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Summary: thank you, jonathan hull
Review: losing julia ... where do i start - this ranks up there with my all time favorite books, and not one that will be lost in the carnage of my attic. i will always keep it in reaching distance. thank you, jonathan hull
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Summary: Losing Julia
Review: Losing Julia, a story about a World War I veteran in 1918 and his struggles to overcome recollections of a horrible war, a friend's loss and memories that will haunt him throughout his life. It is a pungent story that captures the reader and pulls them through 3 different time periods in the main character, Patrick Delaney's life. Patrick Delaney's best friend Daniel, in the war, is killed on a battlefield in France. Daniel shared with Patrick, love letters he had received from his girlfriend, sharing memories of a perfect woman he always talked about. Patrick sets out on a journey to find Julia. Not knowing her last name, was a fight for Patrick to find her, but finally at the veteran's memorial he saw her. The love of his life, his best friend, the most beautiful woman her had ever met. The way her silk hair hung on he shoulders, and the way she held her cigarette and used the touch of her hands to talk, and the way she always smiled no matter what the circumstance. Julia was by far the most stunning woman he had ever set his eyes on. She wore no makeup and dressed plainly but still gorgeous. Being a painter, she would sit on the hillside with Patrick for hours painting non stop. "She changed into a white shirt and burgundy pants, while her hair was pulled back into a bun and she wore a simple pair of hop earrings. I had to keep from staring at the gentle curves of her hips, which suggested all sorts of other perfect proportions. Patrick was a standard looking man. Not unattractive, not too short, with a slight but sinewy build, he proposed fair skin, hazel eyes, and a good hairline. "I had good teeth too, even though they remained largely hidden in my smallish mouth." He was an average looking man with no single feature that categorized him into a better than average-looking crowd. His hair was light brown and disorderly. Patrick hated being average since none of the woman who appeared to him were average. Being timid and foreign to confidence, he took to reading books, which he found himself misplaced in another land. The captivating title Losing Julia is almost enough to catch the reader's eye. Patrick Delaney of 81 tells his tale from a nursing home exactly the way he remembers it. The way he talks about Julia is enough to make you feel as if you were right along side her, like standing in the sand at the ocean you can smell the ocean air, he tells about Julia with such description. You can almost smell her hair. It's a story of loss of loved ones and memoirs that will last forever. The author of this book, Jonathan Hull, had spent ten years at Time Magazine, serving as a bureau chief from 1988 to 1991. He has won many impressive awards. He now enjoys composing fiction full time. Living with his wife and two children in Marin County, Losing Julia is the first book he has ever written and a wonderful book at that. I felt that this book was very heartwarming and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys love stories. This book entails a little bit of everything, the past the present and the future and the historic background of Patrick Delaney is incredible. Living their lives day by day they weren't sure what the future would hold for them. Losing Julia is a tale of two hearts coming together in friendship, desire, love and destiny. (598)
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Summary: A stunning narrative of great love found ... and lost
Review: In LOSING JULIA, Patrick Delaney is the 81 year old resident of a nursing home, where every morning is the same ... "Staring at the gaunt silhouette in the mirror, which stares back with imploring eyes, I realize my body has abdicated. The anarchists are on the palace grounds ... I am brought to my swollen knees by a hundred thousand indignities, small slices of the blade that have drained the blood from my face. And I'm so tired." But, Patrick was young once, fighting in Pershing's doughboy army in the Great War along side his friend Daniel. And, amidst the squalor and death of the trenches, Daniel shares with Patrick stories of his beloved back in California ... Julia. And Patrick, in absentia, falls in love with Julia also. "... maybe it was just the expression on Daniel's face when he talked about her, but for me, Julia soon became my own escape from the war; my personal guardian angel who beckoned me away from the madness every time I closed my eyes. Daniel offered hundreds of dots and I connected them, until the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen emerged, my angel in the trenches; my incantation against despair. My Julia." Ten years after the Armistice, in 1928, Patrick returns to France to attend a memorial for his comrades who died twisting in the German barbed wire during an assault on the Hindenberg Line. Unexpectedly, Julia is there, searching through the 152 names engraved on the granite monument, until her fingers stop at ... Daniel's. Partrick approaches, somehow knowing it's Her though they've never before met. ("Julia Julia. What are you doing to me? And what is it about beauty that intimidates; causing us to kneel somewhere deep inside and pray and wonder just how close we might crawl before being banished from the sanctuary?") And Julia. What does she eventually say to Patrick, and to us? "... I think that we all look for clues that we are not utterly alone. Clues we find in literature and paintings and music and even in someone's eyes; clues that demonstrate that someone else has felt the same indescribable feelings, seen the same things or passed by the same spot even if it was by candlelight three hundred years ago. It means everything, like finding footprints in the sand of a deserted island.' Patrick's tragedy is that he came upon Julia's footprints, and then lost them. And the emotional repercussions of that dispossession reverberate down through the decades. LOSING JULIA, by Jonathan Hull, is one of the most eloquent novels I've read in years. Hull's ability to string words together is, at times, exquisite. It's an epic of comradeship in war, a love story, and a chronicle of growing terminally old with the memories of youth still as fresh as if it was only yesterday. (It's also a searing indictment of the way Americans shunt their old people aside to die - but the book won't be remembered for that.) Poignant, powerful, vivid, profoundly bittersweet, an elegant essay on life, love, and the scars of the emotional losses that we carry to our graves. As Patrick puts it: "What then is life but a desperate, hilarious, passionate and finally tragic bid to prove that we are more than hideously sensitive fertilizer? The quest! And so we stumble forth, seeking salvation through love and heroism, the royal roads to the soul. Sancho, my horse!" We all have our Julias, and the reader that would call this novel maudlin simply has not discovered his/hers yet. Give it time.
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Summary: Blood and Guts and Romance! What more can you ask for?
Review: Told in Flashback, a WW1 vet tells the story of the friend he lost on the front and the woman that changed his life. A beautifully crafted story with nice historical perspective mixed in. This book rekindled my intrests in WW1. I highly recommend it, and the audio version has an excellent reader!
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Summary: One of the most moving novels
Review: I picked up this book specifically to read on a flight I took for a recent vacation. The story sounded interesting from reading the back cover, but I never imaginedjust how good this book would be or how much it would touch me to the soul. I could not put it down, and with a 6 mth old in the house, I jumped on every spare minute I had to read more. I was so moved by the story--- it was touching and so realistic. By the end, I was crying.. something I haven't done when reading a novel in a very long time. I am going to recommend this book to everyone I know who believes in love, lost love and the horrors of war. I have been lucky enough not to have experienced any loss due to war, but after reading this novel, I believe I can relate to anyone who has lost a loved one either to war or poor timing.
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Summary: Five Stars Are Not Enough!
Review: LOSING JULIA is a powerful--powerful!--first novel. In it, author Jonathan Hull combines three separate tales, seamlessly moving among them. Story #1 is the most powerful, a first-hand report of a young soldier sent to the front during World War I. War never can be lyrical, yet Hull manages to share its horrors with a command of language that is masterful, interspersed with quotes from original sources which provide additional appalling details. The author captures the euphoria of the young soldiers evident in all first-hand accounts of the troops going into battle, but he also describes the terror of battle so well that it becomes difficult to continue reading. It almost is beyond comprehension how someone born about 40 years after the events being described, as Hull appears to have been from his jacket photo, could bring these battles to life so effectively. Story #2 is the fast forward, to the young soldier, the rare survivor of those World War I battles, now grown old and living in a nursing home. He has developed into a man of insight and compassion, a thoughtful and decent person. His introspective examination of his life allows the author the chance to make some pithy observations, again crystalline in their quality, about the hardships of old age, especially as to how the elderly are viewed as less than human by many who still are young. The subtext addresses the irony that those who are lucky enough to reach a respectable age are doomed to be old themselves. The third story is the story of lost love, a long and touching examination of whether true love ever actually can be lost, and the impact of such loss on a person's subsequent life. Hull zips among these three plotlines with the skill of a skateboard champion, carrying his readers along on a fast and thrilling ride. This book deserves a Pulitzer Prize; it probably is the best work written on the first World War in the past half-century.
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Summary: Touched on Many Levels
Review: As the daughter of a WW I veteran, who was in France in 1918; as the survivor of a lost passion, who remained unmarried for over 25 years; and as a just-turned-65-year-old who is contemplating her remaining years - this remarkable book gave me food for thought to last many months to come. Totally believable, it explained things I'd only imagined, painfully aroused long dormant emotions, and identified many of the fears one faces on the brink of "old-age". I don't know where Mr. Hull experienced so many of the horrors of both war and aging, but he shows us that with a lively spirit and a sense of humor, one can overcome even the unthinkable. A book I will read over and over and share with many others.
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Summary: Losing Julia
Review: What a haunting novel!! I can't seem to forget the characters, Patrick, Julia and Daniel! The story flashes between the past and present with tidbits from real soldiers' writings in between. You can feel the characters and almost think what they are thinking. You can feel the fear, loss, sorrow, anger, love, passion and regret! It has been a long time since a book has made me feel, think and ponder. You will truly love this novel!
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Summary: TOUCHING,W ARM AND MEMORABLE
Review: I absolutely loved this book from start to finish. My parents, who are now deceased, were both in the armed forces overseas during WWll where they met and fell in love. They often told me true life stories of love and loss during wartime, how love had often endured even the horror of concentration camps. When I saw this book, it reminded me of their stories. Reading the pages of this book are like stepping inside Patrick Delaney's private life and finding yourself suddenly there as the events are happening, feeling all the emotion as the events unfolded - the fear and horror of war,the sadness and loneliness of losing, and most of all, the love and passion for a woman. The author has a unique writing style sprinkled with a touch of humour. The book will give you an understanding of what it is truly like to grow old and physically weak; memories of our younger years are often all we have left. However, inside Patrick's body, there is a mind still filled with life, humour and wisdom. The book has a way of making you step back and taking a look at your own life; it is a reality check of how little time we really have on this Earth, and of how much time and energy we waste on inconsequential matters that at the end of our journey are totally insignificant. It is a story filled with emotion and food for the soul, and with every page you turn, you will be reminded that today's events will one day become the memories that sustain us in our senior years.
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Summary: Couldn't Put it Down
Review: This book was amazing, I thought especially so considering it was a first novel for this particular author. The character development was deep without losing the reader, his descriptions of events, emotions and people were powerful. The sense of humor interspersed from youth and the terror of trench warfare to the indignities of growing old and nursing home life were touching and sincere. I can't wait to hear more from Mr. Hull.
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