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The Railway Man: A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness
Soon to be the basis of a major film for BBC-TV, the autobiography of a World War II British prisoner of war tells of his captivity and torture by Japanese soldiers, one of whom he meets fifty years later.
276 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
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About the author
Eric Lomax
7 books42 followersLomax was a British Army officer who was sent to a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in 1942. He is most famous for writing a book, The Railway Man, on his experience before, during, and after World War II, which won the 1996 NCR Book Award and the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 774 reviews
August 17, 2014
This is an extraordinary personal rendition of the ordeal of this man’s life. The writing is to the point and very poignant, giving much feeling to the sufferings the author endured.
The author had a rather sheltered life in Scotland. His descriptions of his upbringing and his infatuation with trains give stark contrast to the later events. Given his predilection for structure, the army also provided that, when he was recruited at the outbreak of war in 1939. He trained somewhat in Scotland and England – and then was shipped to India and finally Singapore in November of 1941.
His entire life was shattered when he was taken prisoner of war by the Japanese when Singapore surrendered in February of 1942.
We are provided with searing portrayals of his long incarceration – the torture of himself and his comrades, his interrogations, lengthy imprisonment in small cells where silence was maintained for months at a time. The diet was minimal – several prisoners contracted diseases and died due to their weakened condition.
The overpowering strength of this book is how the author endured after the war. As can be expected the memories never go away and he develops an enduring hatred of his captors that continually haunts his dreams. Brutality is personal and those who experience it carry the physical – and more particularly, the mental scars for life. There is always a simmering pain beneath the surface that corrodes the soul.
I will not reveal the conclusion of the book except to say that seldom have I read of such an emotional upheaval with beautiful passages of forgiveness and reconciliation. All this occurred fifty long years after the events happened, which demonstrates that indeed life can change for the better.
The author had a rather sheltered life in Scotland. His descriptions of his upbringing and his infatuation with trains give stark contrast to the later events. Given his predilection for structure, the army also provided that, when he was recruited at the outbreak of war in 1939. He trained somewhat in Scotland and England – and then was shipped to India and finally Singapore in November of 1941.
His entire life was shattered when he was taken prisoner of war by the Japanese when Singapore surrendered in February of 1942.
We are provided with searing portrayals of his long incarceration – the torture of himself and his comrades, his interrogations, lengthy imprisonment in small cells where silence was maintained for months at a time. The diet was minimal – several prisoners contracted diseases and died due to their weakened condition.
The overpowering strength of this book is how the author endured after the war. As can be expected the memories never go away and he develops an enduring hatred of his captors that continually haunts his dreams. Brutality is personal and those who experience it carry the physical – and more particularly, the mental scars for life. There is always a simmering pain beneath the surface that corrodes the soul.
I will not reveal the conclusion of the book except to say that seldom have I read of such an emotional upheaval with beautiful passages of forgiveness and reconciliation. All this occurred fifty long years after the events happened, which demonstrates that indeed life can change for the better.
November 3, 2017
I don't know why I'm always fascinated in reading memoir of POWs or anyone who lived during the WWII. This is my nth time to read a novel with the same setting and I always imagine putting myself on the shoes of those who experienced the war.
The hardships of these POWs are detailed on these novels and I can't fathom on how the oppressors could easily torture them. How can these devils still sleep at night or did they have conscience, are just some of the questions bugged me whenever I read this kind of books.
One of the author's oppressors that time was Takashi Nagase. Through him, we learnt that there are some people like him during the war who still has conscience. However, due to the circumstances, he has no choice but to follow the orders from the high ranking officials because his hands were also tied.
I enjoyed reading this novel compared to the movie adaptation. The intensity of the emotions and the suffering of Eric Lomax and his fellow comrades are clearly depicted more in this book than in the movie.
The hardships of these POWs are detailed on these novels and I can't fathom on how the oppressors could easily torture them. How can these devils still sleep at night or did they have conscience, are just some of the questions bugged me whenever I read this kind of books.
One of the author's oppressors that time was Takashi Nagase. Through him, we learnt that there are some people like him during the war who still has conscience. However, due to the circumstances, he has no choice but to follow the orders from the high ranking officials because his hands were also tied.
I enjoyed reading this novel compared to the movie adaptation. The intensity of the emotions and the suffering of Eric Lomax and his fellow comrades are clearly depicted more in this book than in the movie.
June 25, 2019
This is one of those rare books which I read because I watched the movie.
The movie is not directly related to the book; it is about the author, actually, and it is fictionalised and dramatised to a certain extent. But it beautifully showcased the story of the man called Eric Lomax, a guy interested only trains and technology: how he was physically and psychologically destroyed through years of drawn-out torture, and how he brought himself back into life through an astonishing act of forgiveness. This book is his own account of his descent into darkness and his triumphant return to light.
Eric was a young man, engaged to be married, when he went abroad to fight the Second World War. He had the misfortune to be part of the disastrous allied war effort in Malaya against the Japanese. Captured by the enemy, he became part of the team who built the infamous Death Railway (though not among the labour gangs who were dropping dead like flies at the site, to be buried in unmarked graves).
The POW camps which Japan ran were themselves a form of slow torture, with rampant malnutrition and disease. The Japanese had scarce respect for the life or welfare of captured enemies. However, even that was tolerable compared to the tortures they meted out to supposed miscreants. Execution was more merciful.
Lomax and six others were found to be guilty of having constructed radios and listened to broadcasts from the Allied forces and potentially communicated with subversive forces in Malaya. To compound his crime, the enemy discovered a map of the railway, drawn by him. None of his explanations that he had done it as an enthusiast helped - he was seen as plotting espionage. All the suspects were brutally beaten (two died of the beatings), confined in cramped cages under the hot sun, and Lomax was subjected to a cruel form of water torture (rather like waterboarding) to make him confess to espionage (all the while, both his arms were in splints because they were broken). Then they were sentenced to various terms in prison, where extreme malnutrition and overwork ensured that most of them wouldn't ever come out alive.
However, Eric survived - though a totally broken man. He came home to find his mother dead and father remarried. Unable to connect with his family, he married his fiance and settled down - but his ghosts wouldn't let him go, and the marriage broke up.
At this low point in his life, he met his second wife Patti, a benign and understanding person, and his life took a turn for the better. Even then, Lomax could not let go of his hatred for the enemy, which was symbolically concentrated on the Japanese interpreter Nagase who was present during his interrogation. He continuously fantasised about torturing and murdering him, and kept on searching for his whereabouts - only to find him in the eighties as a reformed man, a converted Buddhist doing his mite to help the survivors of the war.
After a lot of dilly-dallying, Lomax decided to meet Nagase, to lay his ghosts once and for ever. That meeting turned out to be the turning point in his life. From a demon, the "enemy" was transformed into a human being like himself. His hatred went away - and along with that, the ghosts of his past.
***
This is an uplifting human document about war, man's cruelty towards man, and the redemptive power of forgiveness. I read this at a time when many in my family and acquaintances' circle are clamouring for war, and it helped me to keep my faith in humanity. For, as Eric Lomax says at the end of the book, at some time we all have to stop hating.
The movie is not directly related to the book; it is about the author, actually, and it is fictionalised and dramatised to a certain extent. But it beautifully showcased the story of the man called Eric Lomax, a guy interested only trains and technology: how he was physically and psychologically destroyed through years of drawn-out torture, and how he brought himself back into life through an astonishing act of forgiveness. This book is his own account of his descent into darkness and his triumphant return to light.
Eric was a young man, engaged to be married, when he went abroad to fight the Second World War. He had the misfortune to be part of the disastrous allied war effort in Malaya against the Japanese. Captured by the enemy, he became part of the team who built the infamous Death Railway (though not among the labour gangs who were dropping dead like flies at the site, to be buried in unmarked graves).
The POW camps which Japan ran were themselves a form of slow torture, with rampant malnutrition and disease. The Japanese had scarce respect for the life or welfare of captured enemies. However, even that was tolerable compared to the tortures they meted out to supposed miscreants. Execution was more merciful.
Lomax and six others were found to be guilty of having constructed radios and listened to broadcasts from the Allied forces and potentially communicated with subversive forces in Malaya. To compound his crime, the enemy discovered a map of the railway, drawn by him. None of his explanations that he had done it as an enthusiast helped - he was seen as plotting espionage. All the suspects were brutally beaten (two died of the beatings), confined in cramped cages under the hot sun, and Lomax was subjected to a cruel form of water torture (rather like waterboarding) to make him confess to espionage (all the while, both his arms were in splints because they were broken). Then they were sentenced to various terms in prison, where extreme malnutrition and overwork ensured that most of them wouldn't ever come out alive.
However, Eric survived - though a totally broken man. He came home to find his mother dead and father remarried. Unable to connect with his family, he married his fiance and settled down - but his ghosts wouldn't let him go, and the marriage broke up.
At this low point in his life, he met his second wife Patti, a benign and understanding person, and his life took a turn for the better. Even then, Lomax could not let go of his hatred for the enemy, which was symbolically concentrated on the Japanese interpreter Nagase who was present during his interrogation. He continuously fantasised about torturing and murdering him, and kept on searching for his whereabouts - only to find him in the eighties as a reformed man, a converted Buddhist doing his mite to help the survivors of the war.
After a lot of dilly-dallying, Lomax decided to meet Nagase, to lay his ghosts once and for ever. That meeting turned out to be the turning point in his life. From a demon, the "enemy" was transformed into a human being like himself. His hatred went away - and along with that, the ghosts of his past.
***
This is an uplifting human document about war, man's cruelty towards man, and the redemptive power of forgiveness. I read this at a time when many in my family and acquaintances' circle are clamouring for war, and it helped me to keep my faith in humanity. For, as Eric Lomax says at the end of the book, at some time we all have to stop hating.
July 18, 2017
The Japanese treatment of their Prisoners Of War during World War Two is about as monstrous as it's possible to imagine. Curiously though, and despite some horrific personal experiences at the hands of his captors, Eric Lomax's account is most memorable as an inspiring, humbling and remarkable reminder of much that is good about humanity.
There is so much in this book: early Scottish childhood memories; a lifelong obsession with railways; joining a Christian sect as a teenager; travelling to India as a Royal Signals soldier; the disastrous fall of Singapore in 1942; torture and beatings by the Kempetai (the Japanese secret police); Changi, the notorious labour camp in Singapore in 1945; survival against the odds; liberation; Eric's undiagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; Eric's eventually rehabilitation; an unlikely love story; and finally, acceptance, forgiveness, and friendship and reconciliation with one of his captors.
The writing is simple and accessible, the contents profound and memorable.
An exceptional memoir.
5/5
There is so much in this book: early Scottish childhood memories; a lifelong obsession with railways; joining a Christian sect as a teenager; travelling to India as a Royal Signals soldier; the disastrous fall of Singapore in 1942; torture and beatings by the Kempetai (the Japanese secret police); Changi, the notorious labour camp in Singapore in 1945; survival against the odds; liberation; Eric's undiagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; Eric's eventually rehabilitation; an unlikely love story; and finally, acceptance, forgiveness, and friendship and reconciliation with one of his captors.
The writing is simple and accessible, the contents profound and memorable.
An exceptional memoir.
5/5
February 5, 2017
I have to give 5 stars to this book because of what Eric endured as a POW in Burma; torture and atrocities beyond comprehension and his struggle for decades to understand what had happened to him and how it was still affecting him. Fortunately PTSD is now more widely known and understood. It took until Eric was nearing 70 to get the help he needed. The last chapter was particularly moving and will stay with me for a long time.
April 16, 2023
“My mother stood there in the crowd, and I supposed she waved. She looked distraught. I never saw her again.”
Thus, Eric Lomax went to war as a signalman, was eventually taken prisoner, tortured at the hands of his Japanese captors and came home to marry as he was told to get on with his life. He went on to have a fine career including postings to Ghana with the civil service and had children to his wife. But….all was not well.
In this very well written autobiography Eric told of many things such as his early life, his relationship with his parents, his army life and even went into some detail as to his brutal torture. Along with other POW officers a radio was found in their hut and with that began his appalling ordeal. Vast amounts of his suffering he recalled in great detail. It leads to an understandable hatred of the Japanese with specific reference to one individual, Nagase, the interpreter during his interrogation and torture. He eventually met Nagase and there was redemption for both men. It is a well told story and well worth the time to read. There was even a documentary of the meeting made and a film of Eric’s life.
But on finishing this book I was struck by how little Eric discussed his first family, his wife and 3 children, they seemed to be little to no part of the story. Eric bottled up his horrendous experiences from his first wife to the point I suspect it was a difficult life for her. I did some research and found this item.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...
"My dad's feelings were locked inside himself. He was there physically, but emotionally he was 100% absent," his daughter Charmaine is quoted as saying in that item.
During this read, for what Eric opened up on, and that was plenty; I always felt that it took a lot of courage for him to be involved in this book and the events that happened in it later. Sadly, his first family suffered as well.
Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the subject of POW and the victims of torture.
Thus, Eric Lomax went to war as a signalman, was eventually taken prisoner, tortured at the hands of his Japanese captors and came home to marry as he was told to get on with his life. He went on to have a fine career including postings to Ghana with the civil service and had children to his wife. But….all was not well.
In this very well written autobiography Eric told of many things such as his early life, his relationship with his parents, his army life and even went into some detail as to his brutal torture. Along with other POW officers a radio was found in their hut and with that began his appalling ordeal. Vast amounts of his suffering he recalled in great detail. It leads to an understandable hatred of the Japanese with specific reference to one individual, Nagase, the interpreter during his interrogation and torture. He eventually met Nagase and there was redemption for both men. It is a well told story and well worth the time to read. There was even a documentary of the meeting made and a film of Eric’s life.
But on finishing this book I was struck by how little Eric discussed his first family, his wife and 3 children, they seemed to be little to no part of the story. Eric bottled up his horrendous experiences from his first wife to the point I suspect it was a difficult life for her. I did some research and found this item.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandst...
"My dad's feelings were locked inside himself. He was there physically, but emotionally he was 100% absent," his daughter Charmaine is quoted as saying in that item.
During this read, for what Eric opened up on, and that was plenty; I always felt that it took a lot of courage for him to be involved in this book and the events that happened in it later. Sadly, his first family suffered as well.
Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the subject of POW and the victims of torture.
March 2, 2021
The Railway Man Eric Lomax tortured beaten starved in a Japanese prisoner of war camp for years and on release to civilian life he's hidden his pain pretended to get on with it, even managed getting married but it was Patti his wife who is the second hero in this tragedy, she led Eric down a path to eventual redemption that led to forgiving. This is the incredible story of Eric and his wife Patti, Takashi Nagase his Japanese torturer. Redemption and forgiveness is a worthy mountain to climb and overcome for misfortune that's anyone brave enough to undertake.
April 25, 2020
This is a fabulous book..in a different class altogether. It documents the life of Eric Lomax, a Scottish citizen drafted into the military and sent to Singapore and Thailand to fight the Japanese in the Second World War. The book is heart-wrenching and provide a horrific account of Eric Lomax as a Japanese prisoner-of-war and the torture he undergoes.
Eric is a railway enthusiast and a Post and Telegraph Office employee. He is drafted as a reserve soldier in the radio communications department of the Allied Forces. As Thailand and Malaya is captured by the Japanese he is taken captive. In his captivity, along with his fellowmen, they design and assemble radios to get first hand new on the progress of war. One day the Japanese guards search their barracks and finds radios for which they are taken to task. Thereon begins a saga of extreme torture and sustained interrogation by their captors aided by an interrogator. The torture methods are described in graphic detail. AS the years go by, they are released after the Japanese surrenders to the Allied Forces in 1945 immediately after the nuclear bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Eric returns home, a broken man with psychotic disorders plaguing him. He cannot live a normal life and slowly drifts away from his family ending in separation. His father remarries after his mother's death and he is left to his own demons. One day he meets a woman Patti who is sympathetic to his illnesses and takes care of him. She later marries him.
One day, he chances upon an article describing one of his tormentors as a reformed man doing social work in Thailand. One thing leads to another and finally they get to meet. Eric finally comes to peace with one his torturer and forgives him for his participation in the torture of POWs. A lesson one learns is war cannot solve problems. It only aggravates and causes disruptions to soldiers on both sides extracting a heavy price. Truly a memorable book worth a read.
Eric is a railway enthusiast and a Post and Telegraph Office employee. He is drafted as a reserve soldier in the radio communications department of the Allied Forces. As Thailand and Malaya is captured by the Japanese he is taken captive. In his captivity, along with his fellowmen, they design and assemble radios to get first hand new on the progress of war. One day the Japanese guards search their barracks and finds radios for which they are taken to task. Thereon begins a saga of extreme torture and sustained interrogation by their captors aided by an interrogator. The torture methods are described in graphic detail. AS the years go by, they are released after the Japanese surrenders to the Allied Forces in 1945 immediately after the nuclear bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Eric returns home, a broken man with psychotic disorders plaguing him. He cannot live a normal life and slowly drifts away from his family ending in separation. His father remarries after his mother's death and he is left to his own demons. One day he meets a woman Patti who is sympathetic to his illnesses and takes care of him. She later marries him.
One day, he chances upon an article describing one of his tormentors as a reformed man doing social work in Thailand. One thing leads to another and finally they get to meet. Eric finally comes to peace with one his torturer and forgives him for his participation in the torture of POWs. A lesson one learns is war cannot solve problems. It only aggravates and causes disruptions to soldiers on both sides extracting a heavy price. Truly a memorable book worth a read.
January 19, 2014
After seeing the movie and being quite affected by it ( interesting audience in cinema, nobody left in hurry afterwards and some were crying ) I was eager to read the book.
To my surprise the book is different to the film in a lot of detail ( and much better ) but with still covering the same themes.
The really great thing about this autobiographical account of the war is that it not all about the war. The author starts at the beginning with fantastic detailed observations of the last of the steam trains which rang across the country before the electrics. This in itself makes for a great historical record. The author moves on to his account and story as solider come POW on the Burma - Thai railway, his civilian life / postings and most importantly the continued trauma he suffered with afterwards.
I think the real blessing of this book of Eric Lomax's story is that it brings a bridge of understanding and truth. There were many things my grandparents ( Eric's generation ) could not talk about and I have observed many of their children ( baby boomers 1950s ) with / had a disconnected relationship, leading in some ways to anger / bitterness being passed on.
To my surprise the book is different to the film in a lot of detail ( and much better ) but with still covering the same themes.
The really great thing about this autobiographical account of the war is that it not all about the war. The author starts at the beginning with fantastic detailed observations of the last of the steam trains which rang across the country before the electrics. This in itself makes for a great historical record. The author moves on to his account and story as solider come POW on the Burma - Thai railway, his civilian life / postings and most importantly the continued trauma he suffered with afterwards.
I think the real blessing of this book of Eric Lomax's story is that it brings a bridge of understanding and truth. There were many things my grandparents ( Eric's generation ) could not talk about and I have observed many of their children ( baby boomers 1950s ) with / had a disconnected relationship, leading in some ways to anger / bitterness being passed on.
August 17, 2014
The film is brilliantly done. Some parts I had to turn my head away, and the end was such a bittersweet triumph of goodness that it brought tears to the eyes.
September 12, 2017
My husband was given this book as a gift and came highly recommended.
After a bit of slow start that was slightly boring, the book became an interesting read with an account of violence and brutality during war time with survival and hope at it's forefront. Told as a true story of the author's real life events this is a very emotional read. He did enjoy reading it and now wishes to see the movie to see how that compares.
3.5 stars due to the slow start.
After a bit of slow start that was slightly boring, the book became an interesting read with an account of violence and brutality during war time with survival and hope at it's forefront. Told as a true story of the author's real life events this is a very emotional read. He did enjoy reading it and now wishes to see the movie to see how that compares.
3.5 stars due to the slow start.
June 1, 2015
Published in 1995, I decided to read this after I had seen the trailer for the film. My interest was piqued as the film starred Colin Firth. Colin Firth is a lover of literature and for the most part has chosen wisely in terms of film adaptations e.g. 'A Single Man', 'The End of the Affair', 'Pride and Prejudice', 'The Railway Man' etc..The book centers on Eric Lomax a Scottish engineer with the British army who was taken prisoner by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore.
The book starts with Lomax's early years in Edinburgh, working for the post office, his jaunts out to disused railway tracks and his job working as a signal man in Edinburgh Castle. He set out for Singapore in 1940. The British largely underestimated the Japanese. Singapore fell easily, 80,000 British troops were captured. (Strangely they thought the Japanese had night blindness due to the shape of their eyes). Initially the PoW's are allowed plenty of freedom, Lomax helps to build a radio which is used to provide much needed news to his compatriots of the allied advancement. The radio is discovered and what follows is a horrifying account of men being physically and psychologically broken in the 'monkey houses' of Kanchanaburi. Railways and trains are the refrain throughout this book. It is the irony of ironies that Eric ends up working on the Burma / Thai railway in 1943 as railways are such a big passion in his life. His Japanese translator and interrogator referred to his 'railway mania'. We think of water boarding as a part of modern warfare torture but it was used quite liberally in the case of the captured British PoWs.
When he returns home the psychological terror does not abate. Post traumatic stress is a common theme in other accounts I have read. There was very little support for these men, certainly the general public was not aware of the true extent of the horrors faced on the front line. He focuses his hatred on the little Japanese man who translated and led the interrogations. He meets his second wife Patti on a train in 1977. It is Patti who persuades him to seek help. He then begins to recover and piece together what happened to his interrogator.
'The Railway Man' in the end is also the story of his interrogator Takashi Nagase. His first family aren't mentioned that much nor his time spent in Africa. Post traumatic stress costs him his first marriage, his family are also the victims of his trauma. There is an interesting article in the Guardian which gives a voice to Charmaine Lomax's daughter from his first marriage.
Yet again we are presented with a written account as a form of therapy. This is a unique account about the horror of torture, catharsis and the endeavor to forgive. This work displays some decent writing and it is certainly very moving.
The book starts with Lomax's early years in Edinburgh, working for the post office, his jaunts out to disused railway tracks and his job working as a signal man in Edinburgh Castle. He set out for Singapore in 1940. The British largely underestimated the Japanese. Singapore fell easily, 80,000 British troops were captured. (Strangely they thought the Japanese had night blindness due to the shape of their eyes). Initially the PoW's are allowed plenty of freedom, Lomax helps to build a radio which is used to provide much needed news to his compatriots of the allied advancement. The radio is discovered and what follows is a horrifying account of men being physically and psychologically broken in the 'monkey houses' of Kanchanaburi. Railways and trains are the refrain throughout this book. It is the irony of ironies that Eric ends up working on the Burma / Thai railway in 1943 as railways are such a big passion in his life. His Japanese translator and interrogator referred to his 'railway mania'. We think of water boarding as a part of modern warfare torture but it was used quite liberally in the case of the captured British PoWs.
When he returns home the psychological terror does not abate. Post traumatic stress is a common theme in other accounts I have read. There was very little support for these men, certainly the general public was not aware of the true extent of the horrors faced on the front line. He focuses his hatred on the little Japanese man who translated and led the interrogations. He meets his second wife Patti on a train in 1977. It is Patti who persuades him to seek help. He then begins to recover and piece together what happened to his interrogator.
'The Railway Man' in the end is also the story of his interrogator Takashi Nagase. His first family aren't mentioned that much nor his time spent in Africa. Post traumatic stress costs him his first marriage, his family are also the victims of his trauma. There is an interesting article in the Guardian which gives a voice to Charmaine Lomax's daughter from his first marriage.
Yet again we are presented with a written account as a form of therapy. This is a unique account about the horror of torture, catharsis and the endeavor to forgive. This work displays some decent writing and it is certainly very moving.
June 4, 2014
It is a while since any book has moved me to tears but this one did so and more than once. The story of Eric Lomax's life before the war is followed by a narrative of his time on the Burma railway which can really only be described as terrible even if it is delivered in a fairly factual manner. However what I found even harder to read was the effect that his wartime torture and degradation had had on his later life. That he was able to get some closure on this later in life was incredibly moving.
May 22, 2019
One of the best fascinating 12-chapter memoirs as narrated by an English veteran who was captured in Singapore and forwarded to Kanchanaburi (informally shortened as 'Kanburi' like a spoken Thai term) the notorious site for the death railway toward Burma during the years nearing the end of the Second World War. Surprisingly, before I encountered this book, I had not had any idea or information on it and I thought there was only a well-known military novel by Pierre Boulle, that is, The Bridge Over the River Kwai (Presidio Press, 2007) on which the famous movie The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) was based and directed by David Lean. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bri...)
To continue . . .
To continue . . .
September 12, 2016
From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Eric Lomax's best-selling autobiography, featuring his wartime experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese. Read by Alec Heggie.
Another splendid BBC dramatization.
A movie The Railway Man (2013) was made based n this book, with Nicole Kidman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Colin Firth. It must be really good.
Eric Lomax's best-selling autobiography, featuring his wartime experiences as a prisoner of the Japanese. Read by Alec Heggie.
Another splendid BBC dramatization.
A movie The Railway Man (2013) was made based n this book, with Nicole Kidman, Hiroyuki Sanada, Colin Firth. It must be really good.
April 12, 2020
The Railway Man [1995] – ★★★★
“Those who experienced evil may forget it, but those who committed it – never” (A. Mare).
This is a true story of Eric Lomax, a British Army Officer and ex-Prisoner-of-War (POW) during the World War II, who was tortured and held in confinement while he and his fellow comrades were forced to work on the Siam-Burma railway line. Years after the WWII, he came face-to-face with one of his captors – Japanese interpreter Takashi Nagase, a meeting that finally led to a reconciliation. This is Lomax’s incredible true story, which is an inspirational and moving read.
The book begins with Lomax’s childhood in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1920s, later telling of his youth in the 1930s. He was an avid collector (“I collected things as a way of making sense of the world’s confusion“), lover of trains and technology (having an “incurable interest in railways“), even though a bit of a loner and “bored” with academic subjects. His passion for trains/steam engines (“the most beautiful machines produced in the industrial revolution“) and communications was so great that he applied to be a telegraphist at a post office, and also later studied electrical engineering and radio mechanics. He was also a member of the Baptist sect (“the moral conviction of [having found God] helped me to survive what came later”), and was later drafted to serve as part of the Royal Signals when the WWII started: “I was pitchforked into work straight from school; from work into the army; from the army into hell”. His destination was Asia, “to defend the eastern borders“.
After serving some time in Asia, his troops found themselves surrounded by the enemy, resigned to their fate and later forced by the Japanese to build the “Death Railway” (the Burma-Siam line): “railways have always broken the bodies and spirits of their builders, I knew that already: the Panama Railway cost the lives of one in five of its workforce; the rail roads across the Rockies had demanded appalling sacrifices; the Alpine tunnels were considered to be death traps, even for the well-fed peasant boys who built them”. Even though Lomax was forced to endure round-the-clock interrogations, beatings, starvation, and different types of torture (from waterboarding to sleep deprivation and imposed silence), as well as live in awful sanitary conditions, he remained vigilant: “I still wanted to learn, to improve”. His natural stubbornness and quick thinking, as well as luck, saved him eventually from the worst.
Lomax’s book is insightful in a way it shows how a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was poorly understood after the WWII and its effects were not properly recognised. If people returned from the war in one piece, they were assumed to have “survived” and expected to carry on with their lives as normal – as though nothing has happened. Few guessed that these people continued to wage the war in their minds. It is unbelievable how a person can function normally after he was told numerous times previously by the enemy that he would be killed any moment now, any minute, day or week, and he was already “prepared” for that. Lomax experienced that and much worse, and was miraculously saved from this fate. Some part of him, however, – his mind- continued to function in that stressful condition even after the war ended.
The information that his death was imminent had a profound effect on him (as it would be on anyone). It is precisely this indeterminacy when he was going to be killed (he was sure he would) that was unbearable: ““You will be killed shortly”…a flat neutral piece of information, almost a conversational remark. I had just been sentenced to death by a man of my own age who looked as if he were a little detached from his surroundings, and who seemed completely indifferent to my fate. I had no reason to doubt him.”
Understandably, after his experience of being a POW, it became difficult for Lomax to relate fully to people who never experienced what he was forced to experience: “I was more worried about my physical injuries: my arms, my exhaustion, the skin diseases…I didn’t understand yet that there are experiences you can’t walk away from, and there is no statue of limitations on the effects of torture“. He also experienced loneliness and isolation, having troubles talking about his experience, as others did not understand what he was going through, never having been in his shoes: “many people could not accept the reality of our injuries…because they had not been there, because they could not make the leap of imagination out of their comfortable lives“. After his war interrogations, he found “demands for information” in day-to-day life unbearable and “found it difficult to tolerate grey areas in my life, to accept ambiguity or uncertainty of any kind”. Moreover, he was also finding it hard “to sympathise with other people’s smaller misfortunes“.
Lomax finally took an unprecedented move in the 1990s to seek out some of those people who were responsible for his torture (he initially planned revenge for them). His meeting with one of his interrogators from the year 1943 might just have been an act of final closure for him as he knew he had to start making peace with his past if he were to carry on with his life. The book becomes rather emotional by the end.
I cannot say I appreciated the writing style, and some aspects of Eric Lomax’s life could have been amplified and not rushed, while others could have been condensed. However, the book is still an eye-opening, unflinching account which is an important, unique and unforgettable read.
“Those who experienced evil may forget it, but those who committed it – never” (A. Mare).
This is a true story of Eric Lomax, a British Army Officer and ex-Prisoner-of-War (POW) during the World War II, who was tortured and held in confinement while he and his fellow comrades were forced to work on the Siam-Burma railway line. Years after the WWII, he came face-to-face with one of his captors – Japanese interpreter Takashi Nagase, a meeting that finally led to a reconciliation. This is Lomax’s incredible true story, which is an inspirational and moving read.
The book begins with Lomax’s childhood in Edinburgh, Scotland in the 1920s, later telling of his youth in the 1930s. He was an avid collector (“I collected things as a way of making sense of the world’s confusion“), lover of trains and technology (having an “incurable interest in railways“), even though a bit of a loner and “bored” with academic subjects. His passion for trains/steam engines (“the most beautiful machines produced in the industrial revolution“) and communications was so great that he applied to be a telegraphist at a post office, and also later studied electrical engineering and radio mechanics. He was also a member of the Baptist sect (“the moral conviction of [having found God] helped me to survive what came later”), and was later drafted to serve as part of the Royal Signals when the WWII started: “I was pitchforked into work straight from school; from work into the army; from the army into hell”. His destination was Asia, “to defend the eastern borders“.
After serving some time in Asia, his troops found themselves surrounded by the enemy, resigned to their fate and later forced by the Japanese to build the “Death Railway” (the Burma-Siam line): “railways have always broken the bodies and spirits of their builders, I knew that already: the Panama Railway cost the lives of one in five of its workforce; the rail roads across the Rockies had demanded appalling sacrifices; the Alpine tunnels were considered to be death traps, even for the well-fed peasant boys who built them”. Even though Lomax was forced to endure round-the-clock interrogations, beatings, starvation, and different types of torture (from waterboarding to sleep deprivation and imposed silence), as well as live in awful sanitary conditions, he remained vigilant: “I still wanted to learn, to improve”. His natural stubbornness and quick thinking, as well as luck, saved him eventually from the worst.
Lomax’s book is insightful in a way it shows how a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was poorly understood after the WWII and its effects were not properly recognised. If people returned from the war in one piece, they were assumed to have “survived” and expected to carry on with their lives as normal – as though nothing has happened. Few guessed that these people continued to wage the war in their minds. It is unbelievable how a person can function normally after he was told numerous times previously by the enemy that he would be killed any moment now, any minute, day or week, and he was already “prepared” for that. Lomax experienced that and much worse, and was miraculously saved from this fate. Some part of him, however, – his mind- continued to function in that stressful condition even after the war ended.
The information that his death was imminent had a profound effect on him (as it would be on anyone). It is precisely this indeterminacy when he was going to be killed (he was sure he would) that was unbearable: ““You will be killed shortly”…a flat neutral piece of information, almost a conversational remark. I had just been sentenced to death by a man of my own age who looked as if he were a little detached from his surroundings, and who seemed completely indifferent to my fate. I had no reason to doubt him.”
Understandably, after his experience of being a POW, it became difficult for Lomax to relate fully to people who never experienced what he was forced to experience: “I was more worried about my physical injuries: my arms, my exhaustion, the skin diseases…I didn’t understand yet that there are experiences you can’t walk away from, and there is no statue of limitations on the effects of torture“. He also experienced loneliness and isolation, having troubles talking about his experience, as others did not understand what he was going through, never having been in his shoes: “many people could not accept the reality of our injuries…because they had not been there, because they could not make the leap of imagination out of their comfortable lives“. After his war interrogations, he found “demands for information” in day-to-day life unbearable and “found it difficult to tolerate grey areas in my life, to accept ambiguity or uncertainty of any kind”. Moreover, he was also finding it hard “to sympathise with other people’s smaller misfortunes“.
Lomax finally took an unprecedented move in the 1990s to seek out some of those people who were responsible for his torture (he initially planned revenge for them). His meeting with one of his interrogators from the year 1943 might just have been an act of final closure for him as he knew he had to start making peace with his past if he were to carry on with his life. The book becomes rather emotional by the end.
I cannot say I appreciated the writing style, and some aspects of Eric Lomax’s life could have been amplified and not rushed, while others could have been condensed. However, the book is still an eye-opening, unflinching account which is an important, unique and unforgettable read.
March 28, 2012
Eric Lomax writes a beautiful and moving war memoir of his early love and obsession with trains and his ironic war time experiences that bring him in contact with the railway again in the most horrific way. He loves trains so much as a boy that his parents worry about him. He knows all details of operations of trains, trams and cable cars of the early 20th century and is a big fan of the steam engine. He grew up in the Portabello section of Edinburgh, Scotland. His mother is from the Shetland Islands and her people spoke a ancient Norse dialect. His love of trains extends into adulthood and he becomes a trainspotter.
Lomax volunteers in the British Army during the outbreak of World War II. He is made Lieutenant in the Royal Signal Corps and sent to Malaya. Lomax and his men are ordered to keep their guns pointed toward the ocean the only likely direction of attack from the Japanese. The jungle being too dense for the enemy to cross but the Japanese do cross the jungle and take them from behind. He is captured by the Japanese and forced to work on the building of the Burma/Siam railway. The greatest civil engineering disaster in history. This railways was depicted in the movie, "Bridge on the River Kwai", though Lomax says it is the most unrealistic depiction of POW conditions with the healthiest looking prisoners he had ever seen. At first Lomax's time in the prison camp was not too harsh. There were no prison walls and prisoners could travel about the island and collect fruit and fish and other food. But no one could leave the island. It was impossible. Jungle to the west and the endless sea to the east. Most killings and torture were heard second hand. But the soldiers were desperate for information about the war so they build a radio to receive news. This secret radio was the one link to hope and in the end their downfall. The Japanese discover the radio on a raid of the POW camp and the officers are taken away and beaten and tortured repeatedly. Just the waiting to be beaten was a form of torture and Lomax watches his fellow officers beaten and is then he is beaten. He is beaten so badly his entire body from the neck down is black with bruises. His arms broken. He is water boarded and beaten again. Then sent off to another labor camp which is rampant with disease and starvation. Solders live on two bowls of rice a day and their ribs and spine protrude through their skin. It is not long before Lomax takes on a skeletal appearance too. He manages to get placed in a hospital and hears news that two devastating bombs are dropped on Japan destroying entire cities. The war is over and the Japanese surrender.
Lomax returns to Scotland a broken man. His mother has died. Unable to talk about his experiences to anyone and told to move on, he does the best he can but is constantly haunted by the brutality of his prison years. He has nightmares and is cold and distant with his wife. He hates the Japanese. No one understands what he is going through. Post traumatic stress disorder and treatment does not exist at this time in history. So he suffers in silence. Many civilians believe that POW's sat out the war and had a leisure existence.
Fifty years have pass and Lomax is given therapy he so desperately needed. And by some strange coincidence he finds out the translator in the prison camp is still alive. Lomax is given the opportunity to meet the Japanese translator with the sing-song voice, who he despised the most. He has not seen a single Japanese person since the end of the war. For years all he wanted to do is kill his tormentors but what happens is so surprising it brought me to tears. Lomax speaks so open and freely about his torture and humiliation at the hands of the Japanese. He speaks frankly of the effects on his life and the life of his family and the later tragedies that occur on the next generation. You can't help but think that this must have been good therapy for him to finally get his thoughts and experiences out in the open after years of suppression. Such a moving book. Six Stars. A must read.
Lomax volunteers in the British Army during the outbreak of World War II. He is made Lieutenant in the Royal Signal Corps and sent to Malaya. Lomax and his men are ordered to keep their guns pointed toward the ocean the only likely direction of attack from the Japanese. The jungle being too dense for the enemy to cross but the Japanese do cross the jungle and take them from behind. He is captured by the Japanese and forced to work on the building of the Burma/Siam railway. The greatest civil engineering disaster in history. This railways was depicted in the movie, "Bridge on the River Kwai", though Lomax says it is the most unrealistic depiction of POW conditions with the healthiest looking prisoners he had ever seen. At first Lomax's time in the prison camp was not too harsh. There were no prison walls and prisoners could travel about the island and collect fruit and fish and other food. But no one could leave the island. It was impossible. Jungle to the west and the endless sea to the east. Most killings and torture were heard second hand. But the soldiers were desperate for information about the war so they build a radio to receive news. This secret radio was the one link to hope and in the end their downfall. The Japanese discover the radio on a raid of the POW camp and the officers are taken away and beaten and tortured repeatedly. Just the waiting to be beaten was a form of torture and Lomax watches his fellow officers beaten and is then he is beaten. He is beaten so badly his entire body from the neck down is black with bruises. His arms broken. He is water boarded and beaten again. Then sent off to another labor camp which is rampant with disease and starvation. Solders live on two bowls of rice a day and their ribs and spine protrude through their skin. It is not long before Lomax takes on a skeletal appearance too. He manages to get placed in a hospital and hears news that two devastating bombs are dropped on Japan destroying entire cities. The war is over and the Japanese surrender.
Lomax returns to Scotland a broken man. His mother has died. Unable to talk about his experiences to anyone and told to move on, he does the best he can but is constantly haunted by the brutality of his prison years. He has nightmares and is cold and distant with his wife. He hates the Japanese. No one understands what he is going through. Post traumatic stress disorder and treatment does not exist at this time in history. So he suffers in silence. Many civilians believe that POW's sat out the war and had a leisure existence.
Fifty years have pass and Lomax is given therapy he so desperately needed. And by some strange coincidence he finds out the translator in the prison camp is still alive. Lomax is given the opportunity to meet the Japanese translator with the sing-song voice, who he despised the most. He has not seen a single Japanese person since the end of the war. For years all he wanted to do is kill his tormentors but what happens is so surprising it brought me to tears. Lomax speaks so open and freely about his torture and humiliation at the hands of the Japanese. He speaks frankly of the effects on his life and the life of his family and the later tragedies that occur on the next generation. You can't help but think that this must have been good therapy for him to finally get his thoughts and experiences out in the open after years of suppression. Such a moving book. Six Stars. A must read.
August 31, 2015
Ho visto prima il film, interpretato da un Colin Firth più che in forma e da una Nicole Kidman un po’ sottotono, o meglio, lasciata abbastanza in disparte. Ma, d’altro canto, la storia narrata coinvolge il suo personaggio solo parzialmente e, quindi, non poteva che essere così. Comunque, mi è piaciuto molto. L’azione si colloca negli anni della II Guerra Mondiale e si occupa di un aspetto forse meno noto di quel tragico periodo, ossia le condizioni dei prigionieri di guerra, ma anche dei civili, nei campi di lavoro e nelle carceri giapponesi, tra la Birmania e la Thailandia, una delle tante pagine poco onorevoli che costellano la nostra storia. In particolare, si fa riferimento alla costruzione della cosiddetta “ferrovia della morte”, che doveva collegare Bangkok a Rangoon. Quattocentoquindici chilometri di binari a scartamento ridotto che sono costati la vita di migliaia di persone.
Così, dopo aver appurato che si trattava di una storia vera, ho deciso di leggere la biografia di Eric Lomax, dalla quale è stata tratta la pellicola, che ho dovuto rapidamente dimenticare e che, benché continui a trovarla riuscita cinematograficamente parlando, si discosta parecchio dalla realtà dei fatti, anche se fondamentalmente ne rispetta lo spirito.
Abbandonando, dunque, il ricordo delle scene più d’effetto, pagine alla mano ci si immerge in una realtà che è quotidianamente infernale e ci si confronta con un dolore e un disagio che lascerà ferite profonde, anche nella carne, ma soprattutto nella psiche. E per Eric Lomax, come per tutti coloro che sono passati attraverso esperienze simili, il cammino per venirne fuori sarà lungo e difficile.
E’ stata una lettura molto interessante, anche se la scrittura non è particolarmente brillante, ma sicuramente precisa e, spesso, sconvolgente.
Personalmente, vi consiglio entrambi, libro e film, purché vi ci accostiate tenendo ben presente che sono due opere e due mezzi espressivi molto diversi, accomunati però dalla volontà di comunicare e comprendere i motivi che ci conducono a simili barbarie. Anche se, mi sa, come si suol dire, “non c’è peggior sordo di colui che non vuol sentire”. Quel che è successo durante la II Guerra Mondiale, in Europa e altrove, avrebbe dovuto bastare per tenerci tranquilli almeno per mille anni. Invece, è stato forse a malapena sufficiente per mille giorni.
Così, dopo aver appurato che si trattava di una storia vera, ho deciso di leggere la biografia di Eric Lomax, dalla quale è stata tratta la pellicola, che ho dovuto rapidamente dimenticare e che, benché continui a trovarla riuscita cinematograficamente parlando, si discosta parecchio dalla realtà dei fatti, anche se fondamentalmente ne rispetta lo spirito.
Abbandonando, dunque, il ricordo delle scene più d’effetto, pagine alla mano ci si immerge in una realtà che è quotidianamente infernale e ci si confronta con un dolore e un disagio che lascerà ferite profonde, anche nella carne, ma soprattutto nella psiche. E per Eric Lomax, come per tutti coloro che sono passati attraverso esperienze simili, il cammino per venirne fuori sarà lungo e difficile.
E’ stata una lettura molto interessante, anche se la scrittura non è particolarmente brillante, ma sicuramente precisa e, spesso, sconvolgente.
Personalmente, vi consiglio entrambi, libro e film, purché vi ci accostiate tenendo ben presente che sono due opere e due mezzi espressivi molto diversi, accomunati però dalla volontà di comunicare e comprendere i motivi che ci conducono a simili barbarie. Anche se, mi sa, come si suol dire, “non c’è peggior sordo di colui che non vuol sentire”. Quel che è successo durante la II Guerra Mondiale, in Europa e altrove, avrebbe dovuto bastare per tenerci tranquilli almeno per mille anni. Invece, è stato forse a malapena sufficiente per mille giorni.
July 1, 2014
A gut-wrenching story of a POW during the Second Word War. When the British surrender in the far east to the Japanese, thousands of soldiers become prisoners of war. This is the story of one of them, although it touches on many of them. The first half of the book covers this train-lover's growing up in Scotland in what can only be called a time of innocence. Most of the second half of the book covers the time he spends as a POW. The last part of the book covers his return to freedom at the end of the war... I don't want to give too much away, other than to say this is a powerful story. At one point it was so excruciating that I had to put the book down for a few days. The ending, however, is beautiful and uplifting. I confess I saw the movie before reading the book so I knew where it was going. The movie is solid, but I know how they bend the truth to make a more compelling narrative in movies, and I wanted the full story -- so I then read the book. If you have to choose between the movie or book, pick the book. As powerful as various scenes in the movie are, they can't compete, in my humble opinion, with words on the page. The book is simply structured -- flows from beginning to end -- and incredible well written. Lomax must have been 75 when he wrote the book, and it's a masterpiece about man's inhumanity to man, and about forgiveness. A wonderful, and at times excruciating, read.
December 14, 2013
Just read this again, after several years, on hearing a film was imminent. It made an even bigger impression second time round. It's the sort of book you can't get out of your head when you've finished it: the image of the little Edinburgh boy who cycled all over the city, and gradually further afield, to see and wonder at and mark the progress of the steam trains and railways he loved, never leaves you. Throughout all the pain and horror he then experiences as a prisoner of war at the hands of the Japanese and, ironically, against the background of the building of the ultimately useless Burma-Siam railway, it's hard to remember that he was still only 26 when the war ended. The story of a gentle, quiet, serious boy, robbed of his innocence as he faces the most brutal torture, is almost too painful. The manner of his eventual coming to terms with the experiences that scarred his soul is impossible to read about without shedding tears. It's an amazing story. I was so sad to learn that Eric Lomax had died last year and that I had somehow missed his passing - but heartened to know that his widow, Patti, approved of the film and felt it did him justice. Think it's released at the end of December. A must-see, with Colin Firth playing the lead.
February 8, 2014
A very difficult but compelling read, this is the story of a man who went through the utmost brutality in WW11 but had the courage to realise that the process of forgiving one of his captors would help heal himself. This is a very difficult read in places. All of the rubbish tv in the world (Hannibal, CSI etc) cannot match some of the scenes in this book for horror and absolute lack of humanity. The eternal question is, what happens to some men that during times of war all the rulebooks of common decency and care get overthrown for thuggery and depravity? I can't answer the question.
Some parts were difficult to read but I completely understood his love of trains(I grew up in the age of steam trains in New Zealand). Even when a prisoner he could find solace in a engine that appears near the pow camp. The irony of so many lives wasted over a futile attempt to build a railway in the worst possible place in the world is not lost on him either.
The end of his story gives you hope for humans. A good read indeed.
Some parts were difficult to read but I completely understood his love of trains(I grew up in the age of steam trains in New Zealand). Even when a prisoner he could find solace in a engine that appears near the pow camp. The irony of so many lives wasted over a futile attempt to build a railway in the worst possible place in the world is not lost on him either.
The end of his story gives you hope for humans. A good read indeed.
January 3, 2014
This account of the author's experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war is, as you'd expect, a fairly harrowing one. But what lifts this remarkable tale is the book's humanity and compassion, and the tenderness of its narrative.
Whether Eric Lomax is re-living his childhood fascination with steam locomotives and trams, or describing the horrendous, inhuman acts of torture, the prose are consistently imbued with an almost poetic and innocent sense of wonder.
The details, observations and character sketches are authentically and vividly drawn. But it is the final passages of this book which document the author's determination to come face to face with one of his torturers, that make this extraordinary book so moving, compelling and ultimately uplifting.
Alex Pearl, author of 'Sleeping with the Blackbirds'
Whether Eric Lomax is re-living his childhood fascination with steam locomotives and trams, or describing the horrendous, inhuman acts of torture, the prose are consistently imbued with an almost poetic and innocent sense of wonder.
The details, observations and character sketches are authentically and vividly drawn. But it is the final passages of this book which document the author's determination to come face to face with one of his torturers, that make this extraordinary book so moving, compelling and ultimately uplifting.
Alex Pearl, author of 'Sleeping with the Blackbirds'
December 20, 2009
The prose is not the most accomplished but the story is overwhelming. I read this years ago and still remember with horror the torture Lomax went through. And still, amazingly, at the end, forgiveness!
April 27, 2014
Soul-stirring story of hate, cruelty and the deprivations of POWs in Asia during WWII. Eric Lomax was an extraordinary man who finally found hard-won peace through forgiveness.
I haven't seen the film based on this book, nor do I intend to.
The reading creates images that are unforgettable.
I haven't seen the film based on this book, nor do I intend to.
The reading creates images that are unforgettable.
May 22, 2021
3.5 stars
January 9, 2017
The Railway Man. This book is amazing, spellbinding, a rare and precious gem. I'm aware of how arrogant it is to describe in this way the personal account of someone's own unimaginable, immense, seemingly endless suffering as a Prisoner of War (POW) at the mercy (actually, anything but!) of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. But there is so much more! It is difficult reading simply because of the meticulous, graphic descriptions of the torture experienced by the author and other POWs around him. On the other hand, I simply couldn't put this book down! It is so well written, so humane, even poetic, and at times, unbelievably, even funny. Eric Lomax is sadly no longer alive but he must have been an amazing person (if extremely difficult to live with after the war).
I had seen the movie "The Railway Man", and I hadn't liked it very much, partly but not only because I'm not a fan of either Colin Firth or Nicole Kidman. When I found out that our next book club read would be "The Railway Man" I thought, oh no, do I really have to read this? And, after "King Rat", "The Forgotten Highlander" and "Faith, Hope and Rice", I had decided that, this time seriously, I wasn't going to read any more POW accounts of captivity in Japanese-held east Asia.
However, I decided to give it a go and after skimming through the initial 30 or so pages of Lomax's early history and train-related obsessions, I found myself captivated by his story. The more I read, the more I realised that the film has in fact very little in common with the book, and the book is sooooo much better.
As I'd previously read other accounts of that period and places, I already knew most of the historical facts, and there were hardly any references I didn't understand, so I could concentrate on the spellbindingly narrated details of Eric Lomax's ordeal. He was among the unfortunate men who were at the brink of death - from starvation, malnutrition, disease, beating, and all-round mistreatment - on a number of occasions. He talks about Changi (the stage of the semi-fictional and also very moving novel "King Rat" by James Clavell) as "heaven" or paradise, and he does everything he can to be sent back there! And as a reader I sympathise and I can understand why!
Also, unlike the other three POW accounts I've read, "The Railway Man" has a very substantial part dedicated to telling what happened after the war ended. The author continues his honest self-examination - of his return to Edinburgh in 1945, his hasty marriage, his attempts to escape from the horrors in his head by burying himself in work - and it is painful to discover how little help or understanding ex-POWs received in their home country. Society was tired of the war and didn't want to hear any more about it. On the other hand, thousands of returnees desperately needed to come to terms with their dreadful memories but, as they were expected to keep a stiff upper lip and simply get on with life, they agonised in silence without being able to speak even to their closest kin. Here is just one of the many many brilliant (self-)observations which make this book so remarkable:
"The ordinary former Far East POW has probably never talked to anyone about the details of his experiences, except perhaps to other ex-POWs. A few have succeeded in writing memoirs, but they are very few. Not talking becomes a fixed habit, a way of shielding ourselves from those years, and this is doubly true for the victim of torture, who most certainly does not talk. I can write this now, but I have come a long way since the moment I first determined to confront my memories." (p.270)
And then there is the ending....
This book is so touching and insightful I simply can't recommend it highly enough.
I had seen the movie "The Railway Man", and I hadn't liked it very much, partly but not only because I'm not a fan of either Colin Firth or Nicole Kidman. When I found out that our next book club read would be "The Railway Man" I thought, oh no, do I really have to read this? And, after "King Rat", "The Forgotten Highlander" and "Faith, Hope and Rice", I had decided that, this time seriously, I wasn't going to read any more POW accounts of captivity in Japanese-held east Asia.
However, I decided to give it a go and after skimming through the initial 30 or so pages of Lomax's early history and train-related obsessions, I found myself captivated by his story. The more I read, the more I realised that the film has in fact very little in common with the book, and the book is sooooo much better.
As I'd previously read other accounts of that period and places, I already knew most of the historical facts, and there were hardly any references I didn't understand, so I could concentrate on the spellbindingly narrated details of Eric Lomax's ordeal. He was among the unfortunate men who were at the brink of death - from starvation, malnutrition, disease, beating, and all-round mistreatment - on a number of occasions. He talks about Changi (the stage of the semi-fictional and also very moving novel "King Rat" by James Clavell) as "heaven" or paradise, and he does everything he can to be sent back there! And as a reader I sympathise and I can understand why!
Also, unlike the other three POW accounts I've read, "The Railway Man" has a very substantial part dedicated to telling what happened after the war ended. The author continues his honest self-examination - of his return to Edinburgh in 1945, his hasty marriage, his attempts to escape from the horrors in his head by burying himself in work - and it is painful to discover how little help or understanding ex-POWs received in their home country. Society was tired of the war and didn't want to hear any more about it. On the other hand, thousands of returnees desperately needed to come to terms with their dreadful memories but, as they were expected to keep a stiff upper lip and simply get on with life, they agonised in silence without being able to speak even to their closest kin. Here is just one of the many many brilliant (self-)observations which make this book so remarkable:
"The ordinary former Far East POW has probably never talked to anyone about the details of his experiences, except perhaps to other ex-POWs. A few have succeeded in writing memoirs, but they are very few. Not talking becomes a fixed habit, a way of shielding ourselves from those years, and this is doubly true for the victim of torture, who most certainly does not talk. I can write this now, but I have come a long way since the moment I first determined to confront my memories." (p.270)
And then there is the ending....
This book is so touching and insightful I simply can't recommend it highly enough.
June 27, 2017
The Railway Man: A POW's Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness by Eric Lomax
3.5★'s
What's It About?
It's a remarkable memoir of forgiveness―a tremendous testament to the courage that propels one toward remembrance, and finally, peace with the past. Eric Lomax, sent to Malaya in World War II, was taken prisoner by the Japanese and put to punishing work on the notorious Burma-Siam railway. After the radio he illicitly helped to build in order to follow war news was discovered, he was subjected to two years of starvation and torture. He would never forget the interpreter at these brutal sessions. Fifty years after returning home from the war, marrying, and gaining the strength from his wife Patti to fight his demons, he learned the interpreter was alive. Through letters and meeting with his former torturer, Lomax bravely moved beyond bitterness drawing on an extraordinary will to extend forgiveness.
What Did I Think?
Actually I never set out to read the book. I picked it up and started skimming through it and found myself stopping an reading whole passages which soon advanced to entire pages. So I said to myself..."self..why in the world don't you just start at the front and read this thing."
The book is told from a personal perspective. This is not fiction in any stretch of the imagination. This is the memories and nightmares of a man that faced the horrors and madness of war while a prisoner of a ruthless enemy and lived to tell of it. Ultimately it tells the message of forgiveness and reconciliation. In this day and age the author probably would have been said to have autism. The man is remarkable when you consider the huge suffering that being a prisoner of war would impose on anyone...but a person with that condition would find their situation unbearable at it's best. It is astonishing testimony to this man's spirit that he survived to be such a courageous and insightful man. This has been made into a film by the same title that is available on DVD. I haven't watched it but I understand that the film makers took a great deal of liberties with the facts.
3.5★'s
What's It About?
It's a remarkable memoir of forgiveness―a tremendous testament to the courage that propels one toward remembrance, and finally, peace with the past. Eric Lomax, sent to Malaya in World War II, was taken prisoner by the Japanese and put to punishing work on the notorious Burma-Siam railway. After the radio he illicitly helped to build in order to follow war news was discovered, he was subjected to two years of starvation and torture. He would never forget the interpreter at these brutal sessions. Fifty years after returning home from the war, marrying, and gaining the strength from his wife Patti to fight his demons, he learned the interpreter was alive. Through letters and meeting with his former torturer, Lomax bravely moved beyond bitterness drawing on an extraordinary will to extend forgiveness.
What Did I Think?
Actually I never set out to read the book. I picked it up and started skimming through it and found myself stopping an reading whole passages which soon advanced to entire pages. So I said to myself..."self..why in the world don't you just start at the front and read this thing."
The book is told from a personal perspective. This is not fiction in any stretch of the imagination. This is the memories and nightmares of a man that faced the horrors and madness of war while a prisoner of a ruthless enemy and lived to tell of it. Ultimately it tells the message of forgiveness and reconciliation. In this day and age the author probably would have been said to have autism. The man is remarkable when you consider the huge suffering that being a prisoner of war would impose on anyone...but a person with that condition would find their situation unbearable at it's best. It is astonishing testimony to this man's spirit that he survived to be such a courageous and insightful man. This has been made into a film by the same title that is available on DVD. I haven't watched it but I understand that the film makers took a great deal of liberties with the facts.
June 18, 2025
This is one of the most powerful and moving memoirs I have ever read, and a testament to one man's ability to survive and, eventually, recover from and transcend some truly horrific experiences. His childhood and early interests (particularly his love for trains) are recounted vividly, as is his early career and entry into the army with the outbreak of war. Then comes the surrender of Singapore and imprisonment by the Japanese, an event that the reader feels approaching with a sense of dread and which, when it happens, feels like tumbling into the abyss.
Imperial Japan was a truly barbaric and wicked regime, no matter how relativistic our moral standards. This is seen in their treatment of PoWs in general, and specifically in the experiences that Eric Lomax recounts in such a clear and matter-of-fact way. The casual violence and easy cruelty meted out by his Japanese captors are quite repulsive, but thankfully (without giving too much away), there is a sense of closure and redemption in the end, albeit 50 years later.
Even though much of the content is horrifying, this is a riveting and memorable book, and I highly recommend it.
Imperial Japan was a truly barbaric and wicked regime, no matter how relativistic our moral standards. This is seen in their treatment of PoWs in general, and specifically in the experiences that Eric Lomax recounts in such a clear and matter-of-fact way. The casual violence and easy cruelty meted out by his Japanese captors are quite repulsive, but thankfully (without giving too much away), there is a sense of closure and redemption in the end, albeit 50 years later.
Even though much of the content is horrifying, this is a riveting and memorable book, and I highly recommend it.
December 1, 2016
A brilliant memoir written fifty years after being a tortured POW in Asia under Japanese Imperial control. Lomax's memories are clearly recalled in such precise detail that readers can feel the blows from the pick-handles, can suffer under the isolation and the fear of immediate death. As I often read while enjoying lunch, I found myself feeling guilty, feeding my appetite while Lomax is starving.
Anyone interested in WWII history will be rewarded, and anyone that has been wronged and dreams of revenge, anyone who has experienced the effects, or know someone who has, of PTSD, much will be gained by this story of redemption.
Lomax lays out his life from front to back with complete honesty, with a crisp prose that can scarcely be resisted. Within its pages are lessons for us all.
Anyone interested in WWII history will be rewarded, and anyone that has been wronged and dreams of revenge, anyone who has experienced the effects, or know someone who has, of PTSD, much will be gained by this story of redemption.
Lomax lays out his life from front to back with complete honesty, with a crisp prose that can scarcely be resisted. Within its pages are lessons for us all.
August 26, 2015
A book about a ww2 soldier who was a prisoner of the Japanese in the far east.
During this time he was tortured, and went through traumatic experiences.
The book continues after the war and emphasizes how these events leave deep psychological scars. That is the part that I found interesting, as it is similar to holocaust victim stories and to stories of Israeli POW's.
Another interesting anecdote of the book is the description of his meeting with the translator, many years later
During this time he was tortured, and went through traumatic experiences.
The book continues after the war and emphasizes how these events leave deep psychological scars. That is the part that I found interesting, as it is similar to holocaust victim stories and to stories of Israeli POW's.
Another interesting anecdote of the book is the description of his meeting with the translator, many years later
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