This is the first book I have ever read about POWs in Asia during WWII. It was a fresh topic for me and eye opening in the level of inhumanaity one person can have toward another and justifying it as due to a higher cause. Beautifully written, the story goes back and forth from the present to a pre-war past to the horrors of the war and back to the present. If you can appreciate a topic written in a way that will force you think about duty, love, heroism, war and death, this is the book for you. AFter reading it, I understand why it won the Man Booker Award.
Much of the book takes place in a Japanese POW camp on the Thai-Burma death railway, and it centers mainly on Australian soldiers, particularly a young surgeon. The author's psychologically astute insights into the characters--so that a reader can understand even the most unlikable of individualss--and the brilliant writing made me like the book, although it was such a tragic story.
