Dispatches
Ratings21
Average rating4.7
To read this book is to fall down the rabbit hole into some smoky circle of Hell with Hemingway and Orwell and occasionally Kerouac as your tour guides. War is about death and Dispatches captures the insanity and psychic rot that permeates the landscape of war–particularly, it would seem–this war, and also the fascination and even addiction to it. If one has ever read Hemingway's Soldier's Home and wondered at the disconnect between Krebs and his family and normal life, Dispatches describes what was in Krebs' head. Highly recommended.
Yeah this might be an all time favorite. Herr certainly just wrote his thoughts down as they came back to him years later but it doesn’t matter because what’s here is one of the most important pieces of history in one of the worst wars ever fought by US.
The fact that more people haven’t read this brilliant piece is unbelievable.
Insightful, sometimes the writing is a bit unusual and I'm not sure why. If it was directly quoted from a journal it would make sense but the entire book is more of a look-back to his experiences at the time. I was listening to the audio so maybe there is a visual clue in visual text form that would explain this.The author's view of this war reminds me alot of Mick Herron and John le Carré's portrayals of the ‘Cold' war. More realistic and not so glamorous as ‘Cubby' Broccoli's interpretation of Ian Fleming's stories. I've not read the latter recently so not sure if Mr. Broccoli's movies are true to the portrayal of the war as the author's books or not.And I think this book is a great companion to The Ten Thousand Day War, Michael Maclear's macro view, and a similar micro / personal viewpoint to Vietnam Voices: Perspectives On the War Years, 1941-1982, John Clark Pratt.
There are some authors that can just write and it reads like it is made out of the best silk you can buy. This is one of those books that just read like this.
Not only this, but it also gives an amazing view into the Vietnam war from the point of view of a reporter. It shows very well how completely fucked up everything was down there.
Highly recommended, almost a must read.
