Customer Reviews

Beaufort: A Novel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Israeli author Ron Leshem wrote this in Hebrew in 2006 and won Israel's top literary award - "The Sapir Prize". Leshem co-authored the film version of "Beaufort" which won the Berlin International Film Festival's "Silver Bear" for Best Director. And now in 2008 it has been wonderfully translated into English. The story takes place in February 1999 in Northern Israel and Southern Lebanon during the Israel/Lebanon conflict. The main character and narrator in the story is Lieutenant "Erez" Liberti. His real first name is Liraz, but in basic training, at the very first roll call, the platoon commander said: "What kind of a name is that? Liraz? That's a chick's name. From now on you're "Erez", like the cedars of Lebanon." And from there on out he was Erez.

Though this entire story takes place during war, as Israel enters and mans the infamous Beaufort outpost that was taken from Lebanon in a historic battle in 1982, the powerful emotional strength of this story isn't in constant grisly battles of weaponry and uncountable deaths and killings. Though any amount of death is too much and there are horrendous emotional heartbreaking deaths on the battlefield, the strength, power and heart rendering beauty of this story is in the building of the relationships between the young Israeli soldiers. I am a Viet Nam era veteran and when I entered the military I wasn't old enough to "legally" drink, but I was old enough to "legally" kill. I understood that, having been raised to respect and appreciate the price that America has paid for the freedoms we possess. Looking back on my life I thought I was already a man when I entered the service, but I was nothing but a boy. When I got out of the service I was a man, knowing things I wished I never got to know. That's what this story is about. Erez, though only a couple of years older than his troops was not happy with the discipline he saw in his "KIDS" as they got ready for battle, so he runs them into the ground. As the story unfolds the reader gets to learn intimate details about Erez and the thirteen boys/kids/men under his command. Friendships are earned, not born, when everyone's life is on the line every second. I can attest to the fact, that the true mettle of a man, even with all the training in the world, mixed with all the youthful male "bravado" and braggadocio, is not proven or understood fully, until the first mortar's, the first missiles, and the first rockets land in the middle of your platoon! That's when a true "man" is forged.

After the first death in Erez's squad, by my experience, it becomes a necessity to inoculate a close knit group on the battlefield with some form of "dark-gallows-humor" and that's what Erez's "kids did. They invented a game called "WHAT HE CAN'T DO ANYMORE" and it's what everyone played when a friend was killed. I.e. "Hetzl" (I've used a fake name so I won't reveal an individual's death before you read it.) won't be able to get laid anymore... he won't be able to piss off a mountain peak anymore... he won't know his parents were proud of him anymore.. etc. "Gallows humor" at its finest, and it does help you soldier on in your tight knit group where each and every life is dependent on the other to stay alive. As these boys become men, there are gut-wrenching tears shed as the cost of war includes heads literally blown off bodies during missile attacks, arms and legs destroyed, which the soldiers feel is worse than dying. There are attempts through tears to stuff friend's innards back inside him as they realize in horror they can't save a friends life. But through it all, the beauty of friendship and trust and "LOVE" emerges miraculously through the horror of the battlefield, like the beauty of a flower sprouting up through a crack in a deserted sidewalk in a ghetto. This is an unforgettable book that I recommend to all.

I am sure my view of this novel is skewed because I have served in the military and have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. When I reached the end of the text I was shocked to find that the author did not serve in the military. He writes as if he has been on the front lines and lived these experiences.

There were a few sections that I thought were drawn out but over all he captures the essence of being in an unpopular conflict and the hardships of being deployed from the view of the soldier.

There are many books that address what it feels like to be a soldier. I haven't read many about what it feels like to be an Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldier. I did read the excellent "Adjusting Sights" by Haim Sabato, which, like "All Quite on the Western Front" by Erich Remarque" talks about what it's like to be a soldier in an apolitical world. Beaufort, however, markedly deals with what it's like to be an Israeli soldier. This might be disturbing to some based on your own personal politics. For me, it was eye-opening. It contained so much of the emotional side of war from the point of view of platoon leader Lieutenant Liraz "Erez" Liberti. I felt the bravado, the terror, and the love that pervaded the soldiers' souls during their station at Beaufort, an Israeli-occupied outpost in Lebanon.

I'm not a person who gladly reads war novels. However, I thought I'd give this one a try because I discovered it was about Israel (and not about North or South Carolina as I had previously guessed from its title of "Beaufort") and, within a few pages of the opening of the book, mentioned Qiryat Shemona, a town in Israel in which I had lived when I was younger.

A note by the author at the end of the book made it very clear that all of the characters except for one were fictitious. However, they were based on some real stories of IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers. What stood out in my mind was how true the details - the denied fear, the camaraderie, the agony - of their situation seemed. In addition, I entered a world I'd previously denied in my mind - the utterly horrific situations faced by IDF soldiers (and, most likely, soldiers of other countries as well). Whether their own politics beliefs had a role in placing them there or not, they had a job to do. It had to be done well or it ultimately would place their own lives and those of their comrades in jeopardy. While on civilian leave, the ugly truth of their lives as soldiers had be squelched and only its perceived beauty be allowed to shine forth (Think bravery, honor, patriotism, etc.).

There is one part of this book I found especially touching. It was the part about Mickey Bayliss, a soldier usually wearing a knitted kippa (skullcap used for religious Jews) who decided to remove it while on base. I could see how this was disheartening to Erez. It was also disheartening to me. It was as if Bayliss were saying that his level of spirituality was decreasing. That was so sad.

The story is a brutal but realistic account of the lives of a platoon of soldier. It should be read with the thought how devastating the effects of war are everywhere. It would be wise to note as well that there is ultimately no absolute right or wrong to war. Sadly, war exists and will continue to exist forever.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, "
--- "Henry V", Shakespeare

Beaufort" offers a gripping fictional account of an Israeli defense force manning a desolate outpost in southern Lebanon. Instead of a GWOT, you have a local war on terror and Hezbollah. Ron Leshem creates a fully believable world of full metal jacket, so realistic you can almost smell the cordite, sweat and blood. The mental stress of fighting "the new war" that rarely offers open pitched battles is drawn brilliantly.

"Beaufort" underscores the challenges of any occupation force as it struggles to impose its will on foreign territory - a timely lesson that of course transcends southern Lebanon. The tedium and terror that comprises the soldier's life is depicted in a fully believable way.

"Beaufort" launches a full armed assault on your senses as it takes you into a world characterized by days of boredom and minutes of firefight terror. A gripping combat novel!

Israel is the embodiment of a Catch-22 - do one thing, you get demonized, do something else, and you get pounded. And the innocent bystanders often caught in the middle are its soldiers.

Maybe you laugh - innocent bystanders, soldiers, same sentence - but when you're talking about a citizen army, then two go hand-in-hand pretty well.

The book, about soldier stationed at Beaufort, technically within the "buffer zone" created in Lebanon following the invasion in the 80s, is a great read. Everything takes place within Beaufort, and so the lack of movement and changing setting means that you actually get to invest in the cast of characters.

Each one of them sticks out in your mind. Leshem does a great job at making each of them matter to you, so that when something goes wrong, it's not just the death of some guy whose name you already forgot. I was surprised, the way I started remembering their names even though there seemed to be so many of them. I started to expect the types of jokes one of them told, the cheesy geekiness of another. They're all just boys hoping to make it back home alive.

I also appreciate the way the book dealt with a highly-politicized topic. It wasn't about whether the pull-out was right or wrong (although in hindsight perhaps we have more information to inform that opinion), but only what each of the soldiers had to say about it. I can't imagine what it must be like to sit within enemy territory and be told that you can't attack anyone because of the complexity of the situation, because of the impending removal of forces. So you have to stay put, try not to get killed, and hope that they get you out of these as soon as possible. Guys that just wanted the chance to do something to defend their homes got stuck being sitting ducks, waiting through each day with no sense of when it might all end or why they weren't being allowed to do their jobs.

This book made me feel connected to the land and its people so that I started to understand Israeli nuance a little better than I did before. So much of it is about that nuance, that unstated apprehension and frustration that underlines the boundless machismo and joy you often get to see with them.

Highly recommended.

As I read this I kept thinking about Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers. Only because, like that book, it is designed to try and help us understand how "normal" people become transformed and forever altered in battle and being surrounded by death. Because this story is written with the extra layer of the Israeli culture, that never should be seen as "almost american" or "almost european", we might begin to understand how the internal struggle there is deep seeded and difficult to pigeonhole. His Lesham's writing is clear and concise and while often humorous, in a Catch 22 kind of way, it is still affecting and meaningful. This is definitely worth the time.

Beaufort is a gripping novel about a company of Israeli soldiers serving in the ancient crusader castle of the same name. At the time it was being used by the IDF as an outpost in their war on Hezbollah. Reminiscent of "All Quiet On the Western Front" Lesham's haunting prose illuminates many of the same themes, and gives the reader a window(as much as a book can) into what it was like to serve in Lebanon in the late 90's, and the bonds that only the shared experience of combat can form. Beaufort reminds us that despite technological advances, the emotionial experience of war remains largely the same.

Leshem creates a powerful story of an Israeli soldier's life at Beaufort in Southern Lebanon in 98- 00. Its an intense story, following a young commander in the army as he tries to keep his troops sane and alive while fighting for Israel's retention of land in the southern part of its northern neighbor. What emerges is this juxtaposition of a seriously unsettled political and military matter with the life of many young "kids" (as leshem refers to the soldiers). Its hard to imagine that this is how life is for these soliders, but as we know this is how life is. Many of the soldiers in the story are "wasted" and you see how the soldiers learn to cope or at best learn to try.

This book received a lot of praise when it first was published in Israel in 2006 (under the title "If Heavens Exist") and was popularized when read by many soldiers who were fighting in the 2nd israeli-hezbollah conflict. Somewhat of a foreshadowing of the dangers of hezbollah gaining strength and returning an attack, this book must have hit home for the soldiers who read it in 2006 and their families; especially those who lost a son or daughter in battle.

The English translation is okay. At times it feels a little choppy but that's an innate problem with translating from one language to another.

I feel that for anybody who is interested in Israeli culture, this book is a powerful exploration into what it means to be an Israeli soldier in recent years (especially compared to the soldier of the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80s).

Definitely recommend reading. Perhaps get the hebrew version if you can read hebrew.

If the answer is yes, buy this book. You will know why after you read it. It's magnificant and not to be missed.

This is the best novel I've read about men in war since Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried". In a flood of language (translated effectively from Hebrew to English) we are swept into a world of words describing experiences that have no counterpart in everyday life. The young IDF soldiers stationed inside Lebanon during the 1980s and 90s occupation of that country, led by a nonstop talking narrator, fill the boredom of their lives and block out the terror of their perilous position as a target of Hezbollah artillery by talking, talking, talking, mostly in an argot of their own invention.

The talk is often raunchy, outrageous and absurd, marked with playful gallows humor, while the CO of the squad is constantly concerned with whatever persuasive powers are needed to maintain both discipline and morale, in the face of often incomprehensible military orders and a growing media-covered revolt among civilians at home against the government's defense policies. These, we discover, are the months, weeks, and days before a final pull-out, as one by one, lives are still being lost.

There is little actual engagement with the enemy, just a hanging on until an end that seems never to come. Meanwhile, the soldiers in the unit struggle to understand what the experience is doing to them as young men on the sudden sharp edge of adulthood. This is a powerful book, neither pro-war nor anti-war, though it will surely disturb those who are strongly one or the other. Regardless of how you view the Isreali government's policies, you will not soon forget this book - if it's even possible.