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Such is the ultimate significance of war in The Thin Red Line (1962), James Jones's fictional account of the battle between American and Japanese troops on the island of Guadalcanal. The narrative shifts effortlessly among multiple viewpoints within C-for-Charlie Company, from commanding officer Capt. James Stein, his psychotic first sergeant Eddie Welsh, and the young privates they send into battle. The descriptions of combat conditions--and the mental states it induces--are unflinchingly realistic, including the dialog (in which a certain word Norman Mailer rendered as "fug" 15 years earlier in The Naked and the Dead appears properly spelled on numerous occasions). This is more than a classic of combat fiction; it is one of the most significant explorations of male identity in American literature, establishing Jones as a novelist of the caliber of Herman Melville and Stephen Crane.
From Library Journal
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The two transports had sneaked up from the south in the first graying flush of dawn, their cumbersome mass cutting smoothly through the water whose still greater mass bore them silently, themselves as gray as the dawn which camouflaged them. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE Best Infantry Novel of WWII ever Written...,
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This review is from: The Thin Red Line: A Novel (Paperback)
This is the best combat novel of World War II infantry ever written. The second of an autobiographical trilogy planned by Jones (with "From Here to Eternity" being the first, and "Whistle" planned to finish the storyline) it covers the shortest span of time, and it is also the shortest. But it is probably the most intense and I think, the most gripping. Avoid Terrence Malick's cinematic version which I think missed Jones' vision by a mile.In this novel, we see "C for Charlie" company's struggle for some fictional territory on Guadalcanal in late 1942. It carries some of the most intense sequences of infantry combat ever committed to paper (one of the most harrowing is the company clerk, Bead and his run-in with a roving Japanese soldier while attempting to relieve himself is particularly effecting to make it all the more remarkable, it's based on Jones' own personal experience). I can't recommend this masterpiece highly enough. Jones has captured for all time, the sights and smells of infantry combat better than anyone before or since. Read it. You won't be disappointed.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A war novel for intellectuals,
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This review is from: The Thin Red Line: A Novel (Paperback)
"The Thin Red Line" is not your average war novel. I've read books like "Battle Cry" and "The 13th Valley", and while they explored the feelings and experiences of soldiers in combat, neither of those books - or any similar novels I've read - discussed war in terms used in your average college course."The Thin Red Line" discusses war in the terms of an intellectual exercise, although there's also plenty of action throughout the novel. This does not make it a bad novel, but it does make it into a different type of war story than you may be used to reading. You need to understand that going into this book, or you may not want to keep reading it.
3.0 out of 5 stars
great with popcorn,
By
This review is from: The Thin Red Line: A Novel (Paperback)
The Thin Red Line is not a bad book, in many ways it's a great book. It's just that there is a thin line between great and OK. And Jones almost gets there but never quite hits the mark like the movie does. While the book strugles with divining what the thin red line is, the movie makes it crystal clear.The movie which adds haunting poetic mystery to the world yet able divine a story of good and evil, love and hate, beauty and ugly, fear and bravery, etc. and that thin line between them. Add to that great acting and beautiful fliming. Someone made a better movie then the book.Is that's the ultimate praise of a movie? Maybe not, but someone did it.
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