Excellent depiction of how it must have really been

books:


	• Dispatches Michael Herr Vintage, 1991 - 272 pages average customer review:based on 104 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

I love this book

It made it right to my top ten. It is smart and humble and I want to read it over and over.

Still a terrific book about wartime and journalism

I just read this book for the first time since I was in college and it still is one of the best pieces of work on the hard job of covering a war from behind the lens of a camera. Herr always threw himself into the middle of things and had little patience for people who just went to VN to get their tickets punched. Incredible writing. Jaded but not cynical. Really called it as he saw it. As a former military and civilian reporter --but never in a war -- I can only marvel at how Herr kept doing his job day after day in the middle of so much terror and confusion.

for more information click here

Herr's reach exceeds his grasp

The subject matter is definitely worth 270+ pages, but I agree with others who said that Herr talks endlessly but doesn't seem to get to the point.

The first 80 pages are free associative. Chapters 3 and 4 are the meat of the book and the ones worth reading, and I recommend you read those and let that be the end of it. Towards the end he descends again into the free associative stuff. I have nothing against that style, but Herr is not a gifted-enough writer to pull it off. I think sometimes he thinks he's Joseph Heller. He isn't. And he isn't Joseph Conrad or Erich Remarque, either, though one gets the feeling he wants to be. Herr is at his best when he does the straight forward, journalistic writing.

Finally, do not mistake this book for non-fiction. Herr has admitted that he has taken liberties with the truth with this book, so consider it "inspired by actual events."

for more information click here

Excellent depiction of how it must have really been

I've never been there, thank God, but this book got me closer to the madness of being there than comfortable. Outstanding read.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

"He seems to have brought to this book the ear of a musician and the eye of a painter . . . the premier war correspondence of Vietnam."--Washington Post. "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time."--John le Carre." . . . Dispatches puts the rest of us in the shade."--Hunter S. Thompson.

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Greatest books in all of literature.... or not
Best Nonfiction About Vietnam
Books Read 2007 Part 1
Vietnam Bestsellers
Favorites

dispatches

Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival
Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
Highway to Hell: Dispatches from a Mercenary in Iraq
Smells Like Dead Elephants: Dispatches from a Rotting Empire
Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America

search for books
dispatches

Impressum / about us