Michael Herr (1940–2016)

Intense, hallucinogenic, truer than true, this is the story of a hard year in Vietnam by a very talented writer. Michael Herr spent 1968 with the grunts, in Tet, at Khe Sanh, on China Beach. He spent it drinking in the bar of the the Continental Hotel, smoking dope in Saigon slums, sipping whiskey in bunkers by the light of parachute flares. You can't read this book and not feel the madness, the glamour, the transfixing power of War, and the way it touched and and transformed the men who show more fought it. show less

This book is the most haunting, visceral account of the Vietnam War that I have yet read. Michael Herr captures the essentially surreal character of the war, from the isolated and strange atmosphere in the Saigon drug scene to the absurdities of the "five o'clock follies", to the front-less fighting against the Viet Cong in both the jungles and in set battles. I felt in reading this that I got a real sense for how crazy it must have felt to be involved in the war from an American show more perspective, and what mental gymnastics were required to continue to justify a U.S. presence that became increasingly absurd as time went on. This is a highly readable account from a journalist who was there, who doesn't have any ideological or professional agenda to redeem or explain. show less

Wow.

I wasn't there "in the shit", but nothing I have ever read on Vietnam reads more authentic that this work by a correspondent that hunkered with "the grunts", was at Khe San, smoked weed and drank whiskey in the bunkers and got real with it in a way bordering on gonzo journalism.

I did a little research and was in no way surprised to learn that Michael Herr later became a Hollywood writer, lured to the movies by Francis Ford Coppola to work on Apocalypse Now. The tone and outlook of this show more book and that movie are very much aligned. The scene at the bridge is exactly as described, right down to the stoned M79 gunner killing the screaming VC with a single, instinctive shot in the dark. The movie was surreal based on a war that was surreal and Herr reported that surreal aspect as he experience it, it appears. show less

Snappy writing, mixing up war reporting with lots of memoir episodes and anecdotes, about a quarter of the material becomes a bit navel gazing about the war reporters themselves and a vietnamese perspective is essentially missing.
The anger is here, the waste, the lack of a goal. But what this isn't, is some kind of history of the Vietnam war, even in part. Khe Sanh features heavily, but only with an indirect eye. This is a slice in time, with quick sketch portraits of named and unnamed show more soldiers, brief encounters, great quotes. It all felt very Hunter S Thompson and it made sense in retrospect as this is categorized in the "new journalism" style (he'd call it gonzo), which calls into question how accurate this all is. Reviews by veterans suggest it rings true, but is that in the sense of capturing the vibe rather than the literal truth of what happened? As Herzog suggests in his own memoirs, the literal truth can be less True than the fictionalized account.
What did we learn here? A bit of the trough every Vietnam movie has been siphoning inspiration from, and not just in the sense of the capsule moments, but the style, a roving camera circling our protagonist storyteller as waves of horror, boredom and action wash over him in a conflict he doesn't understand or particularly wants to fight. show less