Trains of thought

In this poetic autobiography by one of America's most renowned literary scholars. Brombert recaptures the story of his youth in a Proustian reverie, recalling, with a rare combination of humor and tenderness, his childhood in 1930s Paris, his family's escape to America during the Vichy regime, his experiences in the U.S. Army from the invasion of Normandy to the occupation of Berlin, and his discovery of his scholarly vocation. Using the train as a metaphor to describe his personal journey, Brombert recalls his boyhood enchantment with railway travel. With time, he became acutely aware of the grimmer aspects of life around him, and the mounting cries of "dirty Jew" that grew from a whisper into a thundering din as the decade drew to a close. The invasion of May 1940 dispelled the optimistic belief that the horrors that had descended on Germany could never happen to them. The family was forced to flee on a banana freighter to America. Discovering the excitement of New York, Brombert nonetheless returned to France in an American uniform once the United States entered the war.