Best war novels you've ever read

Lots of people in Eastern Europe hate the (mainly US or Russian) representation of the Red Army as the saviours of the war, because for a lot of people Stalin was just as bad or in some cases worse than Hitler. It was absolutely fucking hopeless in those countries where on one side you've got the Nazis who may or may not genocide you vs. Stalin who may or may not starve your entire family.

Which is why Grossmans honest testimony is so important. He was therr as a war journalist and decided to write the truth at the end of his life, despite the risks.
>Tfw reading his letter to beg for the release of his masterpiece out of the KGB archives.
>Tfw he died before those 10 years of work were ever smuggled out.

Is there much description of combat in it? Was he actually fighting as well?

Life and Fate is also fantastic

>The video game Mother 3 was influenced by The Notebook's major themes
I loved that game, have to check out that book...

>No one mentions pic-related
Why's that?

it's a boring answer so even if that is your favourite you should mention something that will actually give people some newinformation.

it's better to state an interesting, false favourite than a boring real one. get with the spectacle, try to be a bit intéressant

This is, of course, anecdotal, but by all reports from family members and friends, in my (Baltic) country, which was occupied by both Germany and the USSR during WW2, German soldiers were extraordinarily friendly, polite and well behaved and treated the general population very well. The time of German occupation is remembered almost with fondness. In contrast, even before the country was swallowed by the USSR and turned into a hellhole, the Soviet army was essentially a rude gang of brutes at best and savage rapists and murderers at worst.

I'll check it out. I go through these patches of time where I'll read a decent amount about WW2 or history in general and saw Grossman's stuff in a big history ebook torrent. I'll see if Life and Fate is in there and give it a read.

It isn't exclusively a war novel, or an epic on the Trojan War, it is epic poetry about the wrath of Achilles. The epic as a whole takes place over the course of twelve days and revolves around one central character.

Why can't a war be within a single man or hero?

Anyway, the epic poem has been translated into prose - so it could be seen as a novel, or a proto-novel. There's plenty in it about the cost of war for Priam, especially.

I liked the phantom major, but it's not emotional or anything. Just a fun adventure

I still wouldn't consider it a war novel, it doesn't fit the modern definition of the genre, and I also don't think labelling the Iliad as a mere war novel would do it any justice. Yes, the story takes place during a war and Homer speaks of battles and losses, etc etc, but the war is a backdrop to the characters in the story. The fate of the Achaeans, Trojans, Ilios, Hektor, are all helpless to ultimate destiny of Achilles. Achilles' destiny is a force that overshadows the entire war, and Zeus is the god that is going to make sure the destiny of Achilles is fulfilled (even at the cost of his son, Sarpedon).

>still not a single mention of All quiet on the western front
come on Veeky Forums

meme book

Yes, I just didnt want to say that because it would seem like I'm giving this an obvious /pol/ angle.
But yeah, everyone I know who lived through that or everyone who told me their accounts also told me the same story for the most part. There were exceptions of course but in general the Germans were the lesser of two evils and the Red Army behaved like fucking savages.

My vote goes to Fires on the Plain by Ōoka, which is genuinely great. In some ways similar to All Quiet on the Western front—e.g. described from the perspective of a mere private who is far from the model soldier—but in my opinion, Fires on the Plain is better.
I've been meaning to read Life and Fate for ages as well.

Either use the macron or two Os not both

>Yes, I just didnt want to say that because it would seem like I'm giving this an obvious /pol/ angle.
That didn't even occur to me. I don't browse /pol/ and hold very few of the opinions prevalent there, if any.

The name is 大岡 (おおおか). I could have written it as Oooka, but that just looks stupid. Besides, a macron is preferred for long vowels.

seconded, for both

Forgotten soldier - guy sayer
Helmet for my pillow - Robert leckie
With the old breed - eugene sledge

Because it's not a novel you pseud.

germans behaved well in occupied countries that were not their actual enemies or war targets.
>netherlands, belgium, norway, denmark
occupied purely for strategic reasons (open up french northern flank, prevent british landing on mainland europe)
>estonia, lithuania, latvia
occupied to drive out USSR occupiers and gain access to northern USSR borders

meanwhile in countries that were targeted for expansion (primarily poland and ussr) they didnt just send in a bunch of wehrmacht to occupy and chill. instead they sent in the SS to genocide the local population via mass murder and starvation.

also they treated fellow germanic peoples and other european peoples they saw as natural allies (hungarians, baltics, finns) a lot better than subhuman slavs and poles, whom they regarded as little more than vermin.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brian.
Johnny Got His Gun be Dalton Trumbo

Frontline Stalingrad by Viktor Nekrasov
The Things They Carried by Dalton Trumbo
Storm of Steel -- Juenger
All Quiet On The Western Front -- Erich Marie Remarque
Forgotten Soldier (I'm still reading)-- Guy Sajer
Maelstrom-- Boris Gorbachevsky
A Writer At War-- Vasily Grossman

Some closed-minded retards are going to dogpile me.

Traitor General, by Dan Abnett, followed by The Armour of Contempt by Dan Abnett, with maybe His Last Command as connective tissue.

It is a supreme chronicle of being occupied and then, eventually, being liberated.

It should be written this way mane

There's shit in the book that was cut out of the movie because it seemed too bizarre to be true

such as?

>Closed minded

If it's too open the flies get in. This is like posting animorphs in a coming of age thread.

When twombly makes sex with the donkey

The other side, Kevin Maccolley

Anyone read "My War Gone By, I Miss It So"? How good was it? Debating whether or not to bump it up the stack

Not a novel. But, Tolstoy’s Sevastopol Sketches. Aroused Russian elites attention/noterity.

>He doesn't understand the sublime nature of verisimilitude within a doomed monomyth.

It's what it's all about lad.

I don't read war stuff often but Schlump was beautiful

what some fiction set in medieval spain kicking muzzy ass

You could have scrolled down and seen how I explained it to be close to a war novel, you sycophant. Nice attention span.

>tries to be intéressant
>is typisch

The Sword of Honor trilogy - Evelyn Waugh

The dude collecting the fastrope under massive enemy fire.
>Dude, just leave it.
Fucking hilarious. I think a fastrope is about $1500. There are limits to what is reasonable for equipment recovery.

Does the aftermath of war count? If so, I posit Amongst Women by McGahern.

Chechnya was all sorts of fucked up.