Recent readings: a vivid novel of war

I'm still trying to read a few more of the great books before I start on my after-death reading list. (See blog note from yesterday, 2003/11/01.) Here's a note on J. G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun. This vivid and chilling account of survival in a Japanese P.O.W. camp may help us imagine what those guys are going through in Guantánamo and other parts of the world. (Not that the Americans are cruel in the same ways as the Japanese -- they have different ways. But the experience of being penned up and under constant surveillance, and for nothing you can understand as a crime, must be similar.)