A read that seared me right down to the bone...

books:


	• From Here to Eternity James Jones Scribner, 1976 average customer review:based on 59 reviews
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highly recommended

The Finest Novel I have ever read

This novel is truly amazing. The characters are well developed and the reader truly becomes attached to each one as they undergo their personal trials and tribulations in the days before Pearl Harbor. The work provides an excellent examination of the pre-war Army, a professional army preparing for war, inducting draftees, and operating under a proud system of tradition. The novel is full of great stories, advice, and sayings that are as relevant today as they were in 1941. Serving in Iraq while reading this novel, I was amazed at the very real connection I found with its soldiers; many things have not changed. Again, a great novel that I would recommend to anyone interested in war, the army, or the human condition.

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It gradually earned my affection...

From Here to Eternity is a singular reading experience: gritty, raucous, desperate, raw and, yet, ultimately sublime. James Jones fields a superb cast of characters with which relatively few novels can compete. More than once, it reminded me of Catch 22 (without the intended absurdity) - Pianosa set down in a peaceful Hawaii just prior to Pearl Harbor.

Distractingly, there are times when the author is guilty of pontification. There are stretches which seem entirely gratuitous. The two protagonists, Prewitt and Warden, elsewise dynamic, can wax numbingly philosophic. But, by the middle of the book I was captive to a steadily mounting anticipation, the culmination of which plays out true to form - recklessly, brutally as the soldiers of G Company ready themselves for war.

There is a quality of novel which can best be described by the wistfulness with which one completes it. I was sorry to see this one end. Despite the violence, hard living, bravado and despair, James Jones concludes with hope and endurance. Like Herman Wouk's Winds of War and War and Remembrance, From Here to Eternity is a classic among WWII literature. 5 stars.

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an excellent tome

I actually loved the melody of this book; but what it is really a good read for, is it's description of the attack on pearl harbor: This book captures the nuance of that particular moment when the Japanese planes appeared over the houses of Hawaii and the actors all knew while they were in the midst of it, that nothing would be the same again. I also liked the book for its description of Pruett's alcoholism - where Jones intervenes as the narrator/author and decides not to have his character "go alcoholics anonymous", thus guaranteeing certain death for his character - talk about deus ex machina in reverse!

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Waiting for the war, but the war hasn't arrived

I've read only a few war novels in my day and most of them are about, well, war. Which is interesting and all, but there's only so many ways you can depict war as horrifying and dehumanizing, and the soldiers involved as both heroic and all too human, the command structure as haphazard and detached. So I wasn't looking terribly forward to the prospect of diving into yet another massive examination of soldier life, and yet, that's not really what this is about. Jones' novel isn't so much about WWII as about sitting on the cusp of WWII, taking place in the months just before Pearl Harbor. Everyone is training for a war that may or may not happen, more or less hanging out in Hawaii, killing time in between drills with drinking or prostitutes, living the Army life as best they can. The story pivots around two characters, enlisted fellow Prewitt and staff sergeant Warden, following their separate stories as well where they intersect, and how they interact with everyone around them. Prewitt's tale is the slightly more visceral of the two, he's an excellent boxer that refuses to go out for the team, even though his superiors would very much like him to. They'd like him to so much that they'll go to nearly any lengths to break him, in order to make him fall in line and fit in, with the entire company eventually trying to wear him down. It's a rather frightening depiction at times of the military's somewhat necessary need for comformity taken to a new level, stamping down on anyone who dares to deviate. Meanwhile, Warden is attempting to hold the company together, and pursuing an affair with the wife of his superior officer. The stories of these men collide with everyone else they come into contact with, as Jones vividly relays military life on the base and in the town, detailing the trials and loves the men endure and force themselves into. It's a surprisingly angry book at times, the language coiled and sharp, etching out the duality of the longtimers who both love and hate the Army that nourishes and captures them. The salty language and somewhat brutal scenes are shocking not in how graphic they are but how frank and matter of factly they're presented. The prose achieves a strange jagged beauty in parts, as Jones dives right into the minds and emotions of the men involved. It becomes, as I said, not a book about war but about people at war. Pearl Harbor doesn't even occur until most of the book is over with. It's not the fastest paced book, the early chapters are necessary to set up everything that will come later but you are going to be about halfway through before all the setting up starts to gain momentum but after that it barely pauses. It's tragic and visceral and sort of beautiful in its own way, not because it glorifies but in the way it shows everything, the times when the system beats them down, the small moments of friendship, the way men you depend on with both look out for you and let you down, sometimes in the same moment. Surprisingly readable despite the length, it carries a fire and passion that most books can't even approach. Probably one of the best military books ever written that doesn't involve long descriptions about how a gun works.

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A read that seared me right down to the bone...

In my humble uneducated opinion, this book is superior to the film as is usually the case. But the movie is STILL a classic, so don't get preturbed at me for sayin' that. It's by and large one'a my favorites, but you don't get the FULL impact of James Jones' story unless you read this book. And while it is LONG as hell, it's worth it. I'll be honest, I was so intimidated by it, I bought it and didn't touch it for a year; I'd never even ATTEMPTED a book that was 800-plus, but when I finally got up the courage, I was hooked by the third chapter. Of course, like most people my age, I had the preconceived notion of how I viewed the characters from the movie, but, trust me, that doesn't water down the incredible impact of the way the book unfolds; it clings more to tragedy and despair than the film, and truly encapsulates Jones' theory that the world stops to mourn no man. He puts you right there for everything; the corruption, the favoritism, the "treatment", the hookers, and many other controversial, politically incorrect topics that the mere mention in this review would be censored. Fifty some years after its first publication the book still feels scandalous. The stockade scenes for instance which were only briefly implied in the film are brutal to read.

But what's really REALLY great is the way Jones puts you in the mind of each and every character, even the ones we're supposed to despise, like Sgt. Galovitch or Dynamite Holmes, making it not so "black and white" like the film was (literally and figuratively). Everyone is a human being, whether in the corridors of power or in the messhall cleaning; there is no true villain; characters you latch on to will more than likely do something or say something to enrage you at least once or twice before the book is over; they're all flawed human beings confused and uncertain about their place in Uncle Sam's army. This book is a real, unflinching, highly critical and uncompromising view of the United States Army and Infantry told from the views of the young faceless men serving at the bottom end; accounts which aren't heard nearly enough.

But the most gut-wrenching part to me deals with a secondary character; the long drawn-out scene of Isaac Bloom considering his options before his tragic end. That scene brought real true-to-life tears into my eyes which hasn't been brought to me by a book in a long time. Anyone looking for a deep, involved, beautifully harsh an' thought-provoking read that shows you the pain and indifference prevalent in the life of the modern man, look no further.

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

This is a long, satisfying, commanding novel of the soldiers who were poised on the brink of real manhood when World War II flung them unceremoniously into that abyss. Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt is the nonconformist hero who refuses to box at Schofield Barracks and is slowly destroyed by his own rebelliousness. Around him, others are fighing their own small battles--and losing. It's worth noting that Jones' 1951 audience was shocked by his frank language and the sexual preoccupations of his characters.

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