What can I say about "Empire of the Sun" other than it is a brilliant book, "Empire of the Sun" is not about the ending; it's all about the journey. Knowing what will happen is irrelevant, what matters is how things happen and how people react to events. The novel recounts, in a fictional tale, the author's experiences as a boy in Shanghai at the outbreak of the Second World War. War. Jim, the third-person narrator of the novel, is separated from his parents when the Japanese invade Shanghai in late 1941. The first part of the novel recounts his adventures on the streets of Shanghai, first trying to find his parents. , and then surrendered to the Japanese. When this too fails, Jim's life becomes a simple battle for survival, first in Shanghai and then at the hands of the Japanese in a training camp, where he is effectively sent to die. The second part of the novel continues for three years. to the internment camp where Jim spent the war. It is mid-1945 and the novel tells of the last days of the camp when the rations run out and the Japanese realize they are about to lose the war. The fascination here is watching how people behave as the war reaches its inevitable conclusion: seeing who carries on and who gives up. The second part ends with a "death march" in which the Japanese move the exhausted and starving prisoners out of the camp and march them towards Shanghai. The final part of the novel recounts the anarchy of the days immediately following the end of the war and ends with Jim being reunited with his parents. Once again, the fascination is with the people and how they react to their newfound freedom. What is so brilliant about this novel is the absolutely compelling way it portrays the world through the eyes of a young boy. Jim was 11 when the Japanese took Shanghai and 15 when the war ended. Throughout the novel, everything is seen as Jim sees it. It is his confusing interpretation of events that is given, along with his strange thoughts about the war. No "real" adult knowledge is allowed to intrude and there is no attempt to preach any particular moral or make any specific point.