Gulf

by Robert Westall

Book Overview

An adolescent boy must save his younger brother when he becomes psychically linked to a doomed Iraqi soldier during the Persian Gulf War. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0749714727
• ISBN13: 9780749714727
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: Egmont Childrens Books
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Essential!

This book made me cry. All three times I read it. It succeeds completely in its goal of making you see the Gulf War from the other side, the side of the "enemy" Iraqis. "Gulf" is about a British boy, Andy, who has a strange emphatic gift. He can identify with anyone or anything, from an injured baby squirrel to an African witch-doctor he reads about in the paper. He seems to be a bit psychic. His family is used to his strangeness, so when he starts dreaming about the desert, they think nothing of it. His older brother, the narrator, is only entertained by Andy's half-asleep retelling of these dreams, which coincide with the first war in Iraq. Soon enough though, Andy can't be fully awakened. He will only speak in a gutteral language that is unfamiliar to them and stalks around as if he is under attack. He has traded bodies with a young Iraqi soldier, under attack by the Americans and fiercyly loyal to Sadam Hussein. This book is really short and gripping. You will be thinking about it for much longer than it takes you to read it. Why did we go to war? Why are we at war again?

This review does not do Gulf ANY justice.

Gulf, by Robert Westall, is an amazing, amazing book. I read it recently during the war against Iraq. It was the seventh time I have read the book. Gulf is about Figgis, a strange child who does abnormal things. In the book, they are called his Things. He will see something, hear something, read something, or discover a piece of information and immediately connect with it. He will obsess over the Thing for days until it is simply over. Then he'll find a new Thing. One of his most peculiar things happened when he saw an article in the newspaper. On the front page was a picture of a man. There was no caption underneath the picture with his name. Figgis suddenly wanted to write to the man. His parents managed to find out where the man lived, but they didn't know his name. Figgis wrote the man a letter. He began it, "Dear Charlie." When Figgis received a letter from the man, it was signed Charlie. It was addressed "Dear Andy", Figgis' real name. But the odd thing was that Figgis had signed the letter to Charlie "Figgis." Then one night, Figgis' brother finds Andy muttering in a strange language. When Figgis awakes, he doesn't remember ever doing it and he can't speak the language. After that, it happens more and more. Every night, Figgis becomes someone else. He doesn't know Tom, his own brother. He climbs to the rooftop one night and sits there, speaking in the strange, harsh language, muttering to himself. After a while, you find out what has happened to Figgis. He is speaking Arabic. He is experiencing what a soldier in the Gulf War is. Figgis is taken to a mental hospital. There he speaks the language to himself, wears Army clothing, builds bunkers around himself, and uses a gun that the hospital staff found him. The Arabic soldier has taken Figgis over. Figgis not only experiences the soldier's life at night, now he IS the soldier the entire day. Everything is made worse by everything else. Figgis no longer exists. It is like some terrible disease has taken him away from his family and friends. His dad, a true patriot, is always screaming at the television and watching in glee as more enemy soldiers are killed. Now his son is one. This book is a somber, scientific read. It's definitely not for everyone. Also, true patriots who think that their country is always in the right shouldn't read this book. Some of it has to do with whether war is ever right. It points out that the soldiers on the other side are just as real as we are. They think that their view is more right than ours and they are also willing to die for it. Later on in the hospital, when Figgis returns to himself for a few brief moments, he says to Tom that maybe his position is to make up for all the people out there who don't give a damn about who's going to die, and who is going to be wounded. Maybe Figgis' terrible state is because no one in his family except Tom really cares about the other side of the war. His father just wants to see as many dead men from the other side

This was a great book

The book starts out with Andy's (Figgis) brother, Tom, talking about Figgis's strange dreams he has. He says about Figgis knowing almost the entire life story of both a medicine man and an Ethiopian woman. Then one day, Tom finds his brother trapped inside of an Iraqi soliders body, and no way of getting out. This book is really good for someone who likes war novels with a little mystery in it. Two thumbs up!!

This book takes you to the outer limits of imagination

This book is about a 'normal' family in England. Suddenly Figgis, (whose real name is Andy) starts thinking he is in the Gulf war. He spends his time polishing his gun and shouting out things in perfect German even though he has never learnt this language. Andy's brother, (Thomas) is the only one who knows about Andy's visions, and feels guilty because he tells no-one about it. Figgis gets put in a mental hospitol, but the doctor there knows that Figgis is not a mental case and trys to figure out what to do about it. ...