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1958. Dans une grotte d’Hatoma, petite île japonaise, trois corps et un journal intime sont découverts. Le journal appartient à Hiromi, une jeune fille de seize ans ayant grandi aux Etats-Unis.
Réfugiée à Hatoma lors de la deuxième guerre mondiale, Hiromi découvre un jour deux déserteurs cachés dans une grotte alors qu’elle ramasse du sable étoilé – de petits fossiles en forme d’étoiles. L’un est Japonais, l’autre Américain. Les deux hommes sympathisent malgré la barrière de la langue et, lassés de la guerre et de ses horreurs, ils se créent un espoir commun : survivre, sans plus jamais faire de mal.
Hiromi s’occupe d’eux, les nourrit et les soigne, en dépit du danger : si leur secret vient à être découvert, elle risque elle-aussi la mort pour trahison. Alors que la guerre continue de faire rage à l’extérieur, le trio survit jour après jour, à l’abri de la grotte. Jusqu’au jour où la menace pénètre cet antre de paix.
2011. Vingt ans plus tard, une jeune universitaire s’intéresse de plus près à cette histoire. Décidée à éclaircir la part d’ombre qui entoure ce lieu, elle découvre au fil de ses recherches le dénouement de cette histoire captivante d’héroïsme, en des temps où s’engager pour la paix était l’acte le plus dangereux qui soit.
140 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2016
“There was no past, present, or future; there was only beforewar time, duringwar time, and afterwar time, and the three melded together like differently colored metals in an intense fire, taking a shape when the fire cooled down until the heat rose once again and a new form of the same thing was created…the making and remaking of time itself.”The book is very character driven, with little exciting plot. And that’s okay! I like that this is a WWII novel that doesn’t spotlight the fighting or the actual war itself. Rather, it centers on the side effects of the war, on the little bits and pieces that may go unnoticed in other novels. This is a little cave, on a small, nearly uninhabited island, and yet this cave holds two soldiers who are told they should be enemies and nevertheless find themselves bonding over shared experiences. They’re aided by a girl who is Japanese in heritage but American in birth; there is no black and white here. There’s a lot of grey area, and I like that this book showcases the emotional conflict that comes out of war, rather than the physical.
“I wasn’t interested much in the war thing before I took Professor Shiroma’s class, and now he’s going to be my supervisor next year. That is just so cool.”The “war thing”? Really?! As if it’s a passing fad, rather than a big event in which millions of lives were lost and millions more were irrevocably changed.
“It was the first time ever that someone sent me a special-delivery letter!”Or that time that one exclamation point just wasn’t enough:
“That’s all okay for him, but I hate economics!!!”Or that time that she threw a hissy fit about her boyfriend:
“Who wants to go out with a TOTAL NERD LIKE YUTAKA!”As a 20-year-old woman myself, I cannot help but be extremely offended that this is how the author thinks we view things. Contrary to his belief, we do not feel the need to scream and shout about every little thing that happens, and we are capable of feeling emotions and having complex thoughts like any other human being.