Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?: A powerful true story of love and survival

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Horace 'Jim' Greasley was 20 years of age in the spring of 1939 when Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and latterly Poland. There had been whispers and murmurs of discontent from certain quarters, and the British government began to prepare for the inevitable war. We must continue to teach our children about the futility and horrors of war. The politicians that instigate them must question their conscience. They never suffer; only the young men and women of their country and the countries they fight with. ― Horace Greasley, Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? In the world of literature, I think it’s safe to say we’ve gone pretty deep in terms of memoirs from the Second World War, in the sense we got many different approaches and outlooks on various aspects of this historical period. I am a big fan of love stories and there are far too few being produced,” said Goldmann. “This film has all the elements of a great classic and incredibly it is a true story about an amazing man and woman. We are all incredibly excited to bring their story to the screen.”

Although Jim was from a time when sexism appeared to be ‘accepted’, Jim’s persistent self-congratulatory remarks about his performance in bed were tedious and only reflected poorly upon his personality: ‘I left Rosa, with a satisfying soreness between the legs’. Jim possesses a proud obsession with mentioning how endowed he is and seems to save all his adjectives for these all-too-frequent occurrences, which have no significance to the story.

Depois, a forte componente sexual. Eu percebo que Jim tinha apenas 20 anos quando se deu a guerra e que os tempos eram outros mas, será que eram necessárias tantas descrições sexuais? E tantas descrições do tamanho e capacidade do seu pénis? Upon finishing the book it becomes apparent that there was no one alive to verify the story. Although it is likely radio parts were sneaked into the concentration camp and that Jim escaped to see the woman he loved on numerous occasions, there is often a lingering feeling of exaggeration and recollection of conversations that could not have been possible. It is also never made clear whether the letters from Jim’s lover, Rosa Rauchbach, are the original articles or are they what he remembers of them. It is especially dubious that Jim kept copies of the letters he wrote to Rosa, unless he had the foresight to keep them for this book. With this being said, I do understand why Greasley gave them so much attention: they were his sole escape from living in a seemingly-interminable hell, and as such I imagine every second spent with Rose meant the world to him. In other words, I feel this is the sort of flaw in this memoir which can be totally forgiven, especially since you can simply skip through those parts without missing any important information. The Final Verdict The project reps the second feature film musical from Monarch Media, with its first production, A Week Away, having sold to Netflix earlier this year. Barnett, Powell and Patel launched Monarch Media earlier this year with a goal to produce two to three feature films a year in all genres, at all budget levels. Deadline first reported that South Korean filmmaker Byung-gil Jung will direct Monarch’s military action thriller Havoc, set inside the North Korean side of the DMZ. I immediately looked for more details on his story and saw there was this book about it, got it through the library, started in.

In short, Greasley tries his best to make us understand the conditions under which he and his comrades had to make due, and the effect is quite powerful, even if you’ve read this about this subject matter already. There is definitely a whole lot of darkness to trudge through in this book before we see any light, and in my opinion, despite not being an author, Greasley made good use of his limited wordsmithing abilities to accurately convey how he perceived the unfolding events. The Light of Love As much as it's stated that it's based on "true events" and it's not "exaggerated" - I still feel like this is more a work of fiction. It, unfortunately, made me question how much of the story was true - especially the conversations - how can they be recalled with such clarity after that many years? It’s hard to know if an editor even glanced at this novel or they had adjectival dyslexia, considering the constant tedium, clunky sentences, and repetitive conversations. Instead of allowing the reader to assume that the two people in the scene are in-fact talking to one another, each has to sign off with the other’s name: ‘Can I have a haircut Jim?’, ‘Yes you can Flapper’. ‘How are you Jim?’ ‘I am good Flapper’. Gripping stuff. Then there's the blatant homophobia, sexism, misogyny, and racism to contend with. Saying awful things like "the mixed-breed Welshman named Darkie Evans" may be saying one needs to read this within the context of the time period, but saying the Nazi guard raping the male prisoners because he "couldn't control his homosexual urges" is bullshit. That's not how that works, you homophobic asshole. Sorry... homophobic and racist asshole. Even in the most horrifying places on earth, hope still lingers in the darkness, waiting for the opportunity to take flight.When war was declared Horace Greasley was just twenty-years old. After seven weeks' training with the 2/5th Battalion, the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, Horace found himself facing the might of the German Army in a muddy field south of Cherbourg, in northern France, with just thirty rounds in his ammunition pouch. Then there was the constant placing of the author at the centre of some heroic piece or other. 200 escapes? Really?

This is an amazing story and well worth the read. At times I couldn’t help but think that and elderly Horace was using the book to reminisce nostalgically about being a young man which brought the content of the book down. For instance, while some people describe all which happens in a very matter-of-fact way without pulling any punches or embellishing anything, there are others who pull more towards the emotional side, in hopes of making us feel rather than simply see. In my opinion, Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell? falls into the latter category. Forgotten the title or the author of a book? Our BookSleuth is specially designed for you. Visit BookSleuth Do the Birds Sing in Hell? by Horace Greasley is yet another fascination World War II memoir, detailing a young British man’s journey into the hell of the Wehrmacht and the bits of solace he found along the way. When so much has been written about WWII, when zillions of stories have been told, is it still possible to find something really, really different?I appreciate that the writer wrote it acting ‘as the fingers of’ the fruity old story teller, but in my view it would have been kinder to the teller’s (now) memory, and that of his contemporaries, not to mention ‘his’ women, to put it through some serious editing. This is the finest book that I have read so far. A story of enduring courage, compassion and mankinds ability, to rise above the most brutal and adverse conditions. There are so many problematic points in this story, it's hard to see anyone as a good person. Flapper. Flapper is a good guy. I get that a lot of the problems have to do with war, and there are no winners in war, but still.... Condition: Very Good. 4.6.2013. Ships from the UK. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. For example, the sex scenes were very graphic and didn’t fit with the mood of the book at all- it was kind of like reading a cheap romance novel. The size of Horace’s penis was bragged about around 3 times- each time more random than the first!