Di Giovanni, Janine. Madness Visible, a Memoir of War.

DI GIOVANNI, Janine. Madness visible, a memoir of war. Random House, Vintage. 285p. notes. bibliog. index. c2003.0-375-72455-9. $13.00. A

The recent virulent conflict in the Balkans showed the world again just how chaotic war is. Outsiders who had assumed that seven decades of unbending Communist dictatorship had finally quashed Yugoslavia's historic belligerences were doomed to bewilderment. After the breakup of its central government in the 1990s, the polyglot nation dissolved into a wild gallimaufry of violent factions, ethnic hatreds, thuggery and neighborcide.

Janine Di Giovanni, the senior foreign correspondent for the London Times, takes the reader through this tragic land during the height of the struggles. Her view is one of Hell. Unlike reporters who work in press pools, attend briefings and travel in escorted tours, Di Giovanni roved the countryside in a jeep and on foot, dependent on local guides who might or might not betray her to the numerous local "militias." She huddled in muddy ditches in the snow, was shot at, kidnapped, led away at gunpoint, and reprieved. She also found herself trying to comfort people who had endured unspeakable cruelties--often from their friends and fellow villagers.

Of necessity, the book provides only a sketchy and one-sided view of events. But Di Giovanni soon learned that if there were no heroes in the saga, there were certainly plenty of victims: Muslims, Christian Kosovons, Montenegrins, and even many of the dominant Serbs. No faction was exempt from suffering. Di Giovanni knows how to write, and this memoir is as gripping as a good novel. This is wartime reporting that ranks right up there with Ernie Pyle. Raymond Puffer, Ph.D., Historian, Edwards AFB, Lancaster, CA

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