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    Empire of the Sun
    Empire of the Sun
    Empire of the Sun
    Audiobook (abridged)3 hours

    Empire of the Sun

    Written by J. G. Ballard

    Narrated by Jeremy Irons

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    The classic, award-winning novel, made famous by Steven Spielberg’s film, tells of a young boy’s struggle to survive World War II in China.

    Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him.

    Shanghai, 1941—a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world.

    Ballard’s enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateDec 15, 1987
    ISBN9780743546850
    Author

    J. G. Ballard

    J.G. Ballard (1930–2009) was the author of numerous books, including Concrete Island, The Kindness of Women, and Crash. He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. 

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    Reviews for Empire of the Sun

    4/5

    61 ratings37 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Author J.G. Ballard was a British schoolboy living in Shanghai during WWII. He was placed with his family in a Japanese civilian prison camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. His novel, Empire of the Sun is based on his experiences. The book is told through the eyes of British schoolboy Jim and is very disturbing in his matter of fact narration of his life in the Japanese prison camps. From gruesome details, such as how the prisoners saved the maggots in their rations to supplement their diets, to the corpses floating in the river as people drank the water this book shouts out the message of the terrors of war. Personally, my parents lived in China during the war. Although they weren't in Shanghai, they did have to flee their homes as the Japanese invasion moved west. This book made me realize that they must have seen and lived through some horrible things during the war. Definitely food for a future conversation. Overall, a remarkable war story - be prepared to be horrified and disturbed.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I understood that this novel was based around the real life experiences of the author's childhood in Shanghai but although this is a fine and absorbing read I encountered a problem that prevented me from warming to it entirely. I didn't believe it! The boy's reactions to his sudden wrenching away from two loving parents in a highly-priviledged and upper-class gated colonial community into the horror of Japanese invasion just didn't seem likely. He immediately becomes a self-reliant street urchin who suffers no disabilitating mourning for his parents nor his former comforts. He adapts and comforms with a hard-nosed resilience that I find hard to accept he would have possessed. Consequently, I had a slight worry about unreliable narrative syndrome, in a text that flaunted its verisimilitude.
    • 5/5
      Better than the movie and Ballard's words paints a survival story from an adolescence point of view with an adult's voice of perspective.
    • 4/5
      Great book and one of those which encouraged to write my novels of this time and place
    • 5/5
      I love it! Tbh, i like this better than the movie. There are parts in the book that is not mentioned in the movie. Very intense book that made me think constantly “what would Jim do next?”
    • 3/5
      Empire of the Sun was, for me, quite a difficult read. I found it quite disturbing and the images it conjured up were harsh and sometimes quite shocking. In that sense, I suppose it is a fairly accurate representation of what times were like in Shanghai during WWII.Jim was a likeable enough character, but some of the others I did not care for - I wasn't particularly fond of Basie, I thought he was a bit of a user. I struggled to concentrate on the book at times, and found myself easily distracted.
    • 4/5
      Enthralling true account of survival.
    • 4/5
      An incredible book. While reading this book I realized I had never heard much about the WW2 in the pacific outside of the American military operations of island hoping and the movies that came out of those events. I found this book very interesting. What was more surprising is it was based of Ballard's actual events that occurred to him during this time. I found myself wanting to so bad to know that everything would turn out well in the end. There were a few missing points in the book that I wish I could know the answer to, like what happened to certain individuals after the end of the book. I'm trying really hard not to spoil the book for anyone who has not read it yet. I felt my mind completely engrossed in the book and I found myself day dreaming during the day and finding myself at Lunghua camp and realizing how grateful I should be that my meal is more than just rice and a sweet potato. Would I say this book changed my life? Doubtful but it has made me more interested to read other books of the same nature, I want to go and read a book of someone who was in a concentration camp in Germany and then sit and compare what they had to go through, I would also be more interested now in reading more books of the pacific world war 2
    • 4/5
      "Empire of the Sun," is a semi-autobiographical novel of when J.G. Ballard was at the Lunghua Interment Camp as a boy during WWII.The story opens when the protagonist, Jim, age eleven, is with his parents at an early Christmas event, just prior to Pearl Harbor.Chinese refugees and beggars are everywhere and people become immune to their plight. As Jim's family goes to the Christmas event, their driver goes over the foot of an old beggar outside their compound. The driver doesn't stop and no one says anything.I thought this was an interesting comparison to the Bible story of the good Samaritan stopping by the road to help someone in distress. Here they were going to a Christmas party but didn't feel much of the charity of Christ.That night the Japanese attack an American and British military vessel in the harbor and war begins for Shanghai.Jim sees the war through his own eyes. He's very analytical and nonjudgmental. He's separated from his parents and spends the next few months living at his parents and their friends vacant homes, until the food is used up.Later he surrenders to the Japanese and spends most of the war at the Lunghua Interment Camp.He sees the empire of the sun when the bomb explodes at Nagasaki.As the war is coming to an end, the prisoners are moved from their camp to another at an old Olympic stadium. They are forced marched to this location and many die.I enjoyed Jim's descriptions of life, the author's slow pace in telling the story as if this is what the life was like.
    • 5/5
      A very moving and, in places, quite horribly graphic fictionalised account of the author's childhood privations in an internment camp outside Shanghai. The three dimensional descriptions show how deeply the author is drawing on his own experiences - no-one who had not gone through all this could describe it so vividly. In places the author enters an almost dreamlike state in his writing. He becomes the perpetual prisoner who actually comes to welcome the security of his prison walls as representing almost the only home he knows - a particular haunting tragedy for one so young.
    • 5/5
      Empire of the Sun is World War 2 from the point of view of the British civilians who were left behind in Shanghai and interned by the invading Japanese.Seen through the eyes of a young British lad (the author in his childhood) cruelty seems ever present, and at the same time - or perhaps because of this - totally casual, unthinking. Yet, we see that the actual level of cruelty is rather more a cruelty of neglect, of the British; rather more sheer sadism, for the Chinese locals. The author regales us with the slow suffocation by a Japanese sergeant of a Chinese civilian; the sergeant winds coil after coil of telephone cable around the victim's chest.The film of this book was excellent and very true to the book, I thought. Nevertheless, it is worth reading the book simply for the pleasure of reading Ballard's wonderful prose: During the night the swimming pool had drained itself. Jim had never seen the tank empty, and he gazed with interest at the inclined floor. The once mysterious world of wavering blue lines, glimpsed through a cascade of bubbles, now lay exposed to the morning light.- and here we can see the origin of Ballard's obsession with drained swimming pools that repeats over and over in his fiction. Not that I'm complaining; images are the stock of the writer's trade.Empire of the Sun is the kind of book that one day I would like to be able to write. It's full of images so far removed from what we imagine as "normal" that the characters stand out in 3-D against a fever dream. If you've not read it, it is worth reading even if you've seen the movie.
    • 5/5
      This book is so real. No bullshit narrative arc where Jim glorifies war and then leaarns the hard way that it's hell; no phantasmagoria of horrors, so when things do get a little hallucinatory, you're just about ready to accept it at face; no trying to impress the reader by making each episode sadder and more awful than the last (it turns out this wasn't the book I remembered from childhood where it was all forcing women to drink water and then jumping on their stomach till it burst, and stepping on babies' heads), because the endless grinding need to stay two steps ahead of the thresher to survive hits us in a less sensationalistic, more uncomfortable way--IS the next war just about to start? Is the security of modern life just a veil, so easily pulled apart forever? Is war not a catastrophe, but the natural state of humanity?

      And if that's the case, of course it's a war of all against all, and so Jim's keen evaluative eye and ability to identify with whoever is to his advantage to identify with at the moment is so natural. This book has really interesting things to say (for one) about traditional national stereotypes--Jim's attraction to the hawk-eyed Japanese, cruel and clean among the filth and maggots, and the way it fades before the casual irony and eye to an advantage of the Americans, backed by a billion horsepower in Flying Fortresses (and you are reminded that any national idea would have been as appealing as "America", if it had the circumstances to wax confident and strong in that America had; and I see also that the initial US involvement in Chine came in the 1840s to "protect the Chinese from the British operating in the condition of a monopoly" or similar); his ambivalent relationship with the best survivalist Boy's Own tradition of Britain, represented by Dr. Ransome; and the ultimate fear that the Chinese have it right, and that war of all against all is what's coming, and the cold-eyed and cynical will survive and win.

      And, like, I guess this is gauche or whatever to be impressed, but Ballard lived through this. I mean that in both senses: he was there, and he survived. And the book's constant refrain is "Jim knew", and some of the things he knows are most dubious, but he can't afford the luxury of doubt--he needs solid intelligence on which to make life-sustaining decisions. And that bit at the end--it's only a throwaway line, but where Jim looks for his turtle, absurdly, because it is eaten or killed or at the very least miles away--but you're like "a kid needs a turtle. Otherwise all he has to relate to are shity colonist internees (and the colonial whites come out as bad here as they do in, say, The Seed and the Sower) and Japanese fighter pilots." But, oh hell, the fighter pilots are children too, twisted in just the same way. Our grandparents' generation wasn't especially brave for throwing themselves into the meat grinder, which people have been doing since time immemorial; they were brave for coming home and getting together a system that persevered without setting the world on fire (more or less) for 64 years and counting.

    • 5/5
      I finished Empire Of The Sun by JG Ballard yesterday, and it?s safe to say that it blew me away. It truly is an exceptional book, in turns moving and funny, with deep and light moments throughout.The coverline is a quote from The Guardian newspaper, calling it ?The best British novel about the Second World War?, but this isn?t to say that it?s an outright war novel. It?s not even set anywhere near Britain, instead occurring in Shanghai and detailing the Japanese occupation.The central character, Jim, is a young boy at the outbreak of the war, but spends nearly three years in a POW camp just outside Shanghai, separated from his parents. He learns how to survive and protect his skin, mainly by being ultra-helpful to his fellow prisoners, often to the point of annoyance, even if he doesn?t realise it.Jim also retreats into his fantasy world, and daydreams of being a pilot in the future. He doesn?t care on whose side, just so long as he can get up in the air and truly be free. His most intense emotional experiences are always connected to the nearby airfield and its gleaming metal wonders.This novel is highly autobiographical, and it?s amazing to see how knowledgeable Ballard is of his own dizzying interest in just about everything around him. Jim is relentlessly upbeat, even in the face of death and disease at every turn. He is perhaps too trusting, but he?s also brave in his attempts to converse with his prison guards.Exquisitely written, and with intense detail of every scene, particularly the dead and the dying, this is a simply fantastic book. It truly puts the reader in Jim?s shoes, seeing everything around him destroyed, and his world turned upside down.It?s this kind of literature, part novel and part history lesson, that makes me realise just how lucky we have it nowadays. I sit here on my sofa, typing on a laptop, with nary a fear in the world, and yet just one or two generations ago people lived through (and died during) terrible atrocities which we can?t even begin to comprehend nowadays.This type of historical document, especially told through the eyes of a child, is important. It reminds us of how far we?ve come, and how far we?ve still got to go.
    • 3/5
      On the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, all European and American persons in Japanese occupied China were herded into internment camps. This is the story of one boy's war, eleven-year-old Jim who is separated from his parents on that fateful day. First living by his wits on the streets, a foreigner in the country in which he was born, and then later joining other British and Americans in an internment camp where he is used by everyone. This is a story of war and is a dark story, which progressively gets darker and darker. It was a good read but not a page-turner nor did it particularly touch me. I wish we had been given deeper insight into the other characters feelings and I had hoped for more by the ending. Nevertheless, a good read and an interesting point of view of World War II.As an aside, I have seen the movie though only the once way back when it came out. I think I may like to see it again, now that I've read the book.
    • 4/5
      I would classify Empire of the Sun as an adventure novel about a boy?s life during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in WWII.The book is graphic and spares no details about how people die, but it wasn?t graphic to the point where I had to put it down. Halfway through reading this, I realized that it was not fiction and was actually an autobiography, which made it a bit more difficult to read the particularly gruesome parts.Empire of the Sun not only has an accurate portrayal of how a teenage boy would act during internment, but also the thoughts that would run through his head. There are parts in the book which had me on the edge of my seat because I was sure the boy was about to die, but knew that it couldn?t happen logically since it?s a biography.Ballard not only provides an exciting adventure story, but also great insight into the human condition. While I wouldn?t exactly call this an uplifting book, I did feel better after reading it. I feel the same way about it as I feel about Schindler?s List: I wouldn't call it enjoyable, but it's definitely something that people should read.
    • 4/5
      A novel that is also autobiography of the auther. Good description of being a kid and a victim of war. Griping enough to make you feel as part of the war.
    • 3/5
      A historical novel of death and war. Ballard has an evocative style and imagery, but I admit his dialogue grated on me. One grows numb to atrocity by the end of the book, and that is its own horror.
    • 5/5
      An autobiographical account of Ballard's childhood years spent during the Japanese occupation in Shanghai during World War II, Empire of the Sun is an effective and evocative tale of survival. The setting and the historical context, and the way which the two are described in a beautiful, tragic story, should fascinate students. The book can be taught with assistance from Spielberg's wonderful film adaptation.Note: contains some graphic violence.
    • 4/5
      I came late to J. G. Ballard. Like many, my first introduction to him came when Spielberg turned this semi-autobiographical memoir Empire of the Sun into a terrific film starring a young Christian Bale. Though I didn't go looking for it, when I ran across a copy in a used bookshop, I didn't hesitate to pick it up.

      The book, of course, tells the story of a young English boy, the son of a diplomat stationed in Shanghai, who is separated from his parents in the confusion of the Japanese takeover of China after the Pearl Harbor bombing. The boy spends the rest of the war in a series of prison camps, learning along the way to fend for himself.

      The film itself pays remarkably fealty to the novel, with the exception I suppose that the book takes things just a bit further, with young Jamie saying farewell to China and moving to England (a country both he and the young J. G. Ballard had never been to). I was delighted to learn afterward there was a sequel, finding a paperback copy of The Kindness of Women in that very same used bookshop, and it is to this day one of the best books I've ever read.

      After that came the easy ones that can be found in most any bookstore: Rushing to Paradise, in which a group of idealistic environmentalists decide to create their own society on a tropical island with disastrous (and predictable) results; Crash (later made into a film by David Cronenberg) in which Ballard himself is the main character, who becomes strangely fixated on (and stimulated by) automobile crashes; and Concrete Jungle, a brilliant updating of Robinson Crusoe, in which a man's car veers off a heavily traveled highway and down into a ravine.

      Some of his earlier works were more difficult to find. I bought High Rise on ebay, a horrific tale in which the somewhat laconic main character watches his condominium building turn into an adult and urban Lord of the Flies. Paperbacks of The Drowning World, The Burning World, and The Wind from Nowhere soon followed, and only then did I learn that Ballard's earliest work established him as one of the finest apocalyptic writers of his day.

      I picked up book club editions of the short story collections Chronopolis and The Crystal World from my trusty used bookshop (The Crystal World has a wonderful Max Ernst dustjacket, enhancing the value of the first edition, should you be lucky enough to have one.)

      The last Ballard I read was his collection of essays titled A User's Guide to the Millennium, in which he opines on topics as varied as Andy Warhol and the Marquis de Sade.

      At any rate, there are still some Ballard's I have yet to absorb, and for that, I am grateful.
    • 1/5
      Empire of the Sun. On this, the third attempt to read this novel, I have to admit defeat. I havn?t got past the first 100 or so pages but the story-line is so loose and unlikely that the facts involved get diluted to the same level. If this novel is based on JGB?s own account of his boyhood, I don?t believe it.
    • 5/5
      Startling & moving. Also rather stunned that it's semi-autobiographical. Will write more detailed review once I have had time to digest.
    • 4/5
      A young english boy is separated from his parents when Shanghai is invaded by the Japanese and spends the next 3 years surviving on the streets and in an internment camp. The knowledge that the story is drawn from the author's personal experience makes it more harrowing. I did not particularly like the childlike style of writing, but appreciate this style may have been intentional
    • 5/5
      To get here I need to go back a bit, to when I was about 14. My sister, who was home from college for the summer, my mother and I went to see some Spielberg film called ?Empire of the Sun? and something happened to my very impressionable mind. The images stuck?wealthy British expats pristinely made-up for a fancy costume ball sitting inside their cars as the filthy exotic throngs of pre-Japanese invasion Shanghai pass outside their windows, a certain Japanese leather flight jacket, and those P-51 Mustangs, the Cadillacs of the WWII sky. And John Malkovich, the wonderfully-bad American fortune seeker. I didn?t realize quite how much the movie got to me until I made my wife watch it with me a couple years back and every single scene brought along an intense and involuntary emotional response. This story of British expatriates imprisoned by the Japanese outside Shanghai ? it?s just so out there, and held so many mysteries, and it somehow embedded itself in my psyche.So, I finally read the book and discovered that it?s vaguely non-fictional, and also that the movie was only vaguely based on the book ? kind of like three parallel universes. (The book and movie were equally well done, IMO.) J. G. Ballard, who was born in Shanghai and had never been to England, was about 11-years-old on December 7, 1941, when, among other significant activities, the Japanese invaded British-protected Shanghai. Quickly taking the city, the Japanese found a large assortment of expats, and somehow found a way to separate them out. The Germans and French (France was already conquered) were left alone, as were Russians, where as the various allied-associated expats were rounded up, given a chance to die quickly, and then moved to prison camps. Ballard spent WWII growing up in one of these camps?which is probably the extent of the precisely true part of this novel. However, this much being true certainly it makes a world of difference. Actually, it makes the novel, it makes it real. The story of the fictional Jamie/Jim is as brilliant as it is exotic. The pre-war Shanghai, the Japanese invasion, and Jamie?s survival after getting separated from his parents are fascinating. But the story really begins once Jamie ends up imprisoned, starved, and yet somehow contagiously optimistic. These prisons camps were death traps of a sort. In the best times, at the beginning, prisoners survived on little food, no warmth in the winter and no medicine. The sick were left to die. These weren?t military prisoners of war, but business men and their families, including the children, many of whom freeze to death the first winter. But, as the war gets worse for the Japanese, things get even worse for the prisoners. Food rations get reduced, and there comes a point where even the Japanese guards are starving. And then there?s the post-war where things really get bad. What makes it so captivating is J.G. Ballard?s take. For Jamie, and for us the reader, this horror sequence was a something of a wondrous adventure. No discipline, no school or enforced structure, Jamie is free, and radiates throughout tireless and energetic optimism that can only be found in childhood. But when things hit their worst Jamie?s optimism hits us in a very different way. We can see and feel emotions he was too young to understand, and somehow, in this surreal way, the weight of what actually happened pours through.
    • 5/5
      I often find myself not really reviewing a book but defending it from its detractors. I enjoyed Ballard?s work to the extent that after I read it I ran off to buy another by him. So when I read some of the reviews about this book, I became defensive.I do not know to what extent the book is Autobiographical, nor to what extent it was meant to be. Ballard mentions that the novel is based upon what he witnessed as a child during that period, but I think we are supposed to take that statement lightly. The main character never makes a mention of a sister. Some biographical material on Ballard brought up that after the Second World War he returned to England with his sister.It is a fine point, but one worth mentioning. Other people seem to think that tale unrealistic. I cannot comment too much ? I count myself amongst the lucky who have not spent time in a concentration camp. However if we look at the text we do find a protagonist who from the young age of 10 is constantly thinking about war. In the next part of the book he is 14. War as a presence has been around his life for half of it, and War as a very real thing has been his life for a little less than a third of it, through many of what people would call formulative years. I can?t be sure, but I feel his actions could be justified.
    • 3/5
      This is a difficult book for me to review. While I can appreciate the literary mastery of J.G. Ballard's "Empire of the Sun," I can't say I particularly enjoyed reading it. Ballard's autobiographical tale of Jim, a British child who does anything it takes to survive living in an interment camp during World War II in China, is incredibly stark and brutal. I disliked Jim as a character so much that it sort of tainted my enjoyment of this book. It's a tough look at some of the more negative aspects of human nature -- admittedly with stunning imagery and situations. In the end, it's a book I'm glad I read, but not one I'll ever pick up again.
    • 4/5
      I dislike books that claim to be autobiographies, but are actually fictionalized memoirs. I?m sure we can all think of a couple that have made headlines in recent years. In the forward to his book, the author, J.G. Ballard, writes:Empire of the Sun describes my experiences in Shanghai, China, during the Second World War, and in Lunghua C.A.C (Civilian Assembly Center), where I was interned from 1942 to 1945. For the most part this novel is an eyewitness account of events I observed during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai and within the camp at Lunghua.The story that he goes on to tell is heart-rending, yet inspirational. As a boy, Jim grew up in the luxurious world of a British ex-pat in Shanghai. Then, on the same day as the bombing of Pearl Harbor, eleven-year-old Jim?s life shatters. Separated from his parents in the chaos of the Japanese takeover, Jim lives in the houses of the international district until he joins forces with Basie, a lowlife who admits to trying to sell Jim and yet becomes a father figure that teaches him how to survive in this new world. Eventually caught and sent to Lunghua concentration camp, Jim works the system as he was taught, but is also helped by a friendly fellow captive, Dr. Ransome. When the war ends, danger continues to lurk as Jim strives to find his parents.Action-packed, heart-rending, and inspirational, the story makes for a page-turning read. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the book was tainted by the knowledge that J.G. Ballard was never separated from his parents and sister and lived with them in Lunghua. The difference that this one fact makes is enormous. Although I can?t discount the vivid descriptions that Ballard gives of wartime Shanghai and Lunghua, neither can I believe them, as I am constantly wondering where the line between fact and fiction lies. Give me an autobiography or give me a historical novel loosely based on the author?s experiences, but please don?t try to pass one off as the other.
    • 4/5
      Very good, very disturbing . . . a view of war without the gloss and/or propaganda. I'm not sure how much of this is Ballard's direct experience, but it could explain a lot of his other writing
    • 4/5
      This is a story of survival during World War 2 through the eyes of a young boy. Young Jim is living in China during the outbreak of the war with Japan and he becomes seperated from his parents. Aged 11 he makes his way to and from Shanghai, encountering Japanese pilots and American airmen.Eventually he is interred in a prison camp where life becomes really hard and he encounters death, both of his allies and the Japanese. Young Jim is confused, not sure what the war is all about and who the enemy is. Time passes, friends die or move away and Jim becomes dissilusioned by the varying reports on the war in the copies of Time and Reader's Digest that he treasures. Jim moves from camp to camp surviving on meagre offerings of sweet potato and rice, constantly asking those around him if the war is over, and if a new one will start. He identifies with the Japanese soldiers, there is something about him that he admires which stays with him even after seeing their rough treatment of his inmates.I had seen the film years ago and really enjoyed it, and although I've had the book on my shelf for years, it's only now that I got round to reading it.The boy in the story is a representation of Ballard himself-it is almost an autobiography while reading like a great war story.Reading this book it was easy for me to see how these experiences as a young boy would inform the author's later dystopian novels that would make him famous. The dank and dreary paddy fields of war torn China are somewhat similar to the rampant boggy jungles of England in his 'The Drowned World' from the 60s.In both stories groups of people are struggling to survive in a changed world.Good one!
    • 3/5
      I read this as a tween, and mostly what I remember is that everyone was starving and there was a scene involving pus. ::shudder:: Undoubtedly a well-written and insightful novel, but all I took away from it was the horror.
    • 4/5
      The author has drawn upon his own experiences as a child interned in a camp for POW's in Shanghai during WW2. After the bombing of Japanese forces on Pearl Harbour 'Jim' is separated from his parents. After several months surviving on the streets he is taken to a camp. This is no light read with detailed descriptions of executions, the effects of starvation and Jim's way of coping amid all the horror that surrounds him makes for a harrowing read. His survival was largely due to his youthful resilience but there can be no doubt as to the lasting trauma of such an experience.