Human Smoke

If I could propose an alternative title for this book it'd have to be DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS. Human Smoke is a masterpiece of presenting facts in a way that makes it almost inevitable for you to agree with the author (and he states his intention quite clearly in the afterword).

The whole book is a collection of factual snippets — letters, speeches, recorded conversations, missives, but mostly news — arranged in a hugely meaningful way. One might call it manipulative but honestly, if you have ever read an editorial or watched a particularly hard-hitting interview, you know when you're being led. This book will not brainwash anyone into pacifism. Though the author pushes the antiwar/quaker movement super-hard in the Human Smoke, it's in no way a foolproof argument, and I still have questions like: what exactly would've been the pacifists' solution to the Shoah and the annexation of Eastern Europe? Their actions seemed to consist of praying, signing petitions and refusing draft. Gandhi is extensively quoted, only his thoughts and speeches on non-violence are presented side by side with the Allies' politicians delighting in air raids on civilians (which makes him sound very reasonable), when they should've been presented against descriptions of the Warsaw ghetto and the first mass murders of Jews (try being a cheerleader for Gandhi and his talk on leaning into your oppression when your oppressor is calmly project-managing your annihilation).

There's plenty here on the horrors of war of attrition and the blood-chillingly asinine warmongering on all sides (Churchill was such a dick!) but I for one came out of this book unconvinced by the pacifist argument (then again I'm Polish, so good luck trying to convince me that a truce with Hitler would've been just fine because hey, cathedrals!) if not even more any-means-necessary minded than I already was.

But even though I might disagree with the central thesis of the Human Smoke, I found it incredibly moving. Would never have expected to find this method of writing about war to be more emotionally affecting than the usual human-interest-story but to me at least it was. There's a real feeling of witnessing the buildup of events and the chaos that ensued in a very unfiltered way — it's like watching a feed that shows you all the missed chances for peace. Heartbreaking stuff.

A brief take from my blog Near Earth Object:

I've just read Nicholson Baker's take on the first years of World War II, Human Smoke, and it is certainly unsettling. But I have come across a couple of reactions to the book of late that complain that Baker is trying to convince the reader that WWII was a bad war that should never have been fought, and that Churchill and Roosevelt were as bad as Hitler. This leads to a pretty much categorical dismissal of the entire work. Here's a bit from the New York Times review:

Muddled and often infuriating, “Human Smoke” sounds its single, solemn note incessantly, like a mallet striking a kettle drum over and over. War is bad. Churchill was bad. Roosevelt was bad. Hitler was bad too, but maybe, in the end, no worse than Roosevelt and Churchill. Jeannette Rankin, a Republican congresswoman from Montana, was good, because she cast the lone vote opposing a declaration of war against Japan. It was Dec. 8, 1941.

[ . . . :]

Almost unbelievably, Baker includes multiple instances in which Churchill and Roosevelt rejected the idea of negotiating with Hitler. Although he offers no commentary on the matter, the reader is forced to draw the conclusion that negotiation was a sensible idea cavalierly tossed aside by leaders who preferred war to peace.