The End of the Beginning

Review:

As with many of Turtledove's novels, End of the Beginning is told from the points of view of numerous characters. Several Japanese and American soldiers, sailors, and marines are included, but so too are Hawaiian civilians, of Japanese, American and Hawaiian ancestry. None of them comes through the period covered in the book unscathed.

Turtledove's Japanese characters are brutal to the people of Hawaii, whether civilian or military. In the case of the military, the Japanese culture looks down on being captured and the Japanese soldiers do their best to work their captives to death. In the case of the civilians, the fact of their defeat is enough to make them subservient to the whims and needs of the Japanese.

However, Turtledove does not portray the Japanese as merely tyrannical brutes. By trying to get into the heads of several Japanese characters, from the pilot Shaburo Shindo to Commander Minoru Genda, Turtledove makes his Japanese come to life. Their brutality is part of their world view and completely expected. In fact, to not humiliate and denigrate the defeated would reflect badly on the characters and be unnatural and anachronistic.

End of the Beginning provides a good mix of a war story and the tales of everyday people. For those who are mostly interested in following the course of the war and the battles, Turtledove provides plenty of details as the United States ramps up for a counter offensive and the Japanese work to maintain their lengthy supply lines. For those who are more concerned with how the war affects individuals, there is the budding romance between the Japanese American Kenzo Takahashi and the American girl Elsie Sundberg or the carefree shenanigans of the surfers Charlie Kaapu and Oscar van der Kirk.

While Turtledove paints an excellent, if bleak, portrait of a Hawaii invaded by the Japanese, as the United States counter attack begins, the reader must wonder what the point is. If the United States regains the islands, will they be able to hold them, and, if so, how does the brief interlude of Japanese domination play out in the long run. If the Japanese fend off the United States, the work becomes much more interesting, but throughout the first half of the novel, Turtledove works to downplay any possibility of that realistically happening.

Reviewed by Steven H. Silver.