All this is done without explicit c

All this is done without explicit comment from the author. Individual reactions and assessments may vary, but the underlying process is the same. The reader follows the progression, is drawn into the action of the war, and finds that his assessments and reactions broaden and deepen. The emotional power of the text is the agent for changes in the reader's evaluations and responses. Thus readers may feel themselves changing as they work through the text, and some may feel distressed or annoyed. But whatever change occurs results from an artistic experience, not from the manipulations of an ideologue. The text leads the reader back to events and individuals, not away toward abstractions or dogmas. It respects rather than reduces the complexity of events and invites rather than dictates the reader's reaction. It is, in other words, simultaneously thoroughly artistic and thoroughly historical.