Killing Rommel: A Novel
by Steven Pressfield
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Book Summary Information
Author: Steven PressfieldEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-06-02
ISBN: 0767926161
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Broadway
Book Reviews of Killing Rommel: A Novel
Book Review: Pressfield delivers a less than average World War II novel
Summary: 1 Stars
Steven Pressfield has shown himself to be one of the greatest historical fiction authors out there--great writing, accurate historical portrayals, interesting storylines, and dynamic characters. In this light, how does Killing Rommel turn out to be? Flat is the best way to describe it.
Killing Rommel is about R. Lawrence Chapman "Chap" and his first person experiences as a part of the Long Range Desert Corp in Egypt. Their job is, as the title suggests, killing Erwin Rommel, a brilliant Nazi German General, as well as a gentleman and great leader. Nevertheless, despite Rommel being a generally nice guy for a Nazi, the LRDC has to take him out. We follow Chapman as he experiences the extreme desert heat while sizzling in a tank, listening for orders over the radio.
I very much enjoyed the idea of the book, and the story it told. I love the title. I think it's difficult to find a good title, and Pressfield seems to have nailed it. The subject matter was interesting too; I've always liked World War II. I also enjoyed how Pressfield split the book up into reasonable chapter lengths, and created a definite structure, which may seem like a bad thing, but a book without structure is usually nonsense. He started a new part at every major turning point, which helped move the story along.
It may seem that Pressfield has pulled off yet another masterful tale, but I'm afraid his missed the mark... by at least a mile.
First of all, let me say that Pressfield has nailed exactly what he wanted. His purpose for writing this novel is to detail what went into tank warfare in the desert. He created a book that reads exactly like a soldier's journal down to the censoring of people's names for security issues of that time. Unfortunately, Pressfield so accurately captures a soldier's journal that the person, (Chapman) from whose point of view the story is told, has obviously had no literary training. There is no sense of pacing, useless descriptions of bring life in the dessert, repetitive scenes that do nothing to advance what little plot there is, and no development of characters.
Killing Rommel is not a deft historical novel. It is an excuse to write badly. Overall, the book is dull, boring, and especially dry, just like the deserts in which it takes place. I can empathize with the main character who despises sitting in the itchy sand beneath the boiling sun, because that is exactly what I experienced why reading the book.
But there is one thing that would redeem this book. If Killing Rommel possessed dynamic, interesting, active, meaningful characters to move the story along, pacing, writing style, and even what goes on (no matter how boring) wouldn't matter, as long as there are interesting characters. Even if an interesting character is in a boring situation, that situation can still be made interesting by a well-developed character. But no, not in this book. Here we have flat, two-dimensional characters that we don't care about one bit. I didn't care what happened to any of them, even when one of the characters died. I didn't care about Chapman and his wife's relationship or whether she was safe or not, or even if she died. She was meaningless, and so was the main character.
So, with all of this adding up, there is anything good about this book. But there is one more distasteful aspect that I will address. This aspect is the format in which Killing Rommel is written.
First of all, I don't even understand why Pressfield even decided to write it in the format of a first person account. If I wanted to read an account of World War II I would read a first person account of World War II. It's not the first person that bothers me even; I like first person. It's the fact the Pressfield tried to make it so realistic that he had to throw in a whole bunch detail that is meaningless unless that person is actually real. Much of the information in the first fifty pages doesn't even apply to the main story. It's useless fluff. Not only that, the real important action didn't even start until at least the hundredth page. Pressfield instead tossed in a bunch of unimportant filler that seems to be trying to evade progressing with the story.
To summarize, Killing Rommel has a lot of potential to be a great war novel, but the author got too bogged down on too many other elements that made for a boring read, taking away from the real plot and action that a book like this suggests.
Should you try reading this book? Well, if you like a realistic account with lots of technical lingo and detailed descriptions of tactics and complicated (perhaps even scientific) warfare, then please do. You'll love it. The only problem is, we put so much time and effort into reading into the main character's life and wading through the way tanks work and how to attack the enemy, and it all ends up being just a bunch of useless mumbo jumbo. For all the aspects of a real soldier's journal, it isn't. It's all fake in the end, so it really doesn't matter.
Summary of Killing Rommel: A Novel
Steven Pressfield?s quintet of acclaimed, bestselling novels of ancient warfare? Gates of Fire, Tides of War, Last of the Amazons, The Virtues of Wa,r and The Afghan Campaign? have earned him a reputation as a master chronicler of military history, a supremely literate and engaging storyteller, and an author with acute insight into the minds of men in battle. In Killing Rommel Pressfield extends his talents to the modern world with a WWII tale based on the real-life exploits of the Long Range Desert Group, an elite British special forces unit that took on the German Afrika Korps and its legendary commander, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, "the Desert Fox."Autumn 1942. Hitler?s legions have swept across Europe; France has fallen; Churchill and the English are isolated on their island. In North Africa, Rommel and his Panzers have routed the British Eighth Army and stand poised to overrun Egypt, Suez, and the oilfields of the Middle East. With the outcome of the war hanging in the balance, the British hatch a desperate plan?send a small, highly mobile, and heavily armed force behind German lines to strike the blow that will stop the Afrika Korps in its tracks. Narrated from the point of view of a young lieutenant, Killing Rommel brings to life the flair, agility, and daring of this extraordinary secret unit, the Long Range Desert Group. Stealthy and lethal as the scorpion that serves as their insignia, they live by their motto: Non Vi Sed Arte?Not by Strength, by Guile as they gather intelligence, set up ambushes, and execute raids. Killing Rommel chronicles the tactics, weaponry, and specialized skills needed for combat, under extreme desert conditions. And it captures the camaraderie of this ?band of brothers? as they perform the acts of courage and cunning crucial to the Allies? victory in North Africa.
As in all of his previous novels, Pressfield powerfully renders the drama and intensity of warfare, the bonds of men in close combat, and the surprising human emotions and frailties that come into play on the battlefield. A vivid and authoritative depiction of the desert war, Killing Rommel brilliantly dramatizes an aspect of World War II that hasn?t been in the limelight since Patton. Combining scrupulous historical detail and accuracy with remarkable narrative momentum, this galvanizing novel heralds Pressfield?s gift for bringing more recent history to life.
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