And what is more abnormal than war? The message is timeless. After six months of serving, Dubin comes to despise war. "There was nothing to be loyal to in all of this and surely no cause for pride." Then he witnesses the Nazi death camp at Balingen and he cries for the first time. He saw "how this terrible war had to happen, with all its gore and witless destruction." Über seine Vergangenheit und vor allem seine Erlebnisse während des zweiten Weltkriegs hat David Dubin nie viel erzählt. Umso größer das Erstaunen und der Schock, als sein Sohn Stewart nach dem Tod seines Vaters Feldpostbriefe aus den letzten beiden Kriegsjahren 44 und 45 findet. Briefe die belegen, dass David von einem Militärgericht zu einer Haftstrafe verurteilt wurde. Der ehemalige Reporter Stewart begibt sich auf die Spuren, die sein Vater hinterlassen hat, auf der Suche nach der Story seines Lebens. Seltsamerweise sind die Akten von David immer noch unter Verschluss und nur durch Zufall entdeckt Stewart ein Manuskript, von seinem Vater selbst verfasst, das die Geschichte dieses Kriegseinsatzes eindrücklich schildert. Als Anwalt für die Militärgerichtsbarkeit wird David Dubin als Leutnant 1944 nach Frankreich geschickt. Er schreibt liebenswürdige Briefe an seine Verlobte Grace in den USA und kümmert sich meistens nur um lapidare Fälle. Sein innigster Wunsch zu kämpfen erfüllt sich durch einen Auftrag sehr schnell und kehrt sich auch baldigst ins Gegenteil um. Der Schrecken des Krieges entsetzt David und er hinterfragt schnell den Sinn seines Befehls: Er soll einen Major dingfest machen, der laut Meinung seines Vorgesetzten ein russischer Spion ist. Major Robert Martin ist jedoch nicht leicht zu fassen und da sich in dessen Dunstkreis die schöne Widerstandskämpferin Gita aufhält, in die sich David verliebt, ist es für den Major ein leichtes, sich immer wieder seiner Verhaftung zu entziehen. David führt sein Auftrag von Frankreich nach Deutschland und er erlebt nicht nur Kriegsgreuel sondern auch die Befreiung eines KZ. Und in diesem entdeckt er Martin und Gita wieder... Distinctions
Stewart Dubinsky knew his father had served in World War II. And he'd been told how David Dubin (as his father had Americanized the name that Stewart later reclaimed) had rescued Stewart's mother from the horror of the Balingen concentration camp. But when he discovers, after his father's death, a packet of wartime letters to a former fiancee, and learns of his father's court-martial and imprisonment, he is plunged into the mystery of his family's secret history and driven to uncover the truth about this enigmatic, distant man who'd always refused to talk about his war. As he pieces together his father's past through military archives, letters, and, finally, notes from a memoir his father wrote while in prison, secretly preserved by the officer who defended him, Stewart starts to assemble a dramatic and baffling chain of events. He learns how Dubin, a JAG lawyer attached to Patton's Third Army and desperate for combat experience, got more than he bargained for when he was ordered to arrest Robert Martin, a wayward OSS officer who, despite his spectacular bravery with the French Resistance, appeared to be acting on orders other than his commanders'. In pursuit of Martin, Dubin and his sergeant are parachuted into Bastogne just as the Battle of the Bulge reaches its apex. Pressed into the leadership of a desperately depleted rifle company, the men are forced to abandon their quest for Martin and his fiery, maddeningly elusive comrade, Gita, as they fight for their lives through carnage and chaos, the likes of which Dubin could never have imagined. In reconstructing the terrible events and agonizing choices his father faced on the battlefield, in the courtroom, and in love, Stewart gains a closer understanding of his past, of his father's character, and of the brutal nature of war itself. From the Hardcover edition. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.63)
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