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    Beaufort: A Novel
    Beaufort: A Novel
    Beaufort: A Novel
    Audiobook13 hours

    Beaufort: A Novel

    Written by Ron Leshem

    Narrated by Dick Hill

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    By turns subversive and darkly comic, brutal and tender, Ron Leshem's debut novel is an international literary sensation, winner of Israel's top award for literature, and the basis for a prizewinning film.

    Beaufort. To the handful of Israeli soldiers occupying the ancient crusader fortress, it is a little slice of hell-a forbidding, fear-soaked enclave perched atop two acres of land in southern Lebanon, surrounded by an enemy they cannot see. And to the thirteen young men in his command, twenty-one-year-old Lieutenant Liraz "Erez" Liberti is a taskmaster, confessor, and their only hope in the face of attacks that come out of nowhere and missions seemingly designed to get them all killed.

    All around them, tension crackles in the air. Long stretches of boredom and black humor are punctuated by flashes of terror. And the threat of death is constant. But in their stony haven, Erez and his soldiers have created their own little world, their own rules, their own language. And here Erez listens to his men build castles out of words, telling stories, telling lies, talking incessantly of women, sex, and dead comrades. Until, in the final days of the occupation, Erez and his squad of fed-up, pissed-off, frightened young soldiers are given one last order: a mission that will shatter all remaining illusions-and stand as a testament to the universal, gut-wrenching futility of war.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 14, 2008
    ISBN9781400176618
    Beaufort: A Novel

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    Reviews for Beaufort

    4/5

    45 ratings7 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A novel about Israeli soldiers occupying fort in S. Lebanon in the late 1990's, and the mother's movement, which argued that more of their soldier-sons were dying needlessly than individuals being saved in Israel by the occupation. As an anti-war novel, this ranks up there with The Things That They Carried and Matterhorn.Highly recommended.4 star
    • 4/5
      In a word, Beaufort is gritty. The military outpost Beaufort is a living nightmare for Israeli soldier Liraz, (better known as Erez), but yet he must defend it to the death. Twenty-one year old Erez commands the defense with thirteen boy-soldiers with insane courage, sharp wit and fierce loyalty. All around this crumbling and ancient fortress unseen enemies hide just waiting for the right moment to strike. And strike, they do. Erez is witness to death, up close and personal. In order to cope he and his men play a macabre game called "What He Can't Do Anymore" where, when a soldier loses his life in battle, the survivors list all the things their fallen comrade will never do again. It's a crude way of acknowledging his death as reality. By the end of Beaufort you will swear Leshem simply interviewed the real Erez and wrote it all down, word for word. Erez, crude and passionate, walks out of the pages in a blaze of glory and his words burn in the brain long after the last page is turned. I can why they made this into a movie.
    • 4/5
      Beaufort by Ron Leshem is a riveting story about a company of Israeli soldiers who are manning a isolated IDF outpost atop a hill in a medieval Crusader castle. The time is the year 2000 when Israel was involved in a war with the Hezbollah. This is a very realistic look at modern day warfare, and the author has the ability to plant the reader right in the middle of these young men as we share their day to day world of mental stress, sweat and fear. Both the monotony and the anxiety of a solders’ life is depicted vividly.Excellently translated from it’s original Hebrew by Evan Fallenberg, the story unfolds through the eyes of the main character, a young platoon leader called Liraz “Erez” Liberti . His descriptions of the endless conversations that the soldiers use to not only relieve the mind-numbing boredom and their homesickness, but also to help break the tension of being under the constant threat of death shows how these man have created their own world and part of their private world is their ever evolving language that is laced with black humor and all things sexual.The writing is exceptional and as it is based on true events at times it’s hard to remember that this is a fictional novel not a personal memoir. Beaufort is a book that I found emotional draining yet so incredibly real that I feel that I have a much clearer insight into the thoughts and feelings of not just Israeli soldiers, but young men from all nations who are sent off to war.
    • 5/5
      Far superior to the already powerful film adaptation I recently saw (thank you BBC4!) - The main protagonist - Liraz - a young infantry Lieutenant, finds himself in a position of command at the remote IDF outpost atop the hill at Beaufort - a medieval Crusader fortress ruin - in turn of the century south Lebanon. It is the weeks leading up to Israel's final withdrawl from this front. After a lengthy period of disillusionment and despair at the regular losses for those 'back home' starts to pervade the surroundings at Beaufort, young Liraz's own certainties start to evaporate just as the increasing isolation is felt in the fog and the rain... He only wants to lead his men the way he knows is right, and circumstances are fast overtaking him. "They say we took this mountain for nothing, that we didn't need it, all those who died here...took it for nothing??"Ron Leshem's writing has the dialogue and the description to set the scene with authenticity. The men of the warren-like 'underground on a mountain top' outpost are all waiting for something. For leave, for their girlfriend, for their dreams of breakfast, for the end? The book has the feel of a thriller, as the tension rises and closes in... Quite an intense read.
    • 4/5
      Put this war story between Red Badge of Courage and Catch 22. This is the story of a group of Israeli soldiers sent to defend the outpost at Beaufort as seen through the eyes of their young commander, Erez. The story can be brutal and leads to Erez’s questioning of the war itself. Questions and doubt are dangerous for this group of commandos who must depend on each other for survival. Put this war story between Red Badge of Courage and Catch 22; it has elements of both—a young man’s coming of age and the illogical situations created by war.
    • 4/5
      A claustrophobic and realistic narration of the war experience from the fighters' point of view. Never mind that this takes place at Beaufort Castle in Southern Lebanon (which the IDF captured in 1982 and used as a security base until 2000) - this could be anywhere. Of course the specific politics of the Israel vs. the Arab world is particular to this area, but the Band-of-Brothers aura is, I think, universal. The paranoia and fear of these young men will tear your heart out, but the very next moment, their youthful exuberance will make you giggle with glee. The love that exists between these men, who rely on each other for their very survival, is so astounding that at times you will wish that you had been there, that you had been one of them. Of course, like Bialik said, "reading a work of art in translation is like kissing somebody through a handkerchief," but Evan Fallenberg has done an amazing job with the poetry and poignancy of the original text and, most humorously, with the army slang. When you read this, you will be cast from utter despair to laughter and back again, and when you come out of the somewhat draining experience, you will find yourself a little less condemning, a little less judgmental than you went in - walking a mile in someone else's boots tends to do that to you.
    • 5/5
      There are many books that address what it feels like to be a soldier. I haven't read many about what it feels like to be an Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldier. I did read the excellent "Adjusting Sights" by Haim Sabato, which, like "All Quite on the Western Front" by Erich Remarque" talks about what it's like to be a soldier in an apolitical world. Beaufort, however, markedly deals with what it's like to be an Israeli soldier. This might be disturbing to some based on your own personal politics. For me, it was eye-opening. It contained so much of the emotional side of war from the point of view of platoon leader Lieutenant Liraz “Erez” Liberti. I felt the bravado, the terror, and the love that pervaded the soldiers’ souls during their station at Beaufort, an Israeli-occupied outpost in Lebanon.I'm not a person who gladly reads war novels. However, I thought I'd give this one a try because I discovered it was about Israel (and not about North or South Carolina as I had previously guessed from its title of "Beaufort") and, within a few pages of the opening of the book, mentioned Qiryat Shemona, a town in Israel in which I had lived when I was younger.A note by the author at the end of the book made it very clear that all of the characters except for one were fictitious. However, they were based on some real stories of IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers. What stood out in my mind was how true the details - the denied fear, the camaraderie, the agony - of their situation seemed. In addition, I entered a world I'd previously denied in my mind - the utterly horrific situations faced by IDF soldiers (and, most likely, soldiers of other countries as well). Whether their own politics beliefs had a role in placing them there or not, they had a job to do. It had to be done well or it ultimately would place their own lives and those of their comrades in jeopardy. While on civilian leave, the ugly truth of their lives as soldiers had be squelched and only its perceived beauty be allowed to shine forth (Think bravery, honor, patriotism, etc.).There is one part of this book I found especially touching. It was the part about Mickey Bayliss, a soldier usually wearing a knitted kippa (skullcap used for religious Jews) who decided to remove it while on base. I could see how this was disheartening to Erez. It was also disheartening to me. It was as if Bayliss were saying that his level of spirituality was decreasing. That was so sad.The story is a brutal but realistic account of the lives of a platoon of soldier. It should be read with the thought how devastating the effects of war are everywhere. It would be wise to note as well that there is ultimately no absolute right or wrong to war. Sadly, war exists and will continue to exist forever.