Book Review - Unbroken - By Laura Hillenbrand - NYTi

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QuicHytn,themensavedthemselvesbyeatingunwaryalbatrossesthat
used the raft as a perch and, with Zamperini tying improvised hooks to his hands to create
a claw, by catching an occasional fish. They cut up fabric from a second raft to protect
themselves from the scorching equatorial sun.

!trlaked

their desperate thirst.

Throughout,! floated expectanfly alongside and beneath them, rubbing their backs
againsttheraftand,sometimes,lungingupintoit.ThemenEu"il
even managed to

on their

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- and eat their livers.

sea Ivtothers
in similar straits had resorted to

tlt

after Zamperini uttered some lines remembered from the movies, he and
Phillips simply
The two men passed the days, and maintained
their sanity, by peppering each other with

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meywere prcKeo up

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While onlyone in

But like
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status: as a
his celebri5ilso made

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First in

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he was subjected to an unrelenting regime of assaults:

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psychopathic sadist named

orgiastic pleasure from Q

Iooking sklward

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A succession of sadistic guards topped by a

a k a tllerived
a special, almost

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where
be spotted with increasing frequency
the G.I.'s knew the war would soon end. But that was a mixed blessing:

thillse

h"d."p"at"dbflratherthan

hand them over, and surelywould

have if the Americans had invaded Japan. Zamperini and his fellow prisoners were
effectivelv saved bv Hiroshima and Naeasaki.

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Like many soldiers statesid e, Zarnperini had a ffi,

in the fall of t949,he

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Zamperini joked to Hillenbrand that he'd be an easier subject for her than Seabiscuit
because he could talk. But that alsoattls.
Though his wartime experiences faded
with time, talking about them was pretty much all Zamperini did for years. From more
than a--in
newspaper and radio interviews and in inspirational
"This Is Your Life" even devoted an episode to him
speeches
- his story had been
sanded down, and while Hillenbrand ably assembles its component parts, she rarely gets
beneath the surface. That Zamperini does not seem especially introspective and may have
forgotten or repressed certain memories only compounds the problem.
On a number of small but dubious points she gives him a pass: Could a neighbor really
have sewn back on a toe Zamperini severed during a childhood accident? Would a family

that it shot rabbitsoto feed the children also have owned a car? More seriously, she
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rarely forces him to reach.[Unbroken" offered her an unusual chance to study and dissect Ly'
a man who had undergone extreme duressdBut virtually everything about Zamperini is
so poor

http:/Aivww.nytimes.com/2010/11121lbooks/review/Margolick-t.html?pagewanted=all#

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