This theme is one that's important to me - it's actually the theme of my Atrementus Collection stories, though that hasn't become apparent yet - the slow build-up to invasion and the crumbling of a good society, and how the 'ordinary' person maintains their values (and existence) when those come under pressure, and maybe even fumbles a way towards resistance.
Then I look forward to reading the collection when it's complete. How many stories are there so far?
I find the resistance of the 'ordinary' people, who don't "look good doing it" enormously moving; thanks for this glimpse of Mayor Ordern's life and death.
You're very welcome. I was glad to see it represented.
The novel and book - and their insistence on the humanity of the enemy is what I'd expect of Steinbeck, or of any fairly thoughtful writer at the time - or maybe especially of those who'd seen WW1 and had some connection with German culture.
Agreed. I just don't necessarily expect it of Hollywood, especially in wartime. Even films which are nuanced about an occupation can be flat about its occupiers.
(Is there any written-at-the-time novel showing the humannness of the Japanese? It seems less likely, purely because there was less awareness of Japanese culture in literary circles.)
Not to mention they were non-white: the stereotyping in American films and cartoons of the time was vicious. There was also this thing with the internment camps going on. I know there was some sympathetic reportage, but I don't know if it made it into mainstream art—postwar, yes, but in 1943? I'd have to research. I hope so. I feel there must exist at least one humanizing portrayal of the Japanese by an Allied author, just because of the laws of statistics, but I don't know what it is or where to look for it. I know very few mainstream treatments of the Japanese-American wartime experience, full stop. I am still sad that I couldn't get to the theatrical broadcast of George Takei's Allegiance when it came around in December—it was the day after I'd had surgery and going anywhere that evening was right out.
[edit] Also there were pre-war precedents for sympathetic portrayals of the German enemy—I've seen them in both American and British war movies. The American precedent for portrayals of Japanese characters leaned overwhelmingly toward Yellow Peril. Even Sessue Hayakawa, the first Asian leading man in Hollywood and a major sex symbol of silent film, had to found his own production company to get away from that sort of thing. Nowadays he is probably best known for Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)—an honorable enemy, but look when it came out.
Neville Shute, who's a lesser writer, I guess, but a great story-teller, also wrote Nazis as human, as trying to win hearts and minds in occupied France, in his 1941 book, Pied Piper (a book written in the awareness/fear that Britain could fall, and that his readership would be needing to learn from the book some of the pressures that life under occupation would bring for 'ordinary' civilians).
Neat: I have read some Nevil Shute, but not that one. I'll look for it!
no subject
Then I look forward to reading the collection when it's complete. How many stories are there so far?
I find the resistance of the 'ordinary' people, who don't "look good doing it" enormously moving; thanks for this glimpse of Mayor Ordern's life and death.
You're very welcome. I was glad to see it represented.
The novel and book - and their insistence on the humanity of the enemy is what I'd expect of Steinbeck, or of any fairly thoughtful writer at the time - or maybe especially of those who'd seen WW1 and had some connection with German culture.
Agreed. I just don't necessarily expect it of Hollywood, especially in wartime. Even films which are nuanced about an occupation can be flat about its occupiers.
(Is there any written-at-the-time novel showing the humannness of the Japanese? It seems less likely, purely because there was less awareness of Japanese culture in literary circles.)
Not to mention they were non-white: the stereotyping in American films and cartoons of the time was vicious. There was also this thing with the internment camps going on. I know there was some sympathetic reportage, but I don't know if it made it into mainstream art—postwar, yes, but in 1943? I'd have to research. I hope so. I feel there must exist at least one humanizing portrayal of the Japanese by an Allied author, just because of the laws of statistics, but I don't know what it is or where to look for it. I know very few mainstream treatments of the Japanese-American wartime experience, full stop. I am still sad that I couldn't get to the theatrical broadcast of George Takei's Allegiance when it came around in December—it was the day after I'd had surgery and going anywhere that evening was right out.
[edit] Also there were pre-war precedents for sympathetic portrayals of the German enemy—I've seen them in both American and British war movies. The American precedent for portrayals of Japanese characters leaned overwhelmingly toward Yellow Peril. Even Sessue Hayakawa, the first Asian leading man in Hollywood and a major sex symbol of silent film, had to found his own production company to get away from that sort of thing. Nowadays he is probably best known for Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)—an honorable enemy, but look when it came out.
Neville Shute, who's a lesser writer, I guess, but a great story-teller, also wrote Nazis as human, as trying to win hearts and minds in occupied France, in his 1941 book, Pied Piper (a book written in the awareness/fear that Britain could fall, and that his readership would be needing to learn from the book some of the pressures that life under occupation would bring for 'ordinary' civilians).
Neat: I have read some Nevil Shute, but not that one. I'll look for it!