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Loading... Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (2010)by Karl Marlantes
 jan.fleming | May 2, 2013 |  I have read many books throughout my life. Very few have caused the same emotions than what Matterhorn has done while I read through it. It created a complex web of anger, sadness, and anticipation that constantly shift as the story unfolds. I got to know the characters and felt the pains of their passing. This book is one of the few that remind me of how powerful reading truly is. This book does an amazing job of setting the scene and the characters. Karl Marlantes was a veteran of the Vietnam War and was awarded many prestigious military medals. His experiences are the underpinning of the truly amazing detail that he has put into the book. I felt that I was really there among the soldiers, trudging the the thick brush, running along with them through firefights, and sitting with the group learning about each of their individual stories. What I found really moving about the book was the story. It follows the newly transferred Second Lieutenant Mellas. Having just transferred over from America, he is immediately thrust into the command of a small platoon and we follow his journey. Throughout the overarching story line, there are smaller, more personal, story arcs following the different soldiers surrounding Mellas. Marlantes crafted a compelling background for many of the soldiers that created a connection between them and I. This book is truly powerful. The story is full of twists and turns and your become emotionally connected to the characters. Each of their lives play out in front of you as you read, and you become emotionally moved when different events happen. Marlantes has created one of the best wartime stories I have ever read. This book is one you must read whether you are a fan of war stories or even if you just want to pick up and read a single book. (  ) Plyte | Apr 15, 2013 | If there is one thing Matterhorn faithfully captures, it is the circular and illogical nature of the Vietnam War. Through its pages, we follow a company of U.S. Marines as they dig in on a remote jungle hilltop outpost, abandon it to traipse through the jungle in an unsuccessful search for an invisible enemy, then return to the same hill, now occupied by the North Vietnamese Army. (  ) BookishJoJo | Apr 5, 2013 | this was a challenging book for me. the descriptions of jungle rot, injuries, and filth was almost nauseating at points. but that should be a testimony to the good writing, because that is exactly what Vietnam was like. I had a hard time keeping track of all the names, and on top of that - all the nicknames. a good read, very vivid, but I'm relieved that I'm finished. ( ) nahtenahte | Apr 5, 2013 | I finished listening to Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (by Karl Marlantes; narrated by Bronson Pinchot) on Saturday and I highly recommend this title for absolutely everyone. Excellent writing: From the opening lines to the close of the novel, the author immediately and effectively places the reader/listener in Vietnam, 1969. The imagery is evocative without dipping into superfluous metaphor and, the scenes resonate with physical and psychological detail; Excellent narration: I had one small gripe about the narrator which was that the first three of four times he says the word "gook," he pronounces it to rhyme with "book." The rest of the time, he pronounces the word to rhyme with "kook." Both are correct, but the inconsistency bothered me. The times he pronounced "gook" like "book" I was taken out of the story. But outside of that, I would have to say the narration was flawless. Bronson channeled the characters and the material so effectively that he literally disappeared into the book and the characters spoke (and BTW, "Balki" does not make an appearance in any way, shape or form!) For the veterans: I've read a lot of the customer reviews posted for both the print and audio editions of this title. A lot of Vietnam veterans seem to love this book, clearly believing their story has finally been told. This book is fiction; but clearly it's "true." Without having read the reviews though, you would know it. There is an honesty in the writing that comes through. For everyone else: There's a old adage about not judging a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. This book forces you to hump 6 clicks in a Marine's boots. This book does what the very best of books do: enables the reader to see another point of view. There's a great scene in the book wherein Jackson, a black Lance Corporal explains to Mellas, a white Second Lieutenant, that he (Jackson) could no more explain what it's like to be black to Mellas than either of them could explain what its like to be in the bush to civilians. The irony is of course, is that Marlantes has explained what's its like to be in the bush. Readers/listeners will feel like they were with Bravo Company every step of the way. These are extemporaneous comments I've cobbled together in the middle of the night (can't sleep) and I know I'm not doing the book justice; but if you've been sitting on the fence about reading or listening to this title, I can only say it's worth your time. ( ) Tanya-dogearedcopy | Apr 4, 2013 |
 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.  "It reads like adventure and yet it makes even the toughest war stories seem a little pale by comparison."
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Wikipedia in English (2)
Mark Bowden is the bestselling author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War, as well as The Best Game Ever, Bringing the Heat, Killing Pablo, and Guests of the Ayatollah. He reported at The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years and now writes for Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and other magazines. He lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania. 
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This book is already getting a storm of media attention, mostly very favorable, so whatever I have to say will probably be somewhat redundant and won't matter much. But a book like Matterhorn DOES matter, and a helluva lot too! While the Vietnam war may have ended 35 years ago, its afereffects continue to resonate. And it seems even more relevant today with the U.S. embroiled in yet two more unwinnable wars - wars which go on and on with no end in sight. Why the hell can't America learn anything from history?!
In the early parts of the book, I thought Marlantes had bitten off more than he could chew, because he continues to introduce more and more characters, both men and officers, dozens of names. I struggled to try to keep them all straight - who was in which platoon and which officer was in charge? And the plethora of details and description - of the mud and blood and pus and sores and leeches etc. - threatened to literally drown the book in a sea of misery. And this was mostly without ever making contact with the nearly invisible enemy, the NVA or Viet Cong. But I stuck with it, and it all began to gradually make sense - or, perhaps better, the NONsense that is war. About three hundred pages in, Bravo Company finally made bloody contact with that elusive enemy and everything heated up and the narrative literally began to race along. The misery intensified and the wounded and dead began to pile up. Many of the those characters I'd struggled to keep straight simply fell away as casualties, and the circumstances of each was often enough to make you cry. One scene in particular, after a bloody offensive over one more mountain top, really hit home, as Marlantes noted in terse terms how everybody loses in this kind of a battle or war.
"The day was spent in weary stupefaction, hauling dead American teenagers to a stack beside the landing zone and dead Vietnamese teenagers to the garbage pit down the side of the north face."
Scenes of young men, many of them former altar boys (and not so long ago either), reduced to savagery and despair are enough to break your heart and there are many such scenes here. Marlantes is a master storyteller. The stories here, unfortunately, are mostly horror stories, interspersed only rarely with moments of humor, but laced throughout with deeply felt feelings of brotherhood and humanity.
Matterhorn, while it is a uniquely special book, and one that obviously cried to be written, made up of feelings and memories that undoubtedly had haunted the author for over thirty years, brought to mind other stories of that awful war, some true, some fictional. I thought of The Thirteenth Valley by John DelVecchio, another fat novel of Vietnam, as well as one of the very first Vietnam War novels, William Pelfrey's The Big V. The latter novel is long out of print, but strongly deserves another look, as it bore strong similarities to another classic novel of war, The Red Badge of Courage. On the memoir side of the street, Robert Mason's Chickenhawk and Frederick Downs' The Killing Zone come to mind. The fact is there have been dozens, scores of books to come out of the Vietnam war in the past forty years. The fact that Karl Marlantes' new novel is getting so much attention as such a late entry is a testament to its power and eloquence. This is not just a book about the mess that was Vietnam. This is a book about the folly that is war. I will recommend Matterhorn highly (