By Herman WoukRated ★★★★★
War and Remembrance covers the period from after Pearl through the surrender of Japan in August 1945. As he did in Winds of War the author sends his fictional cahracters all over the world in order to cover every aspect of the Second World War including the "Final Solution" thru the pov a Natalie Jastrow who married the youngest son on Victor Henry. When it got down to the nitty gritty for Natalie I skipped because as I said in the previous entry I just don't go there.
While I realise that Wouk needed to tell the complete story of what happened to the Jewish people in Europe I found parts of it too painful to read. I get caught up in the story and kept wishing I could reach into the book, grab Natalie by the shirt and scream in her face "get out of there you stupid twit. Leave while you still can."
The author has also included a fictional book within his book written by a German General in order to give the German pov. I thought this was very clever of him. The only criticism of this marvelous work I have is that the author's focus is primarily on the war in Europe, just skipping lightly over the war in the Pacific and giving no corresponding Japanese character to give their pov. Oh Well, it was still a wonderful read. I am very glad I decided to revisit these books.
