The Young Lions

This is truly one of the great novels dealing with World War Two. Throughout, the novel switches perspectives from that of a German lieutnant to an American private. The story begins shortly before the outbreak of war, and continues until the war's ending.Irwin Shaw seems to capture the flavor of both the American and German armies, and what the attitudes and perspectives of their soldiers might have been like. One thing that Shaw cannot be criticized for is soft-peddling the crimes of the German Army. One of the things the reader will see is the slow descent of the German protagonist from an essentially good man to a thorough skunk. Personally, I thought Shaw might have overdone it a little bit (just my opinion). To clarify: I thought it might have been more effective to show the German soldier as a basically good man caught up in an organization committing wrongful deeds. Instead, Shaw chose to have the character himself become evil. Well, that's the author's choice to make, and Shaw certainly tells a compelling story.This is an engaging story that has a strong authentic feel to it. I found it to be a rich reading experience and this is one of the truly great stories of World War II.

The Young Lions is a powerful novel written in the years immediately following World War II. It is a gritty and passionate novel, and in reading it the motivatations of men in times of war to acts of courage, cowardice and base violence come to life in the protagonists. Shaw is a artful in the of crafting his words and sentences in a provoking yet thoughtful manner that is nothing less than masterful. Shaw presents and discusses many complex themes through his characters and vignettes in the story that, having read The Naked and the Dead, it is difficult to tell which one comes first as the truly post-modern American novel. Although it is a somewhat thick novel, it reads exceptionally fast.

There were dozens of novels based on World War II, but only three that captured American readers by storm. Mailer's THE NAKED AND THE DEAD, Jones's FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and Shaw's THE YOUNG LIONS. Of the three, the most compulsively readable and the least self-conscious is Irwin Shaw's absolutely beautiful novel of love and loss during World War II. If there is a better sculptor of character in 20th century American fiction, I'd like to know who it is. Shaw has a knack for creating palpable characters (including some you'd ordinarily hate -- such as an errant Nazi) who live and breathe. All of his characters -- from Christian and Michael to Hope -- are people we care about, and many of the great historic scenes of the war come alive for even the most casual reader. The subplots (and there are quite a few of them) are integrated seamlessly and the pace is relentless and exciting. One wonders why Shaw never tried to repeat this stunning performance, but perhaps novels as fine as this only occur once in a lifetime. If you want to sink into a richly detailed, compulsively readable saga of World War II, this is the genuine article. A pity there aren't six stars.

It seems that Irwin Shaw is mainly remembered for light popular novels such as "Rich Man, Poor Man" and "Beggarman, Thief," and "Nightwork," but he was also a great writer of short stories (a former star for the New Yorker) and in "The Young Lions" he emphatically staked his claim to be numbered among the great American war novelists. In my opinion, Shaw's book belongs in the company of "The Red Badge of Courage," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Naked and the Dead," and "Catch-22." Hopefuly this new edition from Chicago will help to bring a forgotten classic of World War II before a new audience. Many war novels hover uneasily at the brink of sentimentality and melodrama, and many more simply fall in. But in this story about three young soldiers who are "The Young Lions" of the title, with their hopes, fears, loves and hatreds, Shaw's touch is deft and his clear, smooth prose leads the reader through an absorbing and tragic story that remains as fresh and moving today as it was when it first written over half a century ago.

I'm a 30 year old person that was born and raised in the Netherlands and for the last 4 years has been living and working in Germany. I've allways been interested in novels, films and documentaries about the second world war. Living in the Netherlands and Germany I have been able to notice the differences in the way both countries try to cope with the war. Generalizing one could say that in the Netherlands emphasis is more on having been victims, wheras in Germany, people try to face the fact that a lot of their fathers and/or grandfathers were war criminals. A simple and clear picture: they were "good" and the others were "bad" Reading "The Young Lions", you more and more see the similarities between soldiers in the opposing armies: they have the same background, the same fears, the same hopes, they are just puppets of different rulers. They are not just good or bad, they just want to survive and go home. Shaw's book shows how horrible war is to every soldier. In war there is no black and white, just many shades of grey.....