Review by New York Times Review
Every war novel must at some point confront a central contradiction. Only the truth has any real value, but the truth about war is that it contains nearly unbearable levels of repetition, boredom and meaninglessness. To write honestly about war, you should make readers feel they have endured those things as well. Yet no sane novelist wants to inflict that much discomfort on the audience. And so we read novels (and watch movies) filled with the kind of bravery and drama that make war look at least entertaining, if not admirable. Many of those works are tremendous artistic achievements. But they're not war. Karl Marlantes's first novel, "Matterhorn," is about a company ol Marines who build, abandon and retake an outpost on a remote hilltop in Vietnam. According to the publisher, Marlantes - a highly decorated Vietnam vet - spent 30 years writing this book. It was originally 1,600 pages long; now it is 600. Reading his account of the bloody folly surrounding the Matterhorn outpost, you get the feeling Marlantes is not overly worried about the attention span of his readers; you get the feeling he was not desperate or impatient to be published. Rather, he seems like a man whose life was radically altered by war, and who now wants to pass along the favor. And with a desperate fury, he does. Chapter after chapter, battle after battle, Marlantes pushes you through what may be one of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of Vietnam - or any war. It's not a book so much as a deployment, and you will not return unaltered. The story is told from the point of view of a young second lieutenant, Mellas, who joined the Marines for confused and vaguely patriotic reasons that are quickly left in tatters by military incompetence. At great psychic and physical cost, Mellas and the rest of Bravo Company, Fifth Marine Division, climb a steep mountain near the intersection of Laos and the DMZ separating North and South Vietnam, then build an outpost capable of withstanding enemy artillery. As soon as they finish, they are told to abandon it because they are needed for a large operation farther south. There ensues a multiweek stagger through impenetrable jungle, the company plagued by lack of food, lack of ammunition and inadequate resupply. One man is killed by a tiger. Another dies of cerebral malaria. Starving to death and bearing a dead friend on a pole, the men of Bravo Company finish their mission and are allowed a brief rest at one of the main support bases. SOON enough, however, they are ordered to retake Matterhorn, which has since been occupied by the enemy. It is there, on the flanks of their own outpost, that the horror and absurdity of war are finally played out. "After three hours of debate they finally realized that there was no perfect plan," Marlantes writes as the company plots its assault. "Somebody was going to get killed." The battle scenes are vivid, devastating and vaguely repetitious - surprisingly, the only parts of the book where my mind started to wander. But combat is not really what "Matterhorn" is about; it is about war. And in Marlantes's hands, war is a confusing and rich world where some men die heroically, others die because of bureaucratic stupidity, and a few are deliberately killed by platoon-mates bearing a grudge. In one of the more remarkable passages of the book, Mellas contemplates the killing that goes on in nature and struggles with the question of whether it is evil: "No, the jungle wasn't evil. It was indifferent. So, too, was the world. Evil, then, must be the negation of something man had added to the world. Ultimately, it was caring about something that made the world liable to evil. Caring. And then the caring gets torn asunder. Everybody dies, but not everybody cares. It occurred to Mellas that he could create the possibility of good or evil through caring. He could nullify the indifferent world. But in so doing he opened himself up to the pain of watching it get blown away." Even the book's infrequent flaws sometimes serve a valuable purpose in its narrative. There is a blizzard of names, ranks and military terms, for instance, and despite the glossary and unit schematic included in the book, I still felt lost much of the time. That confusion, however, was exactly my experience while covering the United States military as a journalist, and in "Matterhorn" it struck me as annoying but true. Elsewhere there are some familiar moments, including a Tim O'Brien-type accounting of the contents of a man's rucksack, and an awkward scene of post-traumatic stress on a hospital ship that feels a little forced. But when Marlantes hits it right - which is most of the time - he can lay you out like a boxer with a killer jab. "The light died. Voices were silenced. Darkness and fear replaced light and reason," he writes about the outpost at night. Fear is like a "strong electric potential with no place to discharge," and the preparation for combat puts men in an emotional state where even other soldiers can't reach them: "The kids filed quietly to the edge of the strip to wait for the helicopters. Other Marines stopped to watch them, wanting to say an encouraging word yet not daring to break into their private world - a world no longer shared with ordinary people. Some of them were experiencing the last hour of that brief mystery called life." One of the most heartbreaking themes of the book is the racial tension between black troops and white troops - a tension that boils over into outright threats and eventually murder. For a reporter who has covered the military in its current incarnation, the events recounted in this book are so brutal and costly that they seem to belong not just to another time but to another country. Soldiers openly contemplate killing their commanders. They die by the dozen on useless missions designed primarily to help the careers of those above them. The wounded are unhooked from IV bags and left to die because others, required for battle, are growing woozy from dehydration and have been ordered to drink the precious fluid. Almost every page contains some example of military callousness or incompetence that would be virtually inconceivable today, and I found myself wondering whether the book was intended as an indictment of war in general or a demonstration of just how far this nation has come in the last 40 years. One is left feeling that facile comparisons of Afghanistan to Vietnam amount to a mockery of Vietnam. I don't know if that was the author's intention, but it is a helpful note during America's anguished debate about what to do in the war we're fighting now. "Matterhorn" is a raw, brilliant account of war that may well serve as a final exorcism for one of the most painful passages in American history. 'After three hours of debate they finally realized there was no perfect plan. Somebody was going to get killed.' Sebastian Junger's account of American soldiers in Afghanistan, "War," will be published in May.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 4, 2010]
Review by Booklist Review
Due to the efforts of such soldier-writers as James Webb and Tim O'Brien, the Vietnam novel has come of age, and this is a worthy addition to the genre. Marlantes, a former marine who was awarded the Navy Cross in Vietnam, sets his debut in Quang-Tri Province, at an American fire-support base. The environment is painted in vivid, intense hues: the fog malevolent, the bugs and leeches constant torturers, and jungle rot universal. The enemy is always near and often unseen until firefights explode with shocking savagery. But this novel isn't flawless. The major characters fill traditional roles: the young, inexperienced lieutenant; his grizzled, tough sergeant; and the cowardly griper. The contempt shown by the soldiers for the supposedly uncaring brass and politicians often seems over the top. Still, the characters are, if traditional, certainly believable. This tough, unsentimental saga is filled with frightened men; most endure and achieve a certain nobility in spite of themselves. An engrossing chronicle of men at war.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2009 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Thirty years in the making, Marlantes's epic debut is a dense, vivid narrative spanning many months in the lives of American troops in Vietnam as they trudge across enemy lines, encountering danger from opposing forces as well as on their home turf. Marine lieutenant and platoon commander Waino Mellas is braving a 13-month tour in Quang-Tri province, where he is assigned to a fire-support base and befriends Hawke, older at 22; both learn about life, loss, and the horrors of war. Jungle rot, leeches dropping from tree branches, malnourishment, drenching monsoons, mudslides, exposure to Agent Orange, and wild animals wreak havoc as brigade members face punishing combat and grapple with bitterness, rage, disease, alcoholism, and hubris. A decorated Vietnam veteran, the author clearly understands his playing field (including military jargon that can get lost in translation), and by examining both the internal and external struggles of the battalion, he brings a long, torturous war back to life with realistic characters and authentic, thrilling combat sequences. Marlantes's debut may be daunting in length, but it remains a grand, distinctive accomplishment. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Even as the Vietnam War recedes into the past, the despair, confusion, and mythology it generated retains a grip on our culture. Debut novelist Marlantes offers a realistic, in-the-trenches look at that war. Matterhorn is a remote jungle base of operations held by the marines. We follow a young reserve lieutenant, Waino Mellas, as he nervously begins command of a squad ordered to take out a North Vietnamese machine gun nest; afterward, the squad is sent into the jungle for obscure reasons. This is the beginning of a long and murderous journey, with little food or water, constant rain, impassable terrain, and enemy ambushes. The soldiers bond with one another, but their faults and divisions are magnified, as racial tensions mount and cultural differences are revealed. The battle scenes, at which the author excels, are frequent, brutal, and viscerally energetic, and the skillfully rendered dialog reveals a bunch of strangers attempting to communicate in life-defeating circumstances. In the end, there are no real victors. Verdict Obviously not a brief, cheery read, this is a major work that will be a valuable addition to any permanent collection. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 12/09.]-Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
An ambitious first novel about the Vietnam War, written over three decades by a Marine veteran of the fight. Less melodramatic and more realistic than Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke, with which it invites comparison, Marlantes's long but simply structured narrative recounts the unhappy lot of a Marine lieutenant, usually called only Mellas, and the platoon under his command. Stuck in a firebase called Matterhorn, up near the Demilitarized Zone, Mellas, who is handsome, smart, canny and politically astute, if perhaps not a "natural hunter," finds himself in the unenviable position of having what seems like the entire army of North Vietnam bearing down on the post. The long battle that ensues, framing the book, tests the Marines' mettle, and it fells many of them. Marlantes, who saw combat, writes with authority on every aspect of Marine life, from the terrible chow (in one fine moment, he describes an improbable meal made of eggs, chocolate, Tabasco sauce and apricots) to the complex rules ("Bullshit, sir!...I'm a fucking squad leader and squad leaders can have stashes") and the hard realities of Vietnam, from the fragging of unpopular brass and NCOs to death in all kinds of unpleasant ways ("Imagine dying of thirst in a monsoon"). The combat scenes, and there are many, are finely rendered. Overall, the narrative is a little predictable, however, and it offers only a few surprises of character development and plot that can't be seen coming from afar, including a tense, expertly delivered moment in which Mellas attempts to snipe at an NVA colonel: "Mellas waited as patiently as an animal. Time stopped. Only this one task. Wait for the bastard to turn around so he could see the bullets coming." Readable and well written, though not quite in the class of Tim O'Brien, Philip Caputo, Michael Herr, Robert Stone and other top-flight literary chroniclers of the war in Vietnam. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
