Madlyn Fafard,: Front porch ,memories of times past

Madlyn Fafard,: Front porch ,memories of times past

Five Came Back, Mark Harris, a wonderful peek at the culture and history of the time...

 

Five Came Back, by Mark Harris

My tears helped close the book 

Maybe I am one of the oldest reviewers, so my perspective is different. Stories and happenings in this book affected me as a child, even the greatest movies. I was there, alert and watching the adult world.  I knew of Ford, Huston, Wyler, and Capra...I knew lots of things a child should not or might not have known, but I was a reader and loved the movies.

 Deeply affected as a child by this monstrous happening, I was and am stil able to cry over the

 event.  Eventually, I wrote two books, about the culture and the war, before and after 1941 and

 1945 from that childhood point of view. 

.

The generations since, can only try to understand what it was like. it is very hard to capture

the collective consciousness of the time.  Mark Harris himself, may not have experienced it, and

may never really know it, like someone who lived it, but , he captured the era brilliantly.

The directors infused us with patriotism,  through news shorts that were shown in movies at the 

Saturday matinee, as well as the adult times. We were right and we were going to win the war.

I could once again feel that patriotism that ran through our veins , adults and children alike.  

Our loved ones, would come home!

My uncles came alive again as the Directors moved through the war with the different branches

of the service and when the war ended our family was one of the lucky ones.  Everyone came home, 

even two of them wounded as young men. Harold Russell, was our hero in my hometown of Framingham, Mass., near where he lived.  I even knew who he was and had seen him, in awe, at least once. 

Filming the atrocities of war so we could see it on the big screen on Saturday matinee made us all aware of the tremendous sacrifice of life.  For what?  For one man to rule the world , I often 

thought .

It was the pictures of the souls in the death camps that raised the hackles! The final sickening 

straw!  How , why ?  The damage done to Director George Stevens who saw  photographed ,
and experienced, was so real and profound . I visualized once again those horrors.  One can only

imagine the soldiers who stepped up to soothe, calm, and comfort the barely living survivors who

 rose from among stacks of dead bodies. I screamed once again inside me at the utter horror of evil men who walked the earth with us.

The horrid cruelty of the Japanese toward their  prisoners and the Red Cross, came back to me and I remembered asking Mom and Dad and myself, why the Emperor got away with this ? Harris answered 

that question after all these years.   I still think the Emperor should have done something to 

stop the war and should have paid a price for not doing that. 

 
Through the lives of five men , the war came back and though these men were older than me by 39

 plus or minus years , we shared a common collective consciousness .  I wonder if this is proof 

 of that collective consciousness and how we make our world?  I know none of us wanted war, but

 once we were in it we all were in it to win.  Yes, when it was over we "had enough." 

  
A great narrative, stirring and so enveloping about the time including the investigation into 

Communism in Hollywood and more are all there.

Yes, a few tears peeked out as I closed the book for the last time and put the era back to sleep 

in my mind , but not before I had made comparisons about the rise of Hitler with the rise of

 terrorism. History is repeating itself !

My tears helped close the book