The Twilight World
Discover the first novel from the iconic filmmaker Werner Herzog
-
-
3.0 • 2 Ratings
-
-
- £6.99
-
- £6.99
Publisher Description
In his first novel, Werner Herzog tells a hypnotic tale inspired by the true story of a Japanese soldier who defended a small island for twenty-nine years after the end of WWII
1944: Lubang Island, the Philippines. With Japanese troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his superior officer: Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. You are to defend its territory by guerrilla tactics, at all costs.
So began Onoda's long campaign. Soon weeks turned into months, months into years, and years into decades - until eventually time itself seemed to melt away. All the while Onoda continued to fight his fictitious war, at once surreal and tragic, at first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a novel of his own making. . .
'An enthralling novel that explores the nature of time and warfare with great mastery' Mail on Sunday
'Herzog. . .brilliantly blends fact and fiction in this fever dream of a novel' Daily Mail
'A literary jewel set to sparkle against the backdrop of his monumental career in cinema' i
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Filmmaker Herzog (the diary Of Walking in Ice) draws on the true story of a Japanese officer who patrolled the Filipino jungle for nearly three decades after WWII, unaware the war had ended, in his fascinating debut novel. As the Imperial Army prepares to withdraw from Lubang Island in December 1944, Lt. Hiroo Onoda is ordered to remain behind and defend the territory by guerilla tactics. But after fellow officers refuse to assist him in dynamiting a port, Allied forces capture the island and decimate the remaining troops. Onoda perseveres in his mission, retreating to the mountains in the company of a young corporal. Night after night they remain on the move, preserving their bullets with coconut oil and battling deprivation by killing the odd buffalo or raiding small villages. Later, Onoda mistakes American planes en route to Korea, and later Vietnam, as proof that his war rages on. In spare prose, Herzog conveys Onoda's strange relationship to the passage of time: "After all his millions of steps," the lieutenant "understood that there was—there could be—no such thing as the present." Onoda's reemergence into a changed world in 1975 adds a captivating layer, though it's all too brief and lightly sketched. Still, Onoda shares with the director's filmic protagonists a fierce will and singular perspective. This will whet the reader's appetite for a film version.
