Take a photo of a barcode or cover
erin_oriordan_is_reading_again 's review for:
The Thin Red Line
by James Jones
The 1998 movie version focused on Pvt. Bob Witt as a main character, but the book is much more about the evolution of Cpl. Geoffrey Fife (a minor character, played by Adrien Brody, in the movie). Fife starts out a coward, but gets battle-hardened and emerges a fighter. He even considers starting a fight with Witt at the end - but the stubborn, proud Kentuckian Witt is in a good mood, and Fife has no excuse to pick a fight. Internal struggles abound in the mosquito-infested jungles of Guadalcanal, where the U.S. army - along with a few New Zealanders - are defending a strategic air strip from a fairly small, poorly nourished detachment of the Japanese army. One of the most moving moments occurs when Fife's 19-year-old assistant clerk, Bead, gets shot in the side, calls out for Fife and dies in Fife's arms. Even after the Japanese retreat, there are emotional battles yet to fight - as John Bell discovers when he receives a "Dear John" letter from his beloved wife Marty, whose image has been his reason for living the entire time he's been in the jungle. I'm sure the emotional battles will continue - with new characters, although there's some continuity between Prewitt/Witt/Prell and Warden/Welsh/Winch - in the third book in the trilogy, [b:Whistle|144908|Whistle |James Jones|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1223643918s/144908.jpg|2205125].