Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War
Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the...
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Intense, powerful, and compelling, Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead and James Jones’s The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young Marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the Marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever. Written by a highly decorated Marine veteran over the course of thirty years, Matterhorn is a spellbinding and unforgettable novel that brings to life an entire world—both its horrors and its thrills—and seems destined to become a classic of combat literature.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780802119285 (080211928X)
Publish date: March 23rd 2010
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press
Pages no: 600
Edition language: English
Okay. This was a heavy (emotions wise) book. Written by a former marine who fought in Vietnam and that he's been trying to publish for 30 years, it does not pull any punches. None. Granted, I have never been in war or any branches of the military. So I really have no idea how realistic it is. But i...
Newly Tarted Up Review! I...well...honestly, I have no idea what word to use to describe how I feel about MATTERHORN by Karl Marlantes. It's a superlative book, no adjectives need apply. I gave it five stars because that's the scale...but it deserves six. http://tinyurl.com/q89t7b2
I would probably never read Matterhorn if it wasn't for a group on Goodreads that had several members raving about how despite the fact they aren't the biggest fan of war stories, they loved Matterhorn. And it's not that I don't love war stories, I've just had bad luck in the past with stories that ...
I'm not seeing the fuss here. The writing is pretty clunky and the characters are just archetypes. The story goes through all the familiarly horrific beats you're used to if you've seen a bunch of Vietnam movies already. There are a bunch of obvious hoo-rah scenes. It certainly moves - for all its l...
On completion:I have written my thoughts as I progressed through this audiobook, so this will be just a short summary. As is evident from the comments below, when I began this book it caused me lots of trouble. I had trouble understanding the military jargon and acronyms. I had trouble keeping track...