Pumpkinflowers - A Soldier's Story, by Matti Friedman

I knew about Matti Friedman, as about so many other people and stuff, on Facebook, through a good Israeli friend. She praised me his book The Aleppo Codex, which made me read it, and I liked it very much; I have since been reading his articles, always sensible, intelligent and articulate, so I was looking forward to reading his new book, that was published early this month. So, my expectations were high, and I was not in the least disappointed, actually it's even better than I expected. It's a very well written story, moving, engaging and thought provoking. Through its characters, ordinary - even if I dislike to use this word, because each one comes out as a unique and interesting individual - young men who find themselves right after high school in the middle of a dangerous, bloody and seemingly pointless low level war, one gets a clear and poignant picture of the violence and senselessness of war, and how meaningless and wasteful it all seems. Young boys die, huge human potential is lost, the status quo goes on; the similarities to other conflicts, other lives equally wasted is often evoked along the narrative's several allusions to the trenches of WWI and the sad and beautiful poetry of boys like Owen or Brooke. This doesn't mean these young men, the author included, were pacifists, they were all conscious of the need to protect a vulnerable country surrounded by enemies and willing to risk their lives to do it, even if they were probably not aware of what it really entailed, as young men usually aren't, with the youth's belief in its own invulnerability.

One of the things I liked most about the book is how it balances an articulate and sharp view of the historical and general context and a humane and insightful description of the individual people involved. He captures excellently the mood of the soldiers, the families, as of the country after the war, affectionately but never condescendingly. His analysis of the conflict and its consequences is lucid and realistic. Another thing I liked much was how he shows how our convictions, expectations and perspectives change with the events along the years, and how our appraisals are far from static, and what we believe to have been "always like this" actually changes a lot is as little a couple of decades - a good lesson lots of people should understand to think twice before embracing radical beliefs or making bombastic and too staunch statements.

The last part is particularly impressive, one really gets an eerie feeling of unreality and one turns the pages as in a thriller, almost as if one was there oneself, besides the narrator, driving on a simultaneously familiar and alien land, meeting these nice individuals that yet are the enemy. And again one is reminded that, in spite of all that divides us, we are all pretty much the same.

All in all, a great book, and I highly recommend it.