Customer Reviews

The Young Lions ( Signed ~ Limited Edition ~ Leather )

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It seems that Irwin Shaw is mainly remembered for light popular novels such as "Rich Man, Poor Man" and "Beggarman, Thief," and "Nightwork," but he was also a great writer of short stories (a former star for the New Yorker) and in "The Young Lions" he emphatically staked his claim to be numbered among the great American war novelists. In my opinion, Shaw's book belongs in the company of "The Red Badge of Courage," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Naked and the Dead," and "Catch-22." Hopefuly this new edition from Chicago will help to bring a forgotten classic of World War II before a new audience. Many war novels hover uneasily at the brink of sentimentality and melodrama, and many more simply fall in. But in this story about three young soldiers who are "The Young Lions" of the title, with their hopes, fears, loves and hatreds, Shaw's touch is deft and his clear, smooth prose leads the reader through an absorbing and tragic story that remains as fresh and moving today as it was when it first written over half a century ago.

I'm a 30 year old person that was born and raised in the Netherlands and for the last 4 years has been living and working in Germany. I've allways been interested in novels, films and documentaries about the second world war. Living in the Netherlands and Germany I have been able to notice the differences in the way both countries try to cope with the war. Generalizing one could say that in the Netherlands emphasis is more on having been victims, wheras in Germany, people try to face the fact that a lot of their fathers and/or grandfathers were war criminals. A simple and clear picture: they were "good" and the others were "bad" Reading "The Young Lions", you more and more see the similarities between soldiers in the opposing armies: they have the same background, the same fears, the same hopes, they are just puppets of different rulers. They are not just good or bad, they just want to survive and go home. Shaw's book shows how horrible war is to every soldier. In war there is no black and white, just many shades of grey.....

There were dozens of novels based on World War II, but only three that captured American readers by storm. Mailer's THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, Jones's FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and Shaw's THE YOUNG LIONS. Of the three, the most compulsively readable and the least self-conscious is Irwin Shaw's absolutely beautiful novel of love and loss during World War II. If there is a better sculptor of character in 20th century American fiction, I'd like to know who it is. Shaw has a knack for creating palpable characters (including some you'd ordinarily hate -- such as an errant Nazi) who live and breathe. All of his characters -- from Christian and Michael to Hope -- are people we care about, and many of the great historic scenes of the war come alive for even the most casual reader. The subplots (and there are quite a few of them) are integrated seamlessly and the pace is relentless and exciting. One wonders why Shaw never tried to repeat this stunning performance, but perhaps novels as fine as this only occur once in a lifetime. If you want to sink into a richly detailed, compulsively readable saga of World War II, this is the genuine article. A pity there aren't six stars.

This is truly one of the great novels dealing with World War Two. Throughout, the novel switches perspectives from that of a German lieutnant to an American private. The story begins shortly before the outbreak of war, and continues until the war's ending.

Irwin Shaw seems to capture the flavor of both the American and German armies, and what the attitudes and perspectives of their soldiers might have been like. One thing that Shaw cannot be criticized for is soft-peddling the crimes of the German Army. One of the things the reader will see is the slow descent of the German protagonist from an essentially good man to a thorough skunk. Personally, I thought Shaw might have overdone it a little bit (just my opinion). To clarify: I thought it might have been more effective to show the German soldier as a basically good man caught up in an organization committing wrongful deeds. Instead, Shaw chose to have the character himself become evil. Well, that's the author's choice to make, and Shaw certainly tells a compelling story.

This is an engaging story that has a strong authentic feel to it. I found it to be a rich reading experience and this is one of the truly great stories of World War II.

I have never been presented with a better view of World War II. Usually, I get the point of view of a U.S. soldier in France, pushing against the Panzers. Never have I had the opportunity to see the war through Nazi eyes, or even Jewish eyes. Seeing that our enemy was just a kid, concerned with nothing more than his own well-being. Seeing the German Army as a unit just as dysfunctional as the U.S. army is usually portrayed was absolutely beneficial, as was the presentation of Christian's hesitation in turning a Jew in, but does anyway, just out of duty. The perspectives is the first of two standout characteristics of The Young Lions. The second is the way Shaw manipulates the characters to manifest them into believable, tangible people, to which everyone can relate. Even the Nazi, usually hated by Americans, is portrayed realistically and humanly, instead of in the more typical animalistic, murderous way.

The Young Lions is a powerful novel written in the years immediately following World War II. It is a gritty and passionate novel, and in reading it the motivatations of men in times of war to acts of courage, cowardice and base violence come to life in the protagonists. Shaw is a artful in the of crafting his words and sentences in a provoking yet thoughtful manner that is nothing less than masterful. Shaw presents and discusses many complex themes through his characters and vignettes in the story that, having read The Naked and the Dead, it is difficult to tell which one comes first as the truly post-modern American novel.

Although it is a somewhat thick novel, it reads exceptionally fast.

Characters are often interchangeable in war novels. This is true even in the works of some of the best novelists of the WWII era; including Mailer (Naked and the Dead), Wouk (The Cain Mutiny) and even James Jones (The Thin Red Line). Shaw is able to portray soldiers as true individuals fighting to remain individuals in the framework of the military and a world war. While this novel covers much in the way of history and geography, it is really the story of three very-real and independent men who live in a world that does not value independence.

The narrative of this book is extraordinary. Every sentence is truly crafted to tell the story as succinctly as possible. The protagonists are a small group of soldiers that start the war as complete strangers but go on to become the best of friends and anonymous enemies. The author tells the story in a remarkably nonjudgmental way, thereby giving the reader a great deal of insight into the nature of war in general. My only disappointment is that I have just this moment finished it. I will pick it up again, someday, I'm sure. This is the first Irwin Shaw book I have read, but I knew ten pages into it, that I was a true fan.

What does it mean to be at war, to be a man, to be an average Joe, to be a hero, to see war's horror, to see its tragedy, to learn to do what must be done to survive? One of the best, if not the best novel to come out of the World War II experience, Irwin Shaw's, The Young Lions tells the intertwined war stories of three compelling characters, one, Michael Whitacre, a Broadway showman and partying type who comes into the war late, and takes a position as journalist assistant, driving behind and eventually up to the active front lines, alternatively wishing for safety and wondering what it is like to fight, wanting to see some military action, and finally seeing more than enough; a second man, Noah Ackerman, also an American, a Jew who is discriminated against even in attempting to bury his father, a man whose only friend is killed in the Solomon Islands, a man who, although her Waspish father initially disapproves, marries a young woman and fathers a child, only to be subsequently drafted and suffer abuse throughout basic training before learning bravery and military smarts while fighting in Europe; and a third man, Christian Diestl, an Austrian ski instructor before the war, who enters the military with high hopes for Nazi Germany, only to have his illusions shattered in the process of surviving battles in Africa, Italy, France and Germany, growing smart enough to survive and fight but losing all claim to humanity in the process.

The book is a bit long for the contemporary reader, nevertheless, after the opening chapters it moves with relentless speed towards the inevitable meeting up of the three soldiers in its final pages. Shaw uses the circumstances of his characters to comment on contemporary social conditions. Some might be put off by these observations, but I found them appropriately interesting.

For many people, especially Americans, there is an unrealistic, idealistic, almost worshipful view of who soldiers are and how they behave in a military environment. Some of the very realistic incidents in this book might dispel such naïveté.

Who should read this book? If you're looking for a good World War II story, well told, or if you are interested in what it is like to be at war in the military, this is the book for you.

This is one of the few books I've read twice (so far). Irwin Shaw - in my opinion - was one of the best novelists of the 20th century, and it's sad to see so many of his work out of print. It is therefore great news that at least "The Young Lions" is now available again in a new paperback edition.

A passionate book about the world at war, seen through the eyes of a group of desparate young soldiers. While Herman Wouk's "The Winds of War" worked brilliantly on a grand scale, Irwin Shaw's novel lets the war happen on a frighteningly real personal level. It's tough, it's emotional - an unrivaled novel that will leave no reader cold.