- Hardcover: 344 pages
- Publisher: Prentice Hall Trade (August 1978)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0133142868
- ISBN-13: 978-0133142860
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 15.7 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 635 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,234,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
“In my opinion, the finest of the Vietnam novels.”
— Tom Wolfe
“Few writers since Stephen Crane have portrayed men at war with such a ring of steely truth.”
— The Houston Post
“A novel of such fullness and impact, one is tempted to compare it to Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead.”
— The Oregonian
Look for these other Bantam novels by James Webb:
The Emperor’s General
and on sale now in hardcover:
Lost Soldiers
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
— Tom Wolfe
“Few writers since Stephen Crane have portrayed men at war with such a ring of steely truth.”
— The Houston Post
“A novel of such fullness and impact, one is tempted to compare it to Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead.”
— The Oregonian
Look for these other Bantam novels by James Webb:
The Emperor’s General
and on sale now in hardcover:
Lost Soldiers
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
They each had their reasons for being a soldier.
They each had their illusions. Goodrich came from Harvard. Snake got the tattoo — Death Before Dishonor — before he got the uniform. And Hodges was haunted by the ghosts of family heroes.
They were three young men from different worlds plunged into a white-hot, murderous realm of jungle warfare as it was fought by one Marine platoon in the An Hoa Basin, 1969. They had no way of knowing what awaited them. Nothing could have prepared them for the madness to come. And in the heat and horror of battle they took on new identities, took on each other, and were each reborn in fields of fire....
Fields of Fire is James Webb’s classic, searing novel of the Vietnam War, a novel of poetic power, razor-sharp observation, and agonizing human truths seen through the prism of nonstop combat. Weaving together a cast of vivid characters, Fields of Fire captures the journey of unformed men through a man-made hell — until each man finds his fate. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
They each had their illusions. Goodrich came from Harvard. Snake got the tattoo — Death Before Dishonor — before he got the uniform. And Hodges was haunted by the ghosts of family heroes.
They were three young men from different worlds plunged into a white-hot, murderous realm of jungle warfare as it was fought by one Marine platoon in the An Hoa Basin, 1969. They had no way of knowing what awaited them. Nothing could have prepared them for the madness to come. And in the heat and horror of battle they took on new identities, took on each other, and were each reborn in fields of fire....
Fields of Fire is James Webb’s classic, searing novel of the Vietnam War, a novel of poetic power, razor-sharp observation, and agonizing human truths seen through the prism of nonstop combat. Weaving together a cast of vivid characters, Fields of Fire captures the journey of unformed men through a man-made hell — until each man finds his fate. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Hodges sat against a wet, grassy paddy dike and lazily stirred a can of Beef and Potatoes with a dirty plastic spoon. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Hodges sat against a wet, grassy paddy dike and lazily stirred a can of Beef and Potatoes with a dirty plastic spoon. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
A second-rank VIetnam novel,
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This review is from: Fields of Fire (Paperback)
When it was first published, James Webb's Fields of Fire was hailed as a great Vietnam novel. It isn't. It is a good, earnest effort, much like a superior exercise in a creative writing class, but it is not even close to being one of the great books to come from what has become a very literary war. Webb is simply not a natural writer and he doesn't have the imagination of a Tim O'Brien (whose novels Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried are the best to emerge on the American side from the war) or the style and fire of Michael Herr, whose non-fiction Dispatches still ranks at the very pinnacle of all Vietnam War books. Webb's book is overly burdened with that Vietnam-era slang which becomes painful after you've read enough of it. ' One more dinky-dau, in other words, and you're ready to scream. His characters are stereotypes, as is the situation in which they find themselves. And like a more recent Vietnam novelist who has received far too much praise, Karl Marlantes, Webb wants to have it both ways. He writes what is nominally an anti-war novel but ends up glorifying war despite himself. In brief, there are too many excellent Vietnam novels out there (at least a few of them written by Vietnamese combatants on the other side) to waste time with what is now a dated and rather painful exercise.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must read for Marines and Vietnam buffs.,
By
This review is from: Fields of Fire (Mass Market Paperback)
Mr. Webb was among the first to tell of the war from the gritty, unglamorous viewpoint of the field Marine, the grunt. The book chronicles the operations of a rifle platoon operating in Vietnam at the height of the war, and the story circles around a young lieutenant who strives to survive and serve his rowdy band of drafted Marines while still completing the mission. Webb has an unusual writing style, but it works well within the story, especially the "street" style dialogue of the young combatants that depicts the manner in which Vietnam era Marines spoke. Unlike shelves of blase, feelgood snorers of military fiction out there, this book stands apart as one of the truly great war novels of all time. It is a must read for anyone who served or is currently serving.
5.0 out of 5 stars
In the bush,
By J R Zullo (São Paulo, Brazil) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Fields of Fire (Mass Market Paperback)
I had watched many movies about the Vietnam War, but I'd never read a book about it. James Webb's "Fields of fire" was my first choice because of the high-rated reviews and praising I found everywhere I looked for information on this book. James Webb was in Vietnam, so he knows what he's writing about. His style is simple and direct; he didn't intend to create a poetic or philosophical book about the war. "Fields of fire" is a very graphic and accurate portrait of the real people who fought against the vietnamese. Characters are not stereotyped, but rather a display of the many kinds of men who were in SE Asia, and their different motivations or reasons to be there at the time. Interestingly, there are not that many battle scenes, but rather the plot of the book is a fabric of human behaviour during a war, with occasional fighting and changes thrown in the middle. This book is considered very good because the reader can sense that everything in the pages is real. Another thing comes to my mind now: the final chapter (and the ending) is one of the most sensitive, believable and, therefore, appropriated final moment of a book dealing with war that I've ever read. Congratulations to the author, who created a fine book about a gruesome subject. This is one more lesson about humanity in a society that seems to be flunking Citizenship 101. Grade 9.3/10
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