Dispatches (Picador Thirty)
by:
Michael Herr (author)
ISBN:
9780330491990 (0330491997)
Edition language: English
”Flip religion, it was so far out, you couldn’t blame anybody for believing anything…Guys stuck the ace of spades in their helmet bands, they picked relics off of an enemy they’d killed, a little transfer of power; they carried around five-pound Bibles from home, crosses, St. Christophers, mezuzahs,...
Powerful book...esp the first half...not just the content, which is raw, but the language and punctuation even that captures brilliantly the maniacal be-bop riot of this heart of darkness ride into the horrid past.... Easy Rider (as, in fact, Sean Flynn quite literally was) comes to Saigon, Khe Sanh...
Worth reading for the remarkable voice and language, but also because there is nothing comparable when it comes to examining "when things go wrong in a war," in particular the Vietnam War:"When the talk had passed, the only thing left standing up that looked true was your sense of how out of control...
Worth reading for the remarkable voice and language, but also because there is nothing comparable when it comes to examining "when things go wrong in a war," in particular the Vietnam War:"When the talk had passed, the only thing left standing up that looked true was your sense of how out of control...
This book is highly acclaimed, and I do understand why. No doubt that Michael Herr catches the madness of the Vietnam War. But at the time I read it, I was not ready for a book with these literary qualities and I did not read it through. But, maybe, some day . . . .