Day

by A.L. Kennedy

Book Overview

Funny and moving, wise and sad, this "imaginative tour de force" (The San Diego Union-Tribune) charts the intensity and courage found in a former World War II POW as he looks back on the closeness of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307266834
• ISBN13: 9780307266835
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 273 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.6" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Sense of Belonging

The voice takes a bit of getting used to - its one of those books where you need to commit to reading reasonable chunks at a time or you won't get into the rhythm of the language or the stream of consciousness of the narrator. But when you do, its quite moving and the depiction of the close bonds of wartime air crews, really all acting as one organsism, is the best I've read. I thought it was a remarkable illustration of why, for some, war can create a sense of belonging and purpose and togetherness that the "real world" can struggle to match. To be honest I wasn't really convinced by the "love" component, couldn't really see what the protaganist's love interest saw in him. but none the less, I was glad that somebody saw something and there was some prospect of fulifllment and belonging outside of war Overall, really very impressed, and I'll be trying to read some more of Kennedy's work

"Day" Is Beyond Masterful

I am an airplane nut. This might be the most evocative paragraph I have read regarding the magic and mystery that only airplane nuts feel. "Circling in from the north-west came a single Lanc, big-chinned, blunt as a whale and open armed and singing. When you heard them like that, far off, you could think they were trying to speak, words hidden underneath the roar, and if you could only work the out, you would understand everything, ou would be saved. " DayDay (Vintage Contemporaries) is a love story. The love of a WWII Lancaster crewman for his captain and crew; his love of a woman; his love of combat. Day is the story of hate. His hatred for an abusive father. Hatred of those who bring tyranny over the innocent. Author A.L. Kennedy brings us Alfred Day the character. His tale dances across time, interweaving an authentic captivity with a staged reinactment offering Day a second chance to untangle the cords of his war. Read this book. Please.

Walking Wounded

Alfie Day has been an RAF tail gunner and a starved and beaten POW. The sole survivor of his bomber crew, five years have passed, but he remains one of the millions of walking wounded, living in the scarcity and devastation of post-war Britain. A fishmonger's battered son, he'd half hoped the war would end a life he'd been taught was worthless. Now he struggles with survivors' guilt and a swarm of stabbing memories, bright with the hyper reality of childhood abuse and twenty-nine night bombing missions. The author's elegant prose carries the reader past the near dumb shows of Day's conversation, deep into the clear, always swirling eddies of his thought. This is a man who knows far more than he shows, who processes the violence he's endured. Hoping to find his way out of a paralyzing numbness, he travels to Germany to take part in a movie set in a POW camp. Here the Past, both in memory and in the form of an escaped SS man, confront him. He remembers, hopelessly, the few moments of tenderness in his life, a war time affair with a married woman. Occasionally Day's stream of consciousness left me behind, but the exquisite precision of the writing brought an emotional punch to each and every scene. DAY gives the reader World War ll warts and all, without pieties or flag-waving. Ms. Kennedy, who has won prestigious awards for earlier works, again demonstrates a humbling mastery of her art.

Not what one would expect

The book is mainly an exploration of the character of the protagonist, Alfie Day. It moves around from pre to mid to post WW II. Book contains a fair amount of stream of consciousness, mixed freely and expertly with plot. As a result of its construction, the book requires slow, thorough reading, which led to its not being what I expected. A wonderful, really thought-provoking read that I highly recommend.

Discomforting yet intoxicating read

The one and only negative thing I can write about "Day" is that it took me over 30 pages to get fully "oriented"; and while perhaps this device was likely deployed purposefully by the author to communicate the very-same disorientation on the part of the lead character (for him too, time and space have blurred), it was overdone and prevented me from getting pulled in more quickly. Yet, once I knew where I was in time and space, the book was impossible to put down. I have nothing in common with the leading man, a WWII veteran and RAF gunner. Yet I felt I got into his head; no, more to the point, he got into mine. The result was a combination of discomfort and exhilaration. The story is not one that's easy to swallow and some of the elements are disturbing and visually (for those like me who visualize the story) gory yet appropriate for the war and the period. The Economist in its review, noted no one would ever tell the author is a woman. I agree. What makes this spell binding is that the man through whose eyes we see the war and understand its emotional aftermath (and largely futile nature) is both insane and aware of his insanity, he examines the loss of his humanity yet is still very human, in love and angry. The writing touched me like very few books have, and I read voraciously so I can speak with some confidence on this. Anyone with a faint interest in the WWII period, or the human psyche, would want to read this book.