Matterhorn - Marlantes

 

Start with 5-Stars for Karl Marlantes’ New York Times bestseller, “Matterhorn”.  An epic tale of combat in the mountain jungles of Vietnam told through the thoughts and actions of the men fighting for their lives along the ridge lines, ravines, rivers, and trenches near the demilitarized zone.    Since writing his first draft of this saga over thirty years, Marlantes has tightened his story and crafted his prose in such a way that we see the jungle rot on our hands and feel the pain of our cold, wet, swollen and rotting feet… a condition known as immersion foot.  We also can taste the satisfaction of a warm can of beer as we emerge from eight days in the jungle with no food, water, or sleep.  Marlantes imbues within us the withering daze and fatigue of combat yet with the energy to continue to turn each page.  What he has done so well is to capture the hour to hour life and relationships of the lowly Marines on the tip of the spear.  The ones cast into direct combat against an enemy in the exact same fight for their own puny lives.  Through these relationships we know and feel why there are no atheists in a fox hole, why it is said these boys are not fighting for a higher calling, they are fighting for one another, and how death is an equal opportunity discriminator as the prejudice within us all evaporates with proximity to death, only to return when we are safely out of enemy range.  Marlantes has done as well, perhaps better, than those before him capturing these tales of direct combat and men under fire.  It’s all raw, it’s all real, and as we desperately want to turn and look away from the grotesque horror of it all we must nevertheless face our own morbid curiosity to see what desperate men can be driven to do.  

Deduct 1-Star since it’s now 2011.  Over forty years since this conflict raged and its cost was indelibly burned on the American psyche.  At least three decades since the very best works from this era were published, Caputo with “Rumor of War”, and Webb with “Fields of Fire” both of which I read in high school in the late 70’s, and both of which capture the essence of combat and it’s utter futility, when fought in an unknown land for an unknown purpose.  Both are as vivid, beautiful, and grotesque.

Deduct 1-Star for not being able to fight through his long passages of ethnic dialogue.

Deduct 1-Star for numerous technical inaccuracies and obvious bias against air power, fixed wing and rotary, which he seems to have, even with the many intervening years at his disposal, neglected to fact check or correct. 

Deduct 1-Star for not finishing the stories of some of his more feature characters, also Marines, who include Col Mulvaney the Regimental Commander, Lt Col Simpson and Maj Blakely the Battalion commander and executive officer, and Private Mallory a grunt with a serious problem with headaches.  Unfortunately, without finishing their stories, we are compelled to believe there is dishonor in the Marine Corps at large, with honor only being the rite of those who have either had to kill or have been killed, when we know that that cannot be true.

That leaves us with 1-Star.  Yet I feel compelled to recommend this book… it is a New York Times Best Seller.  All these accolades are not wrong.  So I am confronted with a personal dilemma.  It is a heroic and literary victory for Marlantes to have not only won the publication battle and to have done so well with this book.  I hate to run against the tide and his good fortune.  Five stars however means this book is a forever classic, and not just a must read for those of the genre but a classic read for anyone who reads.  “Rumor of War” is such a classic.  I can also add stars back and blame his editors.  I will assume the solution to the character disconnects were contained in the additional 600 or so pages that didn’t make the final manuscript.  And since this is a book about grunts for grunts I can excuse bias against the other services…but certainly not his beloved Corps.  Don’t get me wrong…I really enjoyed this book…and it is for those who really enjoy this genre for sure. But I can’t move it beyond a 3-star recommendation.