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The Railway Man
by: Eric Lomax

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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780099582311
ISBN: 0099582317
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Pages: 288
Publication Date: January 03, 1998
Publisher: Vintage
Studio: Vintage
Sales Rank: 345

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Editorial Review:

The Times, Ross Leckie:
`A perfect work of monumental simplicity... I cannot think how it became out of print. It should never be so again.'

Book Description:
Winnre of the NCR Book Award

Synopsis:
A naive young man, a railway enthusiast and radio buff, was caught up in the fall of the British Empire at Singapore in 1942. He was put to work on the 'Railway of Death' - the Japanese line from Thailand to Burma. Exhaustively and brutally tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio, Lomax was emotionally ruined by his experiences. Almost 50 years after the war, however, his life was changed by the discovery that his interrogator, the Japanese interpreter, was still alive - their reconciliation is the culmination of this extraordinary story.

From the Publisher:
ONE OF TWELVE TITLES IN VINTAGE'S A FORMAT WAR PROMOTIONWINNER OF THE 1996 NCR BOOK AWARD.

About the Author:
Eric Lomax was born in 1919. During the Second World War he was captured and tortured by the Japanese Army and forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam railway. He met and forgave his torturer in 1995. He now lives in Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- The Railway Man/ Authur Eric Lomax
Without doubt the finest book I've ever read. Anybody who can read this without tear staining the pages has no soul or emotions.
It starts slowly showing a boy who is awkward because he doesn't share the normal interests of youth but it develops through his age experience and the horrors he endures to provide a man of intense intelligence compassion and the ultimate forgiveness to provide us all with a desire to do the best we can, and yes I'm crying as I write this review. I've just ordered a new copy as my other one is very dog eared.

Rating:

- OUTSTANDING!
I have never read a book so fast in all my life! A real 'page-turner', a riveting story. Its incredible that anyone could survive the experiences described in this book. I think that this book is crying out to be made into a film. It has everything that would make a truly great film :- a time of turmoil, an exotic location, a mild-mannered character drawn into a horrifying set of circumstances and surviving against staggering odds, humanity displayed at its best and at its worst, the backdrop of a world war, and ultimate reconciliation and forgiveness - the solution of an inner torment that could be solved in no other way.

I hope to see this on the big-screen one day.

Rating:

- An honest and unique personal testimony
The reason this book makes such an impact is that while numerous other books of WWII experiences and POW and torture on the Burma Railway have been written since that conflict ended, this has two additional and unique aspects that mark it out.

The first is of the writer having undergone treatment at the Medical Foundation (a charity that usually deals with torture victims of harsh political regimes in peacetime) as their first ex-serviceman with battle stress in 1988, 43 years after the war had ended!

The second is that he subsequently met with one of the Japanese soldiers who had participated in the torture sessions he had suffered, by a series of opportune circumstances and as part of his above recovery programme. ... Read More:

Rating:

- poignant for today
I was extremely moved by this book when i read it a few years ago and gave it to my father in law, a second world war veteran. it was especially memorable for introducing me, second hand, to the torture now known as water boarding and the fact that experiencing this torture had an almost lifelong impact on the author.

today i read that the bush administration's nominee for attorney general , mr. mukasey, refused to state whether he thought waterboarding a form of torture or not. i recommend he read this account, unless he chooses to undergo the procedure firsthand. now under the bush regime we have truly become the people we hated and demonized.

Rating:

- Read it
This book is one of the most moving biographies I have ever read. Twenty something "celebrities" who pen biographies should feel ashamed of themselves for thinking they have a story to tell. This man is one of the few with a story worth telling. I am grateful to have read his story, and wish to say that people like him are too few in this world. Read this book, please, and see how some people can be worth celebrating.

Books : The Railway Man