- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (April 7 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0307388581
- ISBN-13: 978-0307388582
- Product Dimensions: 13.1 x 1.4 x 20.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 222 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #437,243 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. An abrupt and chilling act of violence opens Bauch's 11th novel, marking the beginning of a bleak but compelling meditation on the moral dimensions of warfare. Cpl. Robert Marson is trudging up an Italian hillside, leading two of his men on an uncertain mission through the unrelenting winter of 1944. The soldiers are haunted by the cold-blooded murder by their sergeant, Glick, of a woman on the Italian roadside, and highly suspicious of the Italian farmer they have enlisted to act as a guide in their scouting mission. Snipers loom along their path, and the immediate fear of death seeps into each tantalizing memory of home. Equivocation between the absurdity of an unreported murder and the inevitability of killing as a means of survival drives the troops' despairing, profanity-laced banter as the meaninglessness of their mission becomes clear. The peace of the title is glimpsed only fleetingly, throwing into relief the stark, indiscriminate nature of war. Bausch's compassion for Marson and his men is evident, but his story is unforgiving; the tightly paced final scenes offer no clarity of purpose in a dark war story of unyielding sorrow. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
“Brilliant.” —The New York Times Book Review“Embedded in a landscape at once bleak and beautiful, Peace, like other classic war stories, discloses in the sparest language the spiritual darkness of war.” —O, The Oprah Magazine“Perfect. . . . Bausch slips you so smoothly and unnervingly into the world of these young soldiers on patrol that you won't quite know how you got there. . . . His narrative moves like a cat on the hunt: supple and strong, without an ounce of energy wasted.” —Seattle Times “A spare and haunting meditation on the confusing and contradictory choices wars inflict on those who fight them.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune“Every single word of Richard Bausch’s beautiful, spare new novel Peace rings darkly, tragically true.”—Richard Russo“Richard Bausch’s Peace, set at the end of the Second World War in Italy, is a small masterpiece with the same emotional force and moral complexity as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Tolstoy’s Hadji Murad.”—Colm Tóibín “The experiences of battle fatigue and constant exposure to mortal danger are depicted with raw immediacy and terse power in this short novel from veteran Bausch. . . . [E]choes of Stephan Crane, James Jones and particularly William Styron’s The Long March. But Bausch sustains a gripping atmosphere of wintry dread, and he keeps the reader hooked with subtly accreting little surprises. . . . Bausch admirably turns a familiar story into something genuinely new.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“An abrupt and chilling act of violence opens Bauch’s 11th novel, marking the beginning of a bleak but compelling meditation on the moral dimensions of warfare.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“[A] consummate and versatile short story writer and novelist tells one soldier’s story in a war novel distilled to its chilling essence. . . . Bausch’s tale of one act in the immense blood-dark theater of military conflict is razor-sharp, sorrowfully poetic, and steeped in the wretched absurdity of war, the dream of peace.”—Booklist (starred review)“Bausch is best known for his short stories, but this powerful novella demonstrates his skill at spare language and tight construction.”—Library Journal
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
no words are wasted, April 28 2008
By Richard Cumming "dick" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Peace (Hardcover)
PEACE, the title of Bausch's new novel will throw many readers. This is a war story where the tension builds inexorably and there are rarely any moments that feel peaceful. Readers have to earn this peace.Most of the story takes place on a cold winter night in 1944 in Italy as the German army retreats with the US Army hot on their tails. Three Americans are sent up a hill to see if they can spot the Germans and report back on their movements. The main character, Corporal Marson has Joyner and Asch serving under him. They have a guide, an elderly Italian man who they found driving a cart in the area,
As they climb the hill the weather turns from bad to worse as night falls and they determine that this hill is actually much bigger than they knew. It is a mountain and as they bivouac on the side of it in a blizzard they begin to fear the worst.
This pithy novel is written with utter economy. We feel the fear and the pain of our 3 soldiers as they stalk their invisible enemies. I won't give any more away except that when you reach the conclusion you will find peace, but only for a moment.
Simply magnificent writing here.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not an Anti-War Novel- Short, but a Gem, May 23 2008
By Belatn "B" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Peace (Hardcover)
Beg to differ with previous reviewer, but this is not an anti-anything work. It's a story of conscience and the dignity of man in inhuman circumstances. Highly recommended.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Man's (In)Humanity to Man, Jun 13 2008
By David Donelson "Author of Weird Golf" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Peace (Hardcover)
Richard Bausch's taut novel tells us what happens when civilian soldiers go to war. It's a powerfully atmospheric story about three American soldiers sent up a mountain in Italy near Cassino during the brutal winter of 1944. Their mission: see what the Germans are doing on the other side. Their mental state: conflicted by the shooting of a German woman they witnessed just before they left. Was it murder? An act of war? Should they report it when they return or simply fold it into their psyches? They struggle with the moral dilemma while they slog their way up the cold, miserable mountain.Bausch's ability to bring the reader fully into his story is well-demonstrated in this book. The tension builds page by page until the wholly satisfying climax, the niggling arguments among the men are just repetitive and just disconcerting enough to make the reader angry, and the perfectly-mounted descriptions of the cold, hard rain, the wet, view-obliterating snow make you wish (just like the soldiers) that you were somewhere else.
Ambiguity is a beautiful thing in Bausch's hands. The squad's guide, Angelo, could be a simple peasant or a German spy--or something else entirely. The protagonist, Corporal Marson, could be a baseball-playing All-American hero or a morally-bereft corporal looking for the easy way out. How these and the other sources of tension in the book are resolved propels the reader through to the end.
Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo
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