MatterhornMatterhorn
Karl Marlantes
Second Lt. Waino Mellas, the beating heart of this multi-character narrative, is a platoon leader with ambitions: running Bravo Company, winning a medal, justifying his decision to be here, both to himself and his antiwar ex-girlfriend back home. It doesn't take long before his focus shifts to the less lofty pursuit of survival.
The novel is set in 1969, the year after the Tet Offensive and the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, a time when political tensions threaten to boil over into self-destruction. In the rear, racial agendas dominate the enlisted ranks, but in the bush, desperate Marines need one another more than they need Panthers and Klansmen. Fighting their way up the hillside of their former firebase, hatred and jealousy evaporate, even the Corps itself disappears. Every grunt bleeds red and craves only one thing -- to get out. Yet here Lt. Mellas achieves a clarity he gets nowhere else. He does his duty, not to God, country or ideology, but to the men hunkered beside him, for whom he feels an emotion he can only call love.
Lt. Mellas questions everything about the war and its prosecution, yet remains in it nonetheless. To follow him, we are forced at gunpoint down a long jungle path where no atrocity goes undescribed, where glory is reduced to a vague and senseless dream, and the theater of the absurd is decidedly unfunny. Lt. Mellas and his cohort find meaning not in death but in the most immediate realities -- kill or be killed, save and be saved -- and when you're finished, maybe, maybe, you'll get a cold beer and a hot shower and a week's R&R in Bangkok. -Amazon.ca
To merely say that I enjoyed this book would be a massive understandment. Matterhorn has to be one of the best books I have read in recent years. Karl Marlantes presents Bravo Company and the war in Viet Nam with a clarity,reality and honesty which is rare in many other books about the war.
The men of Bravo Company are not glorified...they are not romanticized they are depicted as young, confused, passionate men who do what they are ordered to do and oftentimes do not know or care why. They care about surviving...one day at a time. They care about each other...even when racial tension runs rampant through the company. Marlantes clearly shows the political top down manipulation of the ground level troops...showing how differently the war in Viet Nam was waged....how personal and political objectives often took priority over tactical and strategic ones.
The story is clear and honest...the characters are well developed and memorable. Do not read this book looking for blood and guts...flag waving...or flag burning. Read this book for an honest look at the Marines of Bravo Company. See their frustration...feel the bonds they have with each other. In Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes shows the good, the bad and everything else in between that men feel and become in time of war.
The men of Bravo Company are not glorified...they are not romanticized they are depicted as young, confused, passionate men who do what they are ordered to do and oftentimes do not know or care why. They care about surviving...one day at a time. They care about each other...even when racial tension runs rampant through the company. Marlantes clearly shows the political top down manipulation of the ground level troops...showing how differently the war in Viet Nam was waged....how personal and political objectives often took priority over tactical and strategic ones.
The story is clear and honest...the characters are well developed and memorable. Do not read this book looking for blood and guts...flag waving...or flag burning. Read this book for an honest look at the Marines of Bravo Company. See their frustration...feel the bonds they have with each other. In Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes shows the good, the bad and everything else in between that men feel and become in time of war.
