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Book Review of A Soldier of the Great War

A Soldier of the Great War
reviewed on + 15 more book reviews


I love this book! I've read it three times, and I know I'll read it again.

I gather it's one of Helprin's more "realistic" books, but it is still filled with fantastic coincidences, strange happenings, and wildly bizzare people.

This is a wonderful, bitersweet account of one man's life, with focus on his "participation" in WWI, as an Italian soldier. Helprin captures the folly, inherent strangeness, and "out of left field" humor that runs through the tragedy of war.

Read it and weep; and laugh; and shake your head; and wish you knew our hero Alasandro...