War & War begins at a point of danger: on a dark train platform Korim is on the
verge of being attacked and robbed by thuggish teenagers. From here, we are carr
ied along by the insistent voice of this nervous clerk. Desperate, at times almo
st mad, but also keenly empathic, Korim has discovered in a small Hungarian town
's archives an antique manuscript of startling beauty: it narrates the epic tale
of brothers-in-arms struggling to return home from a disastrous war.
Korim i
s determined to do away with himself, but before he commits suicide, he feels he
must escape to New York with the precious manuscript and commit it to eternity
by typing it all out onto the world wide web. Following Korim with obsessive rea
lism through the streets of New York (from his landing in a Bowery flophouse to
his move far uptown with a mad interpreter), War and War relates his encounters
with a fascinating range of people in a world torn between viciousness and myste
rious beauty.
