Lower Than Angels: A Memoir of War & Peace

Rating:
Summary: Plain-spoken poetry
Review: Damaged by war, looking for solace and overrun with hormones, W.W. Windstaff (or so he calls himself) is a casual observer to post WWI city life. His text is real and alive. His words carry a soft cynicism and lyric but brutal honesty. We never know his name. Doesn't matter, he has the versatility one learns from desperation. He is anybody from nerve racked fighter pilot to well kept whore. His simple and natural character brings to light the humanity behind the images surrounding him--Hemingway is a whining brute with a gift for terse prose, Gertrude Stein an over ambitious skirt chaser, and his best friend can't remember how to grow up. Windstaff's writing is real and conversational. I can almost imagine a gruff but still handsome older man leaning in front of me, his hand creeping up my knee, whispering,"This is how it is". He likes truth. Wandering Europe, giving in to base sex and good alcohol, he still keeps his guard-avoiding the artistic lif! e but unable to resist those that create it. He is a drunk with a reality fix, sick of the superficial city but believing in the moral to any story. Yet,through all his dirty, backhand and heroic experiences he maintains an innocence I admire. This is the man women want to change,never do and love them more for their stubborness. This book is above all dignified. No wonder God chose us over the angels.