The national bestseller by the great filmmaker Werner Herzog.
In his first novel, Herzog tells the incredible story of Hiroo Onoda, a
Japanese soldier who defended a small island in the Philippines for
twenty-nine years after the end of World War II.
In 1997, Werner Herzog was in Tokyo to direct an opera. His hosts asked
him, Whom would you like to meet? He replied instantly: Hiroo Onoda.
Onoda was a former solider famous for having quixotically defended an
island in the Philippines for decades after World War II, unaware the
fighting was over. Herzog and Onoda developed an instant rapport and
would meet many times, talking for hours and together unraveling the
story of Onoda's long war.
At the end of 1944, on Lubang Island in the Philippines, with Japanese
troops about to withdraw, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda was given orders by his
superior officer: Hold the island until the Imperial army's return. You
are to defend its territory by guerrilla tactics, at all costs. . . .
There is only one rule. You are forbidden to die by your own hand. In
the event of your capture by the enemy, you are to give them all the
misleading information you can. So began Onoda's long campaign, during
which he became fluent in the hidden language of the jungle. Soon weeks
turned into months, months into years, and years into decades--until
eventually time itself seemed to melt away. All the while Onoda
continued to fight his fictitious war, at once surreal and tragic, at
first with other soldiers, and then, finally, alone, a character in a
novel of his own making.
In The Twilight World, Herzog immortalizes and imagines Onoda's years
of absurd yet epic struggle in an inimitable, hypnotic style--part
documentary, part poem, and part dream--that will be instantly
recognizable to fans of his films. The result is a novel completely unto
itself, a sort of modern-day Robinson Crusoe tale: a glowing, dancing
meditation on the purpose and meaning we give our lives.
