This is the book I have read and mentioned several times..
amazon.com
amazon.com
Reviewer: An Amazon.com Customer
Before I read this book, I always thought the Nazis were unbreakable, faceless, heartless, killers with nerves of steel. Well "The Moon Is Down" proved me wrong. Steinbeck does a spectacular job of showing the story through the enemy's eyes. It gives a wonderful twist to stories we're so used to hearing.
"The Moon Is Down" isn't like those. It shows the story from the enemy's eyes as well as the Good Guys'. You are able to witness the fear of both sides. It shows us that the Nazis were as afraid as we were. They went insane, they raped, they killed themselves, everything. There was just something about the way this book was written that made me read on in utter anticipation.
What I really liked was how it would transition from a good guys' conversation to a bad guys'. It was almost you were in two places at once. It would even show conversations that had no relevance to the main plot, just to show you that is isn't all about the main plot. No book should direct you ONLY to the main plot. The only bad part is it ended rather abruptly. A wonderful read.
===========================================================
The Moon is Down is not the most well-known of Steinbeck works, probably in part due to its unusual genesis, but it is a remarkably stirring work. Written as anti-German propaganda in 1942, it was by far the most successful work of Allied propaganda, with hundreds of thousands of copies in circulation in many different languages (despite Axis attempts to suppress it).
As propaganda, the work was criticized as being too easy on the Germans -- portraying the occupying soldiers as very human and real instead of as cold and heartless. There is no doubt in my mind that this is precisely the reason for its success (and that Steinbeck is a genius in this respect). Steinbeck wrote about the plight of the occupied citizenry in a way that was so real that he reached them. It is also precisely in the occupying army's humanity that Steinbeck places the weapon that ultimately inspires the occupied and destroys the occupier: fear. One of the occupying soldiers articulates the fear very clearly: "The enemy's everywhere! Their faces look out of the doorways. The white faces behind the curtains, listening. We have beaten them, we have won everywhere, and they wait and obey, and they wait" (p. 64). He goes on to liken the occupying army's success to that of flies who conquer flypaper. And of course the novel itself brings the fear to life -- the flypaper ultimately proves quite inhospitable to the flies.
Steinbeck's work is interesting on deeper levels, too. Freedom and leadership are clearly top-of-mind for him, and he elegantly describes both. Steinbeck's Mayor is a wonderful leader and a powerful advocate for freedom as indefatigable. He tells the colonel of the occupying forces, for instance: "You and your government do not understand. In all the world yours is the only government and people with a record of defeat after defeat for centuries and every time because you do not understand people" (p. 48). The colonel's lack of understanding is precisely that the will to be free will prevail.
Finally, the Mayor is such a wonderful case study of a leader who is born of the circumstances in which he finds himself. Early in the novelette he is timid and reticient. He seems to be waiting. Then, when one of his people kills an enemy soldier, he suddenly steps up, and says of the beginning of the occupation: "the people were confused and I was confused. We did not know what to do or think" (p. 54). But the action of this one person provides the guidance and clarity that he needs to catalyze his people. And with that one man's action, he takes his queue from his people (such a remarkably subtle but so significant characteristic of a great leader), and with great wisdom and courage leads his people in the exploitation of his occupier's great fear.
Definitely a good (short) read. |
