"On
August 5th Hiroshima was blasted, with over seventy-eight thousand
dead.(...) On August 8th Russia declared war against Japan and, the
following day, was perhaps present in spirit at Nagasaki when
seventy-five thousand were blasted. On the 14th Japan surrendered
unconditionally. On the 15th everybody got drunk."
A Vision of Battlements, Anthony Burgess
To celebrate and commemorate Victory over Japan Day, the very end of World War II, I thought of this quote from the very first novel of my favourite writer. The novel is in fact a rewritten Aeneid, set in Gibraltar during the war. It is also a very fictionalised account of Burgess' own wartime experiences. I could have pondered a lot about the anniversary, but I don't think one can beat this brief yet very lively account. In essence, this is what it meant for the conscripts, maybe not so much the heavy loss of lives in a nuclear blast, but the end of a long time of servitude. And I will add that you read A Vision of Battlements for lines like these.
A Vision of Battlements, Anthony Burgess
To celebrate and commemorate Victory over Japan Day, the very end of World War II, I thought of this quote from the very first novel of my favourite writer. The novel is in fact a rewritten Aeneid, set in Gibraltar during the war. It is also a very fictionalised account of Burgess' own wartime experiences. I could have pondered a lot about the anniversary, but I don't think one can beat this brief yet very lively account. In essence, this is what it meant for the conscripts, maybe not so much the heavy loss of lives in a nuclear blast, but the end of a long time of servitude. And I will add that you read A Vision of Battlements for lines like these.
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