Talk:The Bridge at Andau

Novel
(The following is moved from Talk:The Bridge at Andau/Comments. There is no reason for a talk subpage. Agent 86 04:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC))

The Bridge at Andau, by James A. Michener, is a historical narrative based on interviews with eye witnesses to the Hungarian uprising of 1956. The book is not a novel, even though some characters were reported as composites in order to protect the identities of the witnesses and their familes. I would submit, therefore, that the category for the book be changed to history. Marksmith0200 03:15, 19 December 2006 (UTC)marksmith0200
 * I changed the edits back to "novel". "Narrative report" links to nothing and is not a generally used term. If "novel" is not appropriate, "book" is a much better alternate term, or "non-fiction work", although the latter term is a bit pedantic. Agent 86 04:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Not a Novel But Reportage
No, the book is not a novel in the sense in which that term is generally understood, any more than it is an operetta.

Even "non-fiction novel" would be stretching the point, since there is no consistent narrative focusing a single main character (or even a handful of protagonists). Neither is it one of Michener's earliest works, as an earlier edit described it. Michener was 50 years old when he wrote it and he had already published some eight or nine books, including scholarship and reportage as well as novels.

If one wanted to argue that the book is tendentious, or propagandistic journalism, that would be defensible and details would be welcome. Certainly there were many lurid episodes of torture and mutilation in the book, much as there are in Dr. Tom Dooley's books of the same era. (Dooley's books, incidentally, are never referred to as "novels.") But are the episodes true, exaggerations, or inventions of Michener? Possibly they are a mix of all three, as is often true with stories and journalism concerning war atrocities.Sallieparker (talk) 04:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

possible typo?
I believe that the word strike in the the last paragraph(following) may be mistyped. I think perhaps "strife" better describes the situation, especially since the book was published in the US and not affected by the strikes and strife in Hungary.Stufield7497 (talk) 17:28, 1 February 2010 (UTC)stufield7497 "Written soon after the events it chronicles, and published during the ongoing general strike that started soon after the Soviet reoccupation, the book serves to give the reader an idea of the middle years of the Cold War."
 * "Strike" is correct. There was a general strike in Hungary following the Soviet invasion. Agent 86 (talk)