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Title: Mixture of profundity and arrogance
Review: The author of this book understands--or at least grew to understand--the power of places. And he conveys that power thoughtfully and with occasionally wonderful prose. For these reasons, you should read this book. The problem with this book is that the author writes as though he alone possesses the wisdom and experience to divine the significance and meaning of these places. The characters (more properly charicatures) who dash across his pages--fishermen ("psychotic" onces, of course), familiies, students of history, tourists, locals--all seem to possess some psychological or emotional disability that (to the author) renders their interaction with the battlefields somehow trivial, or even comical. By book's end, therefore, the only character left standing who can fathom the depth and meaning of the places is the author. It is an astonishingly arrogant chronicle.
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