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5.0 out of 5 stars
Do you have to build a better bridge than they could?, May 20 2003
Pierre Boulle equates the ritual of the Japanese with the ritual of the British. Lots of room for disagreement here. Few people would disagree with the more American view that being a captive of the Japanese in WWII could well be a sentence of death. But of course, Boulle is French so that explains some of his xenophobia regarding either country.The fact is, the moral issues are carefully presented. The soothsayer, Major Clipton, goes back and forth with the concept that imprisoned men with nothing to do often die of despair. The time is 1942 in a Japanese prison camp. Conditions are atrocious. The Japanese are building a train route between Burma into points north. The route will carry men and machines to further the Imperial Japanese aims. It is early in WWII and the Americans (there are none in the book) and the British have pretty much been spanked by the advancing Japanese. Read retreat. Reat surrender. Read a long time in a jungle prison camp. Read dysentery, diphtheria and malaria. So Colonel Nicholson's, he's the British ranking officer,isn't stupid. He knows that without some form of discipline many of his men will give up. The evil alcoholic prison warden, Colonel Saito, is his counterpart. With concessions, Nicholson agrees to build the bridge crossing the 600 foot wide Kwai River. But should he do an acceptable job? An above average job? Or should he do the best possible job imaginable, a credit to the British Army, lasting into and beyond the next century? Major Shears and his demolition team from Force 316 rendezvous in Siam (that's how old the book is) to blow up the bridge. And all three forces meet, Nicholson, Saito and Shears. Certainly up there in the top ten books about the war. Read in conjuction with Katzanbach's "Hart's War" (For God's sake, skip THAT movie)or Jmaes Clavell's "King Rat," all about the morality of prisoners of war. 5 stars. Could have been 6 or 7.
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