The Unknowns: The Untold Story of America’s Unknown Soldier and WWI’s Most Decorated Heroes Who Brought Him Home
By: Patrick K. O’Donnell / Narrated By: Dan Woren
Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
It was good; it’s just that I was expecting something more emotionally evocative. So sue me!
I have only myself to blame. This time the Publisher’s Summary told me EXACTLY what to expect. In detail. In many, many words. The Unknowns kept to the Summary so very closely, I can but beat myself around the head and neck area till I whimper for mercy.
I think part of the problem is that I listened to On Hallowed Ground by Robert M. Poole, the story of Arlington National Cemetery a few years ago. And though that book only touches on The Unknown Soldiers, it did it so well and in such a manner that I found a lump in my throat SEVERAL times. Add to that Poole narrating his own work as a flat-toned military man whose voice breaks as he tells of the respect and care given the Unknowns, and I couldn’t help it: A sob rose to my throat.
Here Dan Woren has that flat-toned military thing going, but there’s little emotion in his voice as he conveys what’s written. But perhaps what’s written is where the problem is.
The Unknowns is MOSTLY about Every. Single. Struggle. the AEF faced during WWI. It’s a sequence of events rather than a story of men. Yes, it tells the story of the “Body Bearers” (pallbearers) who were chosen to carry him home, but their stories are simply used as literary devices being plugged in to tell battle stories, stories of French towns, stories of maneuvers, stories of military planning.
Sure, all of THAT is verrrrrry well-researched and well-written, but there’s no emotion to be found anywhere. I really, really wanted to care about what the Bearers did, what happened to them, but there’s nary a word about how they felt until the epilogue where it gives an: And This Is What Happened To Them After. THEN you KNOW there was some serious PTSD, some severe emotional wounds to go with the shrapnel and other physical wounds they each suffered.
So I dunno; it left me wanting to listen to On Hallowed Ground again, and I wish I’d reviewed THAT audiobook for Memorial Day instead. (If you’re interested in that audiobook, I strongly suggest listening closely to the audio sample as many reviewers found that “flat-toned military” thing to be far too dry). Maybe I’ll listen to it for Memorial Day next year… or earlier… cuz now I really want to… Or maybe not. But I will say that if you’re interested in what the American Expeditionary Forces plotted, planned, and did, you’re in for a real treat in this book right here.
Just don’t expect much in the way of warmth or precious humanity.
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