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whimsicalmeerkat's review against another edition
5.0
"I think that Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods."
Michael Herr takes a complicated, fucked up war and tells of something both more and less than what anyone could imagine, let alone write. In the same way the The Things They Carried tells us that all war stories are true and none are true, Dispatches speaks of the impossible mingling of beauty and horror, love and hate that characterizes any telling of Vietnam that goes beyond dry history. Perhaps of any war.
Michael Herr takes a complicated, fucked up war and tells of something both more and less than what anyone could imagine, let alone write. In the same way the The Things They Carried tells us that all war stories are true and none are true, Dispatches speaks of the impossible mingling of beauty and horror, love and hate that characterizes any telling of Vietnam that goes beyond dry history. Perhaps of any war.
angus_mckeogh's review against another edition
5.0
One of the books in 1001 Books: You Must Read Before You Die. My dad was also a Vietnam vet. It’s cathartic to get a glimpse of this tragic war. A true frontline account from the perspective of a reporter entrenched with a company of Marines. War even more disturbing and sad than you can imagine. A nonfiction piece with as much power as The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, which is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I’m not even a huge fan of this topic or time period but the book nonetheless had the power to squeeze and pinch your emotions. Certainly worthy of the place it holds in that compendium of books to read before you take a long dirt nap.
lewreviews's review against another edition
5.0
What a book. So gut-wrenching and it just holds you there at this point of suspense and shock throughout the whole thing. War is truly horrible. But Herr perfectly articulates the desire for action, the desire to return, the wild reality of war as entertainment. The argument that war is glorified for a reason, because fighting is glorious. It’s all just so crazy.
And the way he describes such horrifying events so nonchalantly is unsettling; every page there’s something shocking but it’s rattled off as just another day in the office. I can only imagine what went on inside soldier’s heads.
Shout out to the owner of a book store who recommended this to me - the things you won’t find whilst shopping on Amazon.
And the way he describes such horrifying events so nonchalantly is unsettling; every page there’s something shocking but it’s rattled off as just another day in the office. I can only imagine what went on inside soldier’s heads.
Shout out to the owner of a book store who recommended this to me - the things you won’t find whilst shopping on Amazon.