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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
I just learned MASH started off as a book recently. So, my first task was to track down a copy and read it. If you've seen the movie, you have a good idea of the events that occur in this book. It presents the 18 month tour of Hawkeye and Duke on the front lines of Korea as a series of anecdotes. Each chapter is an episode, often introducing a different character, in the bizarre, wacky, and sometimes just plain wrong antics of the two surgeons.
Overall, this book is amusing, but nothing I would consider a must-read. More of something to pick up if you're looking to be lightly amused and don't have anything else on the shelf.
Overall, this book is amusing, but nothing I would consider a must-read. More of something to pick up if you're looking to be lightly amused and don't have anything else on the shelf.
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma
I am a huge fan of the TV show, not so much the film, so I was interested in going back to the original novel.
Many elements of the series are here... the characters we loved and loved to hate. Most are pretty cookie-cutter, one dimensional stereotypes...but that happens in war novels.
The brutality is here...the insanity. The irreverant, over-the-top responses to the brutality and insanity.
In the novel there are three, and then four, doctors who live in the Swamp...Hawkeye and Trapper John, but also Duke, a southern boy who's as wild at the two we remember. Also, an African American doctor, who also played football, and is the hero of the wildest football game I've ever read. Since he was also a javeline thrower, HIS nickname is 'Spear-chucker." I vaguely remember a character...in either the film, or an early TV episode with that name.
Eighteen months of these professionals' lives were stolen by the Army. They did their jobs and more. They saved lives, and sometimes failed to save lives. They worked around the clock when necessary; they did whatever it took to send wounded soldiers home. And they did everything they could to keep from sinking into depression, insanity, insensitivity.
Not the best written book, but a story that only THIS AUTHOR could tell.
Many elements of the series are here... the characters we loved and loved to hate. Most are pretty cookie-cutter, one dimensional stereotypes...but that happens in war novels.
The brutality is here...the insanity. The irreverant, over-the-top responses to the brutality and insanity.
In the novel there are three, and then four, doctors who live in the Swamp...Hawkeye and Trapper John, but also Duke, a southern boy who's as wild at the two we remember. Also, an African American doctor, who also played football, and is the hero of the wildest football game I've ever read. Since he was also a javeline thrower, HIS nickname is 'Spear-chucker." I vaguely remember a character...in either the film, or an early TV episode with that name.
Eighteen months of these professionals' lives were stolen by the Army. They did their jobs and more. They saved lives, and sometimes failed to save lives. They worked around the clock when necessary; they did whatever it took to send wounded soldiers home. And they did everything they could to keep from sinking into depression, insanity, insensitivity.
Not the best written book, but a story that only THIS AUTHOR could tell.
First of a very funny collection. Movie made from this book.
I was going to give this two stars, but the ending chapters with Mother selling all the stupid white boys bridges nudged me toward three, and the depiction of the captains struggling with non-field life confirmed the three. It wasn’t a bad book or anything, but there wasn’t a ton of characterization or anything; it was mostly a depiction of their antics. Which is fine, but not really for me. Especially the football stuff, that was miserable.
MASH is one of my favorite shows, if not my favorite show. I was too young when it first aired and I started catching it later in re-runs, then finally on DVD. I've seen the movie which I realize was important in the genre of guerrilla film making, but I didn't care for it. I was looking forward to the book in order to get the internal monologues of the characters I have grown so fond of.
For those of you not familiar MASH is the story of the doctors and nurses at the 4077th surgical unit during the Korean War. Their days were a mixture of boredom and inaction broken up by deluges of wounded. They fix up masses of blown up soldiers. In the meantime they go a little nuts in order to stay sane. This doesn't seem like a comedy but I assure you it's hilarious.
Unfortunately this is very loose narrative with thinly drawn characters. I have to give props to Alan Alda(who has written a great biography by the way). I have more respect for him. He was able to take a vague character and infuse him with a complexity rarely seen on TV.
Hotlips, Radar, Trapper John, Henry Blake, Father Mulcahey, Frank Burns, and Hawkeye are all present but they come off as bizarro versions of themselves. Almost cameo like.
I will say that the book had a very distinctive tone. It does get across the hours of mindless boredom in the heat and cold broken up with interludes when they get slammed by wounded. That was done well.
If you're a fan of MASH like me, you might want to read this to see the origin of the show. Otherwise there are better war books out there.
For those of you not familiar MASH is the story of the doctors and nurses at the 4077th surgical unit during the Korean War. Their days were a mixture of boredom and inaction broken up by deluges of wounded. They fix up masses of blown up soldiers. In the meantime they go a little nuts in order to stay sane. This doesn't seem like a comedy but I assure you it's hilarious.
Unfortunately this is very loose narrative with thinly drawn characters. I have to give props to Alan Alda(who has written a great biography by the way). I have more respect for him. He was able to take a vague character and infuse him with a complexity rarely seen on TV.
Hotlips, Radar, Trapper John, Henry Blake, Father Mulcahey, Frank Burns, and Hawkeye are all present but they come off as bizarro versions of themselves. Almost cameo like.
I will say that the book had a very distinctive tone. It does get across the hours of mindless boredom in the heat and cold broken up with interludes when they get slammed by wounded. That was done well.
If you're a fan of MASH like me, you might want to read this to see the origin of the show. Otherwise there are better war books out there.
For once, both the film and the television series were better. More often than not, Hooker's characters come off as just plain mean, without even the black humor of the film version.
adventurous
emotional
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book was very funny I even woke my fiancée up a few times laughing. With that said I think the movie is better and it flushed out a little of the randomness of the book and made the story flow better.
