Books You May Not Like: "Matterhorn" by Karl Marlantes

I've always wondered if someone who hasn't experienced combat in one way or another could write about the experience of war. I know I have never tried, and I am not sure I ever will.  The after effects, the memories and the ruptured lives at home, the bad memories, are one thing;  the actual firing shots in terror and anger, fighting for your very life, is altogether different.

As such, I am not even really sure what to say about this book.  Nothing I could say could really do it justice.  I don't know if this book will become the classic the dust jacket says that it is destined to be, though I thought it was excellent and when it came in 2010 it won a host of awards and notoriety.  But for my money (and there is none really at stake, because I checked it out from the library), this is the best, most authentic novel centering on the experience of war that I have ever read, barring perhaps All Quiet on the Western Front.

It is the story of Marine Lt. Mellas, who is based at least to a certain extent on Marlantes himself.  Marlantes can be seen in the History Channel documentary "Vietnam in HD"...which is kind of a dumb name for such a good miniseries...describing an assault on a hill just south of the DMZ, during which he earned a Navy Cross.  In the documentary he describes elements of the battle that make it into the book.

Anyways, Lt. Mellas finds himself in charge of a platoon of Marines from Bravo Company, 1st Batallion, 24th Marine Regiment. The company CO is buckling under pressure, the Batallion commander is a colonel with a drinking problem hungry for glory and his general's stars, and the war they fight together is not one based on territory but on body counts and politics.

It does have all the elements of your usual Vietnam narrative:  the meaninglessness, the numbered hills taken and abandoned only to be taken again, the drugs and alcohol and steaks in the rear, the hope of nights with bar girls in the paradise of Okinawa.

But the book is laced with details that ring with authenticity and deep emotion;  making coffee with pieces of C-4, the fear of attack at night, leaches dropping from the trees, jungle rot eating away at flesh, the eerie beauty of NVA traces arcing through the night from an adjacent ridge, jungle utilities that hang in rags off of starving, tired bodies, racial tensions threatening to tear the platoon apart.

I am grateful that Marlantes has written such a powerful novel, and shared his experiences with the world.  If war can only be understood by those who have experienced it, then I think that the many of us who live our lives in peace should try to stare into the tragedy of war with all of its complexity, so that we might not joyfully send of our best and brightest to die.  Reading books like this would help us to consider better the truths of war in the future, and we'd all be better for it.