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claudiaswisher 's review for:
MASH: A Novel about Three Army Doctors
by Richard Hooker
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.