A Nation Bathed in Blood, Paul Auster's latest book published by Geopoetics, based on personal experience, explores the problem of mass murder.
"A nation bathed in blood" is the title of the latest book Half an Oster published by the "Geopoetica" publishing house.
"Geopoetika" is the exclusive publisher of Paul Oster's works for the Serbian language, so far it has published ten of his novels, and recently renewed the contract for new editions of two of his previously published novels.
Paul Auster (1947–2024) is one of the leading contemporary American writers. His works have been translated into more than 40 languages, and he is part of the group of the most widely read writers in the world.
Photo: APPaul Oster
Chance wanted his book "A nation bathed in blood" to be published just before the tragedies at the "Braća Ribnikar" elementary school and in the villages of Dubona and Malo Orašje.
Namely, in "A Nation Bathed in Blood", Auster talks about the attitude of Americans towards firearms, trying to answer the question why the United States is the country with the highest number of mass murders.
He describes a series of cases, mass murders in schools and shopping malls for example, in order to get answers. Each listed tragic event is illustrated with photographs by Spencer Ostrander, which greatly influences the story.
"A Nation Bathed in Blood" is an essay based on and infused with memoir prose. Because Auster talks about the role that weapons played in history, society and - his life. He talks about his introduction to guns, from childhood toys to a rifle he tries out at summer camp and a double barrel on his friend's farm, from his days in the merchant marine where he met southerners and admired their no-nonsense attitude toward firearms. He reveals that while there were no guns in the Auster home, there was a significant, if rarely mentioned, murder in the family history: his grandmother shot his grandfather in front of their son and his uncle.
The solution to this problem, unique to the United States among developed countries, Oster believes, does not lie in banning the manufacture and sale of all types of weapons - because an attempt to do so would be as impractical and ineffective as the prohibition of alcohol during Prohibition, which criminalized ordinary people and created a lucrative black market.
Oster argues that solving the problem does not begin with legislation, but requires a much more thorough and introspective process.
He suggests the following: "Peace will only come when both sides want it, and for that to happen, we would first have to conduct an honest, painful examination of who we are and who we want to be as a people going into the future, which would necessarily have to begin with an honest, painful examination of who we were in the past," wrote Paul Oster.
The book has only 160 pages, and is read in one sitting.
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