Unbroken -- Take 2

Unbroken was everything I hoped it would be. I have described it to a couple of people as a tragedy of errors.  The unending series of events which befall Louie Zamperini, and the unending courage and good spirit with which he handled them, is truly astounding.

To tell the entire story wouldn't ruin it by any stretch of the imagination, but there were just so many that I can't remember them all: there was his trouble-making childhood, bitter disappointment when the Olympics were cancelled, all the normal struggles of a WWII pilot, crashing in the Pacific, living on a lifeboat for a month and a half, Japanese POW camp, followed by another, and another, with some of the worst prison guards you could possibly imagine, and of course the self-medication which followed.

Louie himself has written two autobiographies, both with the same main title: Devil at My Heels.  The first, subtitled The Story of Louis Zamperini, was published in 1956 and is out of print in its original version (though this may be an updated version of it; I can't quite tell).  The second, subtitled A World War II Hero's Epic Saga of Torment, Survival, and Forgiveness (again with the Oxford comma!), was published in 2003. The newer version was significantly updated, and appears to have provided the bones and structure for Unbroken.

Louie died this past July, at the age of 97.

Aside: for those of you who don't appreciate the usefulness of a good Oxford comma, behold the hilarity which E sent me: