The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer

60 years ago, American novelist Norman Mailer wrote The Naked and the Dead, a story about a platoon of soldiers on a Japanese-held island during WWII. The then 25 year old Mailer saw enormous success with the book and it has been hailed as one of the best novels about the Second World War. The platoon, part of the large American force trying to wrest the island from the Japanese, was sent on a dangerous reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines. As they fight their own personal battles, terrible fatigue and harsh terrain, Mailer splices "Time Machine" flashbacks in intervals to relate the background of various characters -the ruthless General, the brash Lieutenant leading the mission, the NCOs and some of the men in the platoon.

It took me more than a month to finish this book. In my efforts to run regularly and distracted by a rather compelling video game, I only read a few pages every night. It doesn't help that the story plods along at times, and my eyes glazed over the time machine flashbacks towards the end of the book.

I'm still scoring the book a good 8 out of 10 though. One amazing thing Mailer managed to do with The Naked and the Dead was to capture the essence of the army in its entirety. The story was fleshed out in such vivid detail that I even empathised with the cunning, cowardly and incompetent characters. Even if you are not a military buff, you will take your hat off to the tenacity of the soldiers, the strength and courage they had to summon throughout their journey, and the brilliance of the General. It really made me sit back and humbly reflect on my own experiences.