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Bezig met laden... Patroldoor Fred Majdalany
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 Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. 1   MikeFutcher | Jul 29, 2020 |  geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
Onderdeel van de uitgeversreeks(en)
He stared desperately into the dark trying to force his eyes to see, so that they ached more than ever . . . He sensed that the eyes of men were drilling into the back of his neck, so that it felt prickly. Being lost when you are the leader is the worst thing of all. He hated them because he was lost . . . Rage and despair were welling up inside him . . . 1943, the North African desert. Major Tim Sheldon, an exhausted and battle-weary infantry officer, is asked to carry out a futile and unexpected patrol mission. He'd been on many patrols, but this was to be the longest and most dangerous of all. Fred Majdalany's superb novel of the men who fought in the North African campaign puts this so-called minor mission at center stage, as over the course of the day and during the patrol itself, Sheldon looks back on his time as a soldier, considers his future, and contemplates the meaning of fear. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)823.912Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1901-1945LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (4.33)
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A short and sweet book detailing a single night patrol of British infantrymen in North Africa in 1943. The book is based on author Fred Majdalany's own experience as an infantry officer in that theatre, and is suffused with authentic details of war and army life. The writing is brisk and unfussy – a straight-shooting approach which is mirrored in the author's uncompromising critique of these night patrols. They are, Majdalany argues (and he should know), futile for intelligence-gathering, wasteful of unit cohesion and energy, and frivolous regarding the lives of the soldiers who must perform them.
The book frames the dogged endurance of the PBI (the 'poor bloody infantry') against the indifference of the army bureaucracy – the patrol and its target are proposed off-the-cuff by "some silly little bastard who hadn't justified his existence lately" (pg. 19) – and Majdalany deftly walks a fine line between cynicism and stoicism in his world-weary protagonist, Tim Sheldon. Patrol focuses on the spear-point that the frontline infantry represents, and how the army staff is the "awful lot of shaft" that is blunting the spear-point through needless overwork. It is this, rather than the usual approach of emphasising the horrors of combat or the value of comradeship or philosophising over whether war is justified, that marks Majdalany's book out as a worthy entry into the war-novel library. (