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Title: Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point
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Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
List Price: $23.00
Our Price: $9.49
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| Customer Reviews: |
| Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Farrar, Straus and Giroux Good perspective | | A well written account of how literature affects the soldiers, written by a woman who knew nothing about the military when she became an instructor in the English Department at West Point. As a graduate of that institution, I can say that she has a good understanding of the trials and tribulations of cadets as they struggle with their daily lives as well as the prospect of going off to war ... and possible death. | | Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Farrar, Straus and Giroux For The "New Corps?" | | This book is so well written, it deserves a high rating on that basis. I cannot agree with many of the things the author is saying, and presumably teaching the cadets, which they will take out into the real world with them, however. Are they trying to make the "New Corps" politically correct? But, just because I do not agree with the author's very liberal philosophy and political bias, as I understand it from her book and her selection of literature, does not mean the book is not well done. I can say it is well written (Perhaps too well --- too cleverly done?). Because it is so well written, I can do nothing other than praise it and recommend it for its literary value (but with the caveat: only for bleeding heart liberals). Does the author require the book in conjunction with her coursework? I'm surprised at the interest in this book, or any such book, at West Point that is indicated by its apparent sales. It's probably not good for the esprit of cadets, just like being losers on the football field is not good; and look how much money is being spent to correct that. A completely non-political, how-to, self-help book that should be a must-read for every cadet (every leader or aspiring leader of any age, for that matter, and especially important for new graduates who have lived a somewhat sheltered life during their recent four years and are about to go out into the real world) is a dynamite little practical handbook whose purpose is to help graduates to deal with and handle real world people after West Point, beat out the competition in life, quickly rise in their careers, and become exceptional and GREAT leaders is the new book, "Dedicated to West Point: GOING BEYOND Leadership of Character: Keys to Unlocking the Secrets of How to Become a GREAT Leader." But, meanwhile, though I do not like its politial correctness, "Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature..." represents a smooth and intelligent piece of work by the author. | | Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Farrar, Straus and Giroux Find another book to read | A short review: If you're a USMA grad, save your time and find another book to read. Soldier's Heart will only frustrate you. Professor Samet has missed the entire point of West Point. I didn't even pass the book along to be read by someone else. I threw it away.
It's a shame that civilian professors like her are allowed to teach there. | | Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Farrar, Straus and Giroux A Worthwhile Book | | This book gives insight into the education of cadets at West Point, as well as their feelings about war and peace. Professor Samet teaches literature and related subjects, which provide her students with intellectual and emotional insights. These, as well as her understanding and support, help many through the difficult deployments that lie ahead. Her choice of assignments is also interesting. This is a worthwhile book. | | Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Farrar, Straus and Giroux Sensitive, but . . . | Ms. Semet writes sensitively about the intersection of the contemplative in literature and active in the warrior, as well as between the civilian and military lives. Overall, the book is a meager attempt at the exposition. It is grating that Semet just couldn't avoid wearing her politically liberal bias on her sleeve.
For example, Semet uses the feminine pronoun everywhere to refer to soldiers. She is a professor of English and she ought to know that in the English language the male is also the neuter; notwithstanding PC and MLA strictures to the contrary. When you know that more than 85% of active duty and reserve members of the US Army is male, reading Semet referring to them as "she" just makes you want to laugh at the inanity.
At every turn, Semet makes snide remarks about the War on Terror. The Abu Ghraib incident may have involved some ill mannered soldiers, but the acts visited on the captured terrorists do NOT rise to the level of torture and outright murder Al Qaeda operatives inflict on captured Americans and innocent Iraqi civilians. Guantanamo is not Auschwitz. The Patriot Act is not the 1935 Nurenmberg Laws.
Interrogations by women US soldiers may not be culturally sensitive (and who cares that it is not), but are they cruel? No, they are not. The beheadings, the hangings off bridges and the dragging of corpses in the streets of Americans are. Comparing Abu Ghraib and the despicable acts of the terrorists, or even mentioning them in the same sentence only shows that Semet is prone to facile moral equivalency.
Semet harps on the "illegality" of the War on Terror, especially as it is carried out in Iraq. Memo to the prof: WMD was not the one and only reason why the US government decided to oust Saddam. And, no, regime change was not the policy of President Bush. It was the policy of the US government, first as enunciated by Clinton and Congress in the 1990s.
One has got to admire Semet's ability to write about the numerous tensions in her career, her office and her relationships, all brought about by the singularity of being a civilian in a military establishment. I suspect that the reason she moved out of West Point to live in Manhattan was that deep down inside, Semet just couldn't reconcile herself to the necessity (especially for a country such as ours) to maintain strong armed forces and that as a teacher, she has a hand in making soldiers. Or, perhaps, that she just could not fathom that in the real world (as opposed to the the utopia she seems to pine for, where supposedly we all just get along), war happens.
Near the end of the book, I just couldn't help wanting to to yell straight across the continent (I'm on the West Coast) to the good prof: Hey lady: get a grip! Life's a bitch. The world is cruel. It's always been like that since Adam and Eve were booted out of the Garden of Eden. Good thing we have our Marines, soldiers, air men and sailors to keep us safe. Er... sorry, I guess that wasn't sensitive. | | Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature Through Peace and War at West Point by Farrar, Straus and Giroux Product Description | Elizabeth D. Samet and her students learned to romanticize the army “from the stories of their fathers and from the movies.” For Samet, it was the old World War II movies she used to watch on TV, while her students grew up on Braveheart and Saving Private Ryan. Unlike their teacher, however, these students, cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, have decided to turn make-believe into real life. West Point is a world away from Yale, where Samet attended graduate school and where nothing sufficiently prepared her for teaching literature to young men and women who were training to fight a war. Intimate and poignant, Soldier’s Heart chronicles the various tensions inherent in that life as well as the ways in which war has transformed Samet’s relationship to literature. Fighting in Iraq, Samet’s former students share what books and movies mean to them—the poetry of Wallace Stevens, the fiction of Virginia Woolf and J. M. Coetzee, the epics of Homer, or the films of James Cagney. Their letters in turn prompt Samet to wonder exactly what she owes to cadets in the classroom. Samet arrived at West Point before September 11, 2001, and has seen the academy change dramatically. In Soldier’s Heart, she reads this transformation through her own experiences and those of her students. Forcefully examining what it means to be a civilian teaching literature at a military academy, Samet also considers the role of women in the army, the dangerous tides of religious and political zeal roiling the country, the uses of the call to patriotism, and the cult of sacrifice she believes is currently paralyzing national debate. Ultimately, Samet offers an honest and original reflection on the relationship between art and life. |
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