The Guerrilla

RI

Rakibul islam nadbir , Feb 17, 2019

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"Narration was awesome"

AS

Aam somik , Nov 17, 2016

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

"‘The Guerrilla” is the book that you do feel like over the course of a mere 170 pages you watch this rich city kid develop into a guerrilla fighter. There are some emotional moments, like when certain people die (no spoilers). It also gives you a sense of the character of the war, much of which is actually unstated in my reading. For instance, these guerillas were fighting in Sylhet, which was a portion of Bengal that was more supportive of Islamist politics and also had a lot of pro-Pakistani elements during the war (though it also provided the resistance with a number of key fighters as well). The local villagers are not normally trusted. The tension between bengalis and Syletis is there under the surface. The way the account is written as well, is not similar to how one write a modern account of war. The Pakistanis are dehumanized, (not in that they are described as subhuman, but in that they are only extremely rarely described with any sense of individuality or empathy) and the narrator doesn't find this problematic. This seems natural in war, but if a (post?)modern liberal western newspaper dissected such an account they'd probably find it tribalistic and savage. But there is an honesty to that which I appreciated, because that is how wars are fought esp against an invasive occupier. These two aforementioned points are ones which implicitly question the untarnished quality of the Bengali resistance, but 1) I don't think the author would claim that they did a perfect job. and 2) even with these implications of harshness taken into account, the reader still comes away with a pretty sympathetic view towards the Bengali militias. Its pretty amazing what they did with so little, and more especially with such little training organization. There was scarcely any central organization or organization between regions. Even different parts of the same attacking force didn't have radio communications. As the author himself claims, it shows that if a population is motivated enough, it can forge itself into a relatively poor, but adequate fighting force.so readers don’t miss it.I think it’s a good and interesting book for you."