In the monsoon season of 1968-69 at a fire support base called Matterhorn, located in the remote mountains of Vietnam, a young and ambitious Marine lieutenant wants to command a company to further his civilian political ambitions. Two people stand in his way. The first is a well-loved, combat-weary lieutenant of his own age who desperately wants out of the bush but who does not want to leave his Marines with an inexperienced and overly ambitious officer. The second is an angry leader of the company’s radical blacks, who has all the political skill, savvy, and ambition of the protagonist. As the young lieutenant experiences the costs of combat, he sees the terrible results of his actions and begins to question the value of ambition and skill over compassion and heart.
eMusic Review 0
03.23.10
Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn
2010 | Label: Blackstone Audiobooks
An auspicious debut 30 years in the making
Few novelists start their career with a 600-page novel about one of the signal wars from U.S. history. Even fewer write a distinguished, original work. With Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes has done both. The book is a vivid snapshot of Vietnam that’s reminiscent of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, yet not quite like any other American war novel. Marlantes’s sprawling cast is loosely centered around Second Lt. Waino Mellas, a volunteer whose aspirations to make a meaningful contribution to the war effort soon turn to a pure lust for survival. Rather than the heroism and adventure familiar from action movies and the nightly news, Mellas finds a prosaic world of everyday drudgery—not romantic, but much more true to life. Soldiers dig pits in the mud, forego underwear to stave off “crotch rot,” and contend with leeches that climb into their urethras.
This tenuous but stable existence is broken when Mellas and his company are ordered to take Matterhorn, a hill they originally held, then were ordered to abandon to the enemy before being ordered to capture a second time. A plot better suited to convey the absurdity and awfulness of war could hardly be imagined, and indeed Matterhorn is Marlantes’s deep meditation on a soul-deadening war he saw firsthand. In today’s era of embedded journalists, unending commitments abroad, and blood-soaked video games, Matterhorn is a dearly needed reminder of what war really is.
Write a Review 3 Member Reviews
In the thick of it
Not only did Karl Marlantes write this great work, the perfomance from Bronson Pincot pulls you into the story as if you where right in the bush. Feeling the exhastion, wear and tear, and frustration, to the loss of friends, it's all in here.
Staggering
An extraordinary book, moving, exciting and eye-opening. For all of us men who have never been to war but naively think perhaps we could have been, this book tells it like it is. Great narrator too.
Loved this book
I have read and listened to many historical fictions that relate to wars and this by far has been one of the most compelling.
