The title, which hints at the poetry that breathes life into this true story of the Allied invasion of the beach at Anzio, Italy, in 1944, comes from a passage within the book told by a man assigned burial duty: "Quickly, the mound of earth disappears. A friend has gone. He has drunk his vessel of sadness. His battle is stilled." Woodruff's technique is to show that bloody struggle through the eyes of sol-diers, statesmen, and civilians involved. Privileged viewers from afar, we see officers shooting pool before a major ...
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The title, which hints at the poetry that breathes life into this true story of the Allied invasion of the beach at Anzio, Italy, in 1944, comes from a passage within the book told by a man assigned burial duty: "Quickly, the mound of earth disappears. A friend has gone. He has drunk his vessel of sadness. His battle is stilled." Woodruff's technique is to show that bloody struggle through the eyes of sol-diers, statesmen, and civilians involved. Privileged viewers from afar, we see officers shooting pool before a major conference; we come close, peer into the thoughts of a corporal just before a bul-let takes the top off his head; as if we were walking past, we stop for a mo-ment to watch a poker game among enlisted men; we see an ambassador fretting over artifacts and men riding headlong into a German machine-gun nest. In Woodruff's war there are no hu-man villains, only madness, an abstract insanity, a waste of such huge propor-tions as to sober even a giddy man. A war.
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Add this copy of Vessel of Sadness to cart. $45.40, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2017 by Audible Studios on Brilliance.
