Customer Reviews

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

we have not had the time to read this novel yet so it is impossible to give it a rating at this time

This book was incredible from beginning to end. At the end of the book I had to give it to my Dad who also was a Marine Corps infantryman in Vietnam. He echoed my views that said Marlantes hit the nail on the head with this one.

A novel of the Vietnam War

This is a time when U.S. political tensions are at a boiling point, campuses erupt in violence and protesters take to the streets, racial agendas dominate the enlisted ranks and young Americans are embroiled in brutal combat at the other end of the world. A conflict that will divide the population like never seen before.

The author's astonishing writing immerses his readers deep in the thick of the action: they quickly feel they are part of the story, witnessing the fighting side by side with the courageous soldiers.....Before setting out in this spellbinding novel, make sure you have plenty of repellent, do not forget to keep dry, leave your fears behind and lets go forward....a mission is awaiting..... Emotions will be so real you will soon understand what I mean.

The year is 1969 during the monsoon season deep in the jungles and the sweltering mountains of Quang Tri province, Vietnam.
Bravo Company First Platoon lead by a green Lieutenant Waino Mellas and his seasoned officers Fitch, Hawke and Kendall are given the orders to claim and establish a strategic point (the Matterhorn) , an advance fire-support base. The reader quickly learns that a simple sounding plan presents more than one enemy to the soldiers: Mother nature, the unfamiliar and unforgiving terrain, the fear of being isolated and the very capable opponents are just some of the life threatening hostilities they are bombarded with.

Just when the Lieutenant and his men think they have time to catch their breath and count their loses new orders hit them almost as hard as any enemy. Higher command orders them to abandon everything and embark on another dangerous but crucial mission: sever N.V. supply lines at all cost.

The men that are still standing are more and more concerned, will the final cost be worth it. Totally exhausted and feeling demoralized they wonder if new technology and long range communications have left command insensitive to their plight.

Chapter after chapter, the author immerses his readers through one intense battle after another, it is a very exhausting read. The story is told from the point of view of lieutenant Mellas and with extensive dialogue between the soldiers in a language that is dense in slang, jargon and technical terms. The author has provided a detailed glossary, I found it hard to refer back and forth at first but the price of knowing and understanding the terms early on paid dividends, patience enhanced my reading pleasure.

The author himself a decorated veteran of the time has written a complex novel (sometimes difficult to read) of what " Tour of duty" meant to those who served and hopefully to those who will take the time to read this gruesome account of trying times. Will mankind ever learn.......

This is one outstanding novel filled with emotions and lasting impressions. Very well done Mr Marlantes.

I had just finished Sabastien Junger's book "War" prior to reading Matterhorn. It is interesting to compare the books as one was written by an embedded reporter in an Afghanistan regiment writing a factual account. The other is from the war in Viet Nam written as a novel by an author who was involved in that war. The book War is a great read and should be read by anyone contemplating the armed forces. What is most interesting is that when you get down to the nitty-gritty of feet on the ground both books emphasis the comradeship among the soldiers. Truly wars are fought in the trenches where mean are motivated by their fellow soldiers not a political idea. Documentary and fiction are essentially the same.

Matterhorn should be a great book and is a great book. Karl Mariantes has hit the nail on the head about the feel and sense of any war. He shows due respect to the NVA that were often demeaned in other books. Honour is among fellow soldiers is surely the greatest motivator of men in dire circumstances.

I read the novel primarily because I had served as an Army infantry lieutenant in Vietnam during 1967 and 1968. Generally I prefer to read non-fiction and have not read a novel of the Vietnam War since Tim O'Brien's 1979 novel, Going After Cacciato. I found myself becoming immersed as the author was dealing with similar issues such as gaining the respect of his men upon his arrival. There were some errors to my mind, such as the cotton bandoliers that we wore diagonally across our chests held seven magazines -- not twenty, or claymores were not detonated by "pulling a cord," but rather by squeezing a handheld electrical detonator (clacker) when we were out on ambush, though if were inside our company perimeter at night we would simply rig our claymores to trip wires (before inserting the blasting cap into the top of the mine); additionally, Dapsone was not used to ameliorate against jungle rot, but rather was taken in conjunction with Primaquine to mitigate against Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Still I feel that Marlantes truthfully depicted the youth of the Marines in his dialogues, who for the most part were nineteen and twenty years of age. Marlantes was awarded the Navy Cross, which earns my respect. Up in the Central Highlands of Vietnam where I served until September 1968 I did not observe any racial problems out in the bush, and the majority of the soldiers in my platoon were blacks. Morale in the Army up through 1968 was actually quite high. Marlantes is describing the war during 1969, a time when morale had begun to plummet after the introduction of Nixon's "Vietnamization" Plan, as soldiers no longer wanted to be the last man killed in a war from which our political leaders intended to disengage. I fought in a different war, up in the Highlands, through 1968, the bloodiest year of the entire war, we soldiers out in the bush on our search and destroy missions still believed. We sincerely believed we were fighting the good fight and beating back the communist onslaught, and that our comrades had not died in vain. To my mind Marlantes accurately portrayed the Marine experience up along the DMZ. I'm pleased that Vietnam Vets are continuing to tell their stories, each of which adds another layer of understanding for students of history -- after the Veterans are gone.

A. T. Lawrence, author of Crucible Vietnam

This was the best book on the Vietnam war I've ever read. He pulls no punches and tells it just as it was, from the soldier on the grounds point of view. He does not glorify or defend this war and he avoids the political pitfalls of the conflict as well. Great book!!!

'Matterhorn' follows the Lieutenant Mellas's first year as a marine in the Vietnam War. It's 1969 and America is in a losing war with North Vietnam they believe is ideological and its foes believe is a fight for their homeland that began with the French in the 1950s. Mellas's unit battles for jungle-covered mountains, which, once won, are deserted. Marching through a wall of jungle with the cold, the moisture, the exhaustion, and the relentless fear of death is described with the realism of someone who's been there. Battles are fought with unseen enemies who are relentless fighters who know their jungle because it's their home under the command of superiors who have no other ambition that to ensure the body count of the Vietnamese exceed those of Americans. But it's not for the officers that these men end up fighting for or their country. It's their fellow soldiers and friends for whom they will fight and die which leads one to believe that old men can get young men to fight any war so long as they're doing it for their friends. Realistic, perceptive, enlightening, and visionary.

This book has received a great deal of acclaim but I found the pace extremely slow and the characters almost cartoonish if not stereotypical (this made it very hard to care about any of the characters). Another challenge I had was trying to remove the movie, Platoon, from my mind as I read it. I know that the movie was an infantry platoon and the fictional one in Matterhorn a marine one, however, there were plot and image similarities between the two. The author does a great job bringing to life the painful realities of fighting in challenging conditions along with the ill-conceived body count strategy employed by the US. Overall, I found this a good, not great, book.

The story, the characters, the setting, social, political and racial issues of the day, are all well presented, unfortunately I just didn't get to the point were I cared very much. The madness, the frustration, exhaustion, action, irony and honesty came through like how only someone who has been there can describe and stay honest. This book works at many levels I just felt it fell a little short of really getting to me. It is not the great Vietnam novel, it's a good one.