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| http://blog.pshares.org/files/2013/06/WorldWarZ_200-s6-c30.jpg |
Don't be put off by the zombie genre: the book is much different from other zombie books in the fact that it has a thread of feeling inside, effectively making an emotionally catching book unlike others in the genre.
This book is remarkable in my opinion, because the entire book is set in interviews that take place in a postwar time, yet the book manages to follow 23 characters from different backgrounds, occupations, and moods, and yet tell a gripping, exciting story that actually has meaning.
[ANALYSIS]
ANALYSIS OF SETTING: The setting in World War Z is the entire world, considering the fact that it's called a "World War". The way the book is written gave the unique insight as to the different cultures handling the crisis at different times and in different manners. For example, Sensei Tomonaga Ijiro, a blind Japanese sensei, survived the zombie outbreak in an orderly, solitary manner. He believed heavily in Japanese spirits. "There was no need to be on my guard until they entered what you might call my 'circle of sensory security', the maximum range of my ears, nose, fingertips, and feet. On the best days, when the conditions were right and Haya-Ji was in a helpful mood, that circle extended as far as half a kilometer. On the worst of days, that range might drop to no more than thirty, possibly fifteen paces. These incidents were infrequent at best, occurring if I had done something to truly anger the kami..." (Brown 223-4) Sensei Tomonaga was a heavy believer in the Japanese spirits, considering he was a blind, which was an outcast where he's from, and yet he survived the outbreak. Sensei Tomonaga also used a Aino prayer stick called an ikupasuy, which was a specific item seen usually only in Japan with the Ainos, a native people low in the social ladder. As a younger, blind person, Tomonaga was able to effectively fend off the zombies using the ikupasuy, and lived a modest, solitary life until he apprenticed Kondo Tatsumi, a previous character who used to be an acne-ridden computer geek. "All I had with me was a water bottle, a change of clothes, and my ikupasuy [...] Did you always kill your enemy on the first strike? Always. [He gestures with an imaginary ikupasuy] Thrust forward, never swing. At first I would aim for the base of the neck. Later, as my skills grew with time and experience, I learned to strike here...
Another character, Stanley McDonald, was part of the Third Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and he encountered the zombies while in a search for drug dealers in Kyrgyzstan, one of the earliest outbreaks. It is interesting to note that one of the previous characters, a smuggler of people, said she often made runs, coming across a rich man in a cab, who looked beat-up and obviously bitten, the driver heading towards Kyrgyzstan, and this single person is thought to have started the outbreak in Kyrgyzstan. Stanley fought back with gunfire, and fell in with his country to fight against the zombies, unlike Sensei. They told him to be ready, but he said: "I thought I was ready for anything. [He looks out at the valley, his eyes unfocused] Who in his right mind could have been ready for this?" (Brooks 21)
Imagery plays a part in the gruesome description of the mindlessness of the zombies: "Beyond them, in the first chamber, we saw our first evidence of a one-sided firefight, one-sided because only one wall of the cavern was pockmarked by small arms. Opposite that wall were the shooters. They'd been torn apart. Their limbs, their bones, shredded and gnawed...some still clutching their weapons, one of those severed hands with an old Makarov still in the grip." (Brown 19-20) The start of WWZ would bring the disturbing elements quickly.
Another character, Stanley McDonald, was part of the Third Battalion of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, and he encountered the zombies while in a search for drug dealers in Kyrgyzstan, one of the earliest outbreaks. It is interesting to note that one of the previous characters, a smuggler of people, said she often made runs, coming across a rich man in a cab, who looked beat-up and obviously bitten, the driver heading towards Kyrgyzstan, and this single person is thought to have started the outbreak in Kyrgyzstan. Stanley fought back with gunfire, and fell in with his country to fight against the zombies, unlike Sensei. They told him to be ready, but he said: "I thought I was ready for anything. [He looks out at the valley, his eyes unfocused] Who in his right mind could have been ready for this?" (Brooks 21)
Imagery plays a part in the gruesome description of the mindlessness of the zombies: "Beyond them, in the first chamber, we saw our first evidence of a one-sided firefight, one-sided because only one wall of the cavern was pockmarked by small arms. Opposite that wall were the shooters. They'd been torn apart. Their limbs, their bones, shredded and gnawed...some still clutching their weapons, one of those severed hands with an old Makarov still in the grip." (Brown 19-20) The start of WWZ would bring the disturbing elements quickly.
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| An ikupasuy of the Aino culture. |
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