Customer Reviews

Accidental Journey: A Cambridge intern's memory of World War II

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Couldn't put it down. The author is a marvelous storyteller, and writes in a wonderfully humorous and detached manner about his part in the War in Europe. As a native German speaker, he found himself initially interned and shipped to Canada for security purposes, and later involved in many improbable situations throughout his service with the British tank corps. It reads as if the author is sitting in the living room relating his tales. Incomparable

A remarkable story from a man who had all the reason in the world to be angry but chose not to be. Removed from Cambridge and interned as a resident alien, despite being a German Jew, he is eventually released and joins the Pioneer Corps and the British Army. He becomes a tank commander fighting in Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge and on in to Germany, but harbors no personal anger against the Germans who are trying to kill him. In fact, he is highly complimentary of their martial skills. This is no ordinary memoir. It is written by a man who clearly loves history, who recognized the importance of what he was doing, but kept his humanity and sense of humor. It was a terrific read.

that when I closed the final page, I fantasized about writing to Mark Lynton and telling him so! Insightful, humorous and thought provoking about WWII and life in general. Mr. Lynton is the kind of person I would like to sit next to at a dinner party!

I love history and this is one of those rare books where you can have a very personal, up close, first-hand view of what it was like to be in the vanguard of advancing troops (more tanks than troops) as Monty's Brits advanced across France, Belgium, and Germany in the weeks and months after D-day. It's more than that, though. How a young German 'kid' (and Jewish) fluent in three languages manages by 'accident' to end up in a Royal Tank Regiment, to be present at Heinrich Himmler's suicide, and to meet the figures that would eventually end up at the top of Germany's political class in the 50's and 60's was especially interesting to me - an Army Brat that spent time in postwar Germany in the early 50's.

Witty, sardonic, and keenly observant, Mark Leyton (Lowenstein) offers the reader a singular and unexpected POV on being a Jewish refugee, a British soldier, and a (sort of) postwar intelligence operative.
At times this reads like a Royal Tanker version of M*A*S*H or a non-ficiton Catch-22, and one laughs out loud at frequent intervals,but it stands apart from those works for the Cambridge-honed humor and the profound pathos that marks him in both his person and his circumstance. Often it is a testimony...(get ready for the cliche)to the endurance of the human spirit in very dispiriting cicumstances. I agree with the comment that it peters out in the last few pages, but this signifies the truthfulness of the narrative. He is remembering more than storytelling. I couldn't put it down.

This has to be one of the most original memoirs of WWII that I've come across. Lynton's prose is striking, balancing sarcasm and acidity effortlessly with the horrible events that he witnessed and participated in, and some of the most comical moments of a lifetime. It's a wild and wooly ride, and this is another one I could not put down. Highly recommended!

I really enjoyed this book. The author has a great gift in recognizing irony when he see's it, and a very sharp wit. It was very different than the many other WWII biographies I have read. The situations and circumstances Lynton found himself in during those years are almost unbelievable.
At times his casual, dry approach towards what would seem like a tramatic or dramatic event is puzzling, although he does state on a couple occasions that many of those circumstance have been covered in so many other books that he didn't feel the need to go into depth with them.
His description about what it was like to be an "alien" (German Jew) in Great Britain was interesting, and very ironic that he couldn't become a British citizen, but was good enough to serve in their military.
The chapters about his time in the secret service was fascinating, with a lot of insight on what everyday life was like for civilians and servicemen in post-war Europe.
The book is filled with amazing twists and turns, and even humor in the way he sarcastically explains a situation.
Even though the ending was a little weak (reason for 4 not 5 stars) I would still highly recommend this book and had a hard time putting it down.

I found this book by accident at a book sale. It turned out to be an extraordinary memoire of WW II as experienced by a university student at Cambridge University who happened to be a German Jew by birth. He was thus, by dint of extraordinary stupidity on the part of the British War Office, rounded up as an enemy alien and after many moves within Great Britain, ultimately shipped off to Canada, along with other young male civilians from Axis countries (Hungary, Austria, e.g.) who happened to be studying or living in England, lumped together with German prisoners of war.

What is so special about this account is its breadth -from the misguided enemy alien roundup, the eventual release and subsequent involvement in the British war effort as a tank officer, to his account of the final days of war in Germany and his subsequent post-war involvement as an Intelligence office. The author presents extraordinarly insightful accounts of the war experience and the workings of the military on both sides of the conflict He has provided us with a unique first-hand view of the Second World War in the European theater, from its start to its finish. I do not believe there is another account like it. I plan to send a copy to my brother-in-law who, as a 15-year-old Viennese refugee in England suffered the same fate of internment , and to my friends who fought in the war with the Dutch and British. While telling a story of historical importance, the author has also managed to outdo Evelyn Waugh in satire and irony, and to equal him in grace.

I rated this as 4-1/2 stars, the half point taken off for occasional passages of tedium in the middle of the book which, in the end, do not significantly detract from an overall rating of splendid.

Nora Avins Klein, M. D.