This book will:1) Make you cry. A lot. You will cry on your cigarette break at work so that when you go back to your desk, your coworker will see your ragged eyes and think you just got dumped over the phone or found out your cat died. No, you were just reading about something roughly one googolplex worse, but you won't even bother trying to explain because your coworker couldn't give two shits about world history, and hadn't even heard about the 2011 mass murder in Oslo until you explained it to her a few weeks ago. Blind, me-centric America, folks. Scenes from this book will return when you are stuck in traffic, and you will cry some more. Do not operate a motor vehicle under the influence of this book.2) Humble you. Calling my problems 'problems' is a little more difficult after reading this book, which is a high achievement in any artistic endeavor. Witnessing the sober-minded, empathetic will of the survivors, and the nation itself, after suffering one of the most blind, unfathomably enormous single blows dealt in all of military history really manages to put the term 'grace' into perspective.3) Anger you. Arguably the most stomach-dropping scene in this two-part journalistic piece is not one told from the ground where Hersey largely concentrates, but years later on a television set in America. The scene featured a spot-lit survivor of the atomic bomb, a minister, a man who put tireless efforts toward assisting his fellow survivors through worldwide fundraising despite the impediment of living as a hibakusha, a sufferer of the for generations felt, infinitely complex and boundless in physical manifestations, lifelong, crippling beast that is radiation sickness, a man who championed the notion that hatred of America and anger toward the attack(ers) is a knee-jerk reaction and that it is the notion of Total War rather than that of American militarism in general or atomic warfare specifically which should be the target of emotional examination and legal action, and which should be fought against by redirecting all the power of concentrated anger rippling through Japanese society after the bombs were dropped toward the goals of peace, acceptance, and precautionary measures taken for the future of the world, a man who stood in front of the United States Senate and prayed to them for their welfare, congratulated them for their role as the leaders of Planet Earth, and thanked them for bringing peace, stability, and democracy to his nation. Here this man sat, thinking he was on a local television station promoting his charity designed to raise money for female a-bomb victims suffering from physically deforming keloid burn scars on their faces, as this is what he was told. He was lied to, to the extent that a pre-show rehearsal was conducted without his knowledge in preparation for this major television event. Little did he know, he was actually on a popular television show (similar to, say, Oprah or Real Time) in front of millions of American viewers, stunned to find that as cameras stared at his face--a face which heroically attempted but quite understandably failed to mask his sheer horrified astonishment--in front of a live studio audience he was introduced to and practically forced to shake hands and have a nice little chat with the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, a tears-feigning man who was late and drunk during the taping because he was angry when he found out he was not receiving a big paycheck for his appearance on the show, so he just got lit and showed up all tousled and disoriented. Talk about media exploitation. Man, it has been a long time since I read something which disgusted me so much, and that is saying a lot. Oh, I'm getting flushed with anger just typing about it. A lot of pathetic parading of ugly humanity happens here. Prepare yourself.4) Scar the visual landscape that is your mind. The imagery in this thing, as told through the recollections of 6 survivors, illustrates with emotional restraint in a dry, respectfully factual narrative account, just what an atomic bomb does to a populace. Having grown up in Oklahoma City, I have seen the mind-boggling destruction which results from a large, targeted bomb attack, and distinctly recall being in math class 10 miles away from ground zero, yet feeling myself shifted in my chair at the moment of explosion. I remember wandering into the halls and, within twenty minutes, hearing the radio and television accounts, and witnessing students and faculty alike dropping to the ground in hysterics upon finding out that the city block or even the very building where their husband, mother, father, older brother, cousin, or best friend worked had been annihilated in a breath, those close to them incapable of knowing where they were or if they were. I remember my father pulling my brother and I out of school, and taking us to witness the destruction, so massive in scope, so emotionally trying, so brain-stretching and perspective-building in a way which a 13 year old girl had never even thought she would be forced to face, or had even considered in her silly, pre-adolescent mind. Reading Hersey's piece, I remembered that time, the surreal nature and bottomless melancholy of it all, and tried to imagine it multiplied by so many times it is a number I am incapable of even estimating. Hersey illustrates: kimonos permanently scarring flesh with ornamental patterns, practically faceless soldiers marching with oozing eyes before dropping to their deaths, a pan of a city of moans, of pleas for assistance which are drowned out by roaring fires which consume a landscape predominantly composed of rubble, a blazing trash heap of screams, forcing people to make non-stop me or them decisions, shadows burned into concrete, burial tombs uprooted, a sole doctor left to make decisions about who he can save, and who he absolutely cannot save with his limited resources, working nonstop for days and days with no food or water or sleep or even a single break. There was no FEMA dropping in to assist these people. There was a small handful of uninjured doctors and nurses dealing with a miles-stretching feed-line of wounded souls, many doomed to death before they even burrowed their way out of the wreckage. Sickening.5) Terrify you. Though I always try my best to keep my ear to the ground concerning current politics, particularly the seemingly endless stream of wars conducted in the name of future peace, this book perked my ears up even more to the subject of nuclear warfare. It's so easy to hear that a nation has or could soon have nuclear capabilities and feel only the faintest, most abstract fear at the notion. It can additionally be such a distant knowledge that what was presumed to be one of the most human rights embracing nations in the world, this, my country of origin, is the only nation in the world throughout all of history to have made the decision to unleash such massive rage and suffering against fellow human beings in pursuit of dominance and stability. This supposedly great nation conducted this and one other mission, permanently damaging the genetic makeup of thousands upon thousands of people, and it terrifies me about what's to come. This book terrified me.
I was 2 when Chernobyl blew up, it was a perfect sunny day (or so I'm told). The airborne nuclear waste was making its way through Poland over to Norway. My parents were pruning blackberry bushes, getting weeds out from between the carrots and the parsnips, blissfully unaware of the horrors going on few hundred km to the east. Little Kasia was helping them out pulling out baby beets with a great enthusiasm. Basking in the toxic sun. The reactor collapse was made public days after the explosion and only because, in Sweden, at an another nuclear facility noticed increased radioactivity levels on their own clothes and figured out something nasty must have happened in the eastern block. Sneaky communist governments with their sneaky conspiracies! That's my own, little, nuclear story. Nothing in comparison to Hersey's Hiroshima. Because Hiroshima has pounded me into the ground. Bodies evaporated on spot, shadows of people in mid motion cast into stones. Hersey's second by second account of the bombing has a feel of Armagedon. The intricate burn patterns (you'd often recognise the lace flower patterns of their former clothing in their injuries) add absurdity to the situation. The radiation sickness, people puking out their insides, not knowing why. Utter confusion as to what actually happened. Miles of concrete city block obliterated with people still alive burried under it. No real help ever to come. Not with this level of destruction. And the book doesn't stop there, Hershey's aftermath is thorough. You get to hear about the consequences of the bombing. Both long and short term. It turns out nobody was left unaffected.There's the poor government handling of the survivors. Hiroshima was pretty much left to tend to its own needs. Only years later a special health support system was introduced. There's the initial unwillingness of health professionals to provide help to Hiroshima victims. There's the sense of isolation, loss and depression hunting survivors in years to come. Because how do you live past an apocalypse?It's an emotionally draining book, hard to get through, but very much worth the strain. Well written, well reached and very well thought out, it touches on all the important aspects of the bombing. I highly recommend it.
What do You think about Hiroshima (1989)?
'When he had penetrated the bushes, he saw there were about twenty men, and they were all in exactly the same nightmarish state: their faces were wholly burned, their eyesockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks. [...] Their mouths were mere swollen, pus-covered wounds, which they could not bear to stretch enough to admit the spout of the teapot.' (pp.51-52)Really powerful account of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, its immediate impact on the lives of six Japanese survivors (& the people around them), their experiences with the subsequent fires, the deaths, the radiation sickness and the eventual rebuilding of their lives.As we near the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima (and Nagasaki), this book can help people understand what went on that fateful morning, when the bomb was dropped, and later, when the after effects started manifesting themselves. Recommended to absolutely anyone and everyone.'My God, what have we done?' (p.146)***Side note/Addendum: For a re-telling of the events (on the Americans' side) during the three weeks leading up to the Bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, let me recommend Shockwave: Countdown to Hiroshima.
—Martin
This is one of those books I meant to read years ago but never found the time, even considering the short length. I knew the book began as an article Hersey published in The New Yorker, roughly one year after the events described. I am surprised this book did not effect me more. Not that I planned to be lost in newly discovered grief but I am afraid that the knowledge I already possessed about this period deadened my reaction to Hersey's words. I have read more terrifying accounts but I am sure at the time of publication this was an effective piece of journalism. To get to the meat of why I am rating lower than I'd expected, I did not like Hersey's style. I also would have liked some information about his resources and contacts. Placing this book on my non-fiction shelf also feels off, rather how I felt with In Cold Blood: A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences. Both authors tried so hard to include just the facts but in an effort to force the reader to understand what has happened, liberties may or may not have been taken. I am not necessarily saying this is a bad thing, it just does not make for a read I love. There were more than a few parts in this book that I wondered how Hersey knew exactly what was said and done. From an objective and factual viewpoint, I do not like this. But from the viewpoint of getting the American people to begin to fathom the repurcussions of the bombs, and considering it was 1946, I feel Hersey should have taken greater liberties. I feel he shied away from certain subjects in consideration of the New Yorker's audience yet there were still terrible descriptions, scenes I will not forget. To conclude, I wish Hersey had decided to take his article further in one direction, either more personal and subjective or less personal and more objective. I am still happy I read this, if only for the historical significance. I am a believer in the adage that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, so anything which keeps events such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki in peoples' minds is a good thing. More people should read this.
—Kathryn
3. How has this text, if at all, contributed to your personal enlightenment? Do you feel you have gained a greater understanding of our culture or the culture of another through this?After reading through two-thirds of this book, it made me realize that most people take the things that they have for granted. For instance, the people in Japan were very appreciative of just simple water that was given to them after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Most people in America don't think twice when they drink water, because they expect it to always be available. I feel like reading this book has made me more grateful for what I have. I like how most of the Japanese people were not materialistic at all, and instead focused on helping others and acting honorably.I feel like most people in America think that they are superior to people who live in other countries. They seem to focus on material things instead of the simple things in life, such as friendship, love, and family. I feel that after reading most of this book, it made me take a step back and realize all that I have. I can see why many nations do not like Americans, because they appear to be materialistic and not appreciative of traditional values.
—Kelly Sugalski
