Acurate and depressing account of a turbulent year

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	• 1968 Joe Haldeman Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1994 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 15 reviews
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highly recommended

A Very Moving Story

While I love many of Haldeman's science fiction novels, I think 1968 is his best work. He dealt with his Vietnam experience in a very different way in The Forever War by presenting it in a futuristic setting. Here, he confronts it head on, and I think that's what makes 1968 even more powerful than The Forever War. It's amazing to me how little has changed as far as military life goes after reading this book. I was in the Marine Corps infantry in the early nineties, and the same lingo is still being used--like taking "pogey bait" out to the field with you, for example. Even though I, nor others of my generation, can imagine what the Vietname war was really like, I think Haldeman's novel is one of the best at giving us a taste of what it was like. But there's much more to 1968 than just a soldier's Vietnam experience. Much of the book takes place after the main character, Spider, returns home. He arrives a changed man, and the home he remembered has also changed. Haldeman doesn't give us a neat, clean resolution to the story, but what he does give us--a bitter taste of reality--seems so much more real than most novels. I also really enjoyed Tim O'Briens The Things They Carried, but 1968 was slightly more powerful for me. If you also like science fiction, you might enjoy some of the details in 1968--at one point Spider is reading Glory Road by Robert Heinlein, and at another point a soldier is reading The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. There's also a little bit of astronomy thrown in, if that's your thing. So personally, 1968 had a lot going for it in addition to its main motive. I think this is Haldeman's crowning acheivement, and I'd like to see it back in print. Also, I think Haldeman has at least one more good Vietnam novel in him.

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A Strong Vietnam Novel

I have enjoyed Joe Haldeman's sci fi novels, and i was a little worried when i picked this one up. However Haldeman delievers another strong book. I have read this book several times purely because it is such a good book. I actually got teary eyed when i read the ending of the novel for the first time.

Great character development and a strong, sad and scary story make 1968 a strong novel.

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A dual review of 1968 and Trinity Fields

1968, by Joe Haldeman and Trinity Fields, by Bradford Morrow

1968 will surprise readers who think of Joe Haldeman exclusively as a science fiction writer. Its stunning realism and cynical outlook are harrowing. Haldeman's main character is Spider, a soldier in Vietnam. Haldeman never compromises his grim vision of this pivotal year in American history--just when you think it can't get worse for poor Spider, it does. The writing is razor sharp--I was especially enamored of the sections relating Spider's evolving description of his wounding and near death in an ambush. The story changes with time and with Spider's experiences and mental state. At story's end, Haldeman turns the tables and tells the story from another participant's point of view. In doing so, he manages to give the entire book an ironic spin.

The focus in Trinity Fields is on Brice McCarthy, who's sedate existence is interrupted by a letter from a friend he thought long dead. The letter causes Brice to reflect on his life, and, more importantly, on the influence that his boyhood friend, Kip Calder, has had on him. As sons of scientists working on the Manhattan Project, the duo literally grew up in the shadow of the atomic bomb. As children, the two were inseparable, but as they grew older their paths diverged. Their deteriorating friendship finally collapses over their philosophical differences regarding the Vietnam War and their love for the same woman. Ultimately, Brice joins the radical Left and Kip flies secret missions over Laos. Morrow's description of their meeting some twenty five years later, and the poignant favor Kip asks of Brice provide an emotional and satisfying climax.

Taken together, 1968 and Trinity Fields provide plenty of food for thought. Morrow's book, cerebral and reflective, is the perfect complement to the more visceral and gruelling 1968. In both, the horror stems from the Vietnam war, and the physical and mental damage it inflicted. Individually, either book is worthy of your attention, but I recommend that you read them together for greater impact.

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1968 Retrospective

If you read this book you will learn why 1969 was such a great year! By the time we had gotten through 1968 we were entitled to something good and it came. Like everything in the 60's, 1969 did not live up to its promise but we did learn from it -- and we had a lot of fun too.

In 1968 I graduated from high school. My awareness was limited and in that I was a lot like Spider. However it was impossible NOT to be aware of some things. Assasinations left and right; rioting in city after city; Prague; "My fellow American, I come to you tonight with a heavy heart"; Humphrey refusing to promise peace; Chicago; the election of Nixon. Pretty grim.

So this is a pretty grim book, how could it be otherwise. It is faithful to its subject and describes it well, which makes for a downer. Almost every page had me saying "Yep, that's how it was."

But you know, it might have been better without the retrospectives. I think Joe tried to alleviate the bummer by putting in intermezzos or in-between chapters which give today's views on certain things. This gives a sense of "everything's gonna be okay, we made it to the future intact" whereas that was no sure thing at the time -- another reason to celebrate in 1969.

Joe, why don't you do Spider a favor and let him experience the Summer of Love? After the Summer of Hate, he deserves it!

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Acurate and depressing account of a turbulent year

Without a doubt, Joe Haldenman recaptures the historical and turbulent moments of a year that will always be remembered for its political and social issues. Not only is the story multi-dimesional and historically accurate, but the characters are also multi-dimensional. Ones that you will feel sympathy for in the end. If you enjoy studying, or reading about the turbulent '60's, then 1968 is the novel for you.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

In 1968, a nation fought two wars: one abroad...and one with itself. On one front, Spider walked point and tried to survive an insanity he neither accepted nor understood. On another, his "girl," Beverly, drifted into a strange counterculture that offered her dangerous freedoms at the price of her innocence. In 1968, a great black leader was murdered on a balcony in Memphis...a political convention in Chicago was stained with young blood...and Spider and Beverly searched for their separate peace in two worlds on fire. It was the year that changed us all. In 1968, everything went crazy.

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