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Dispatches
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Dispatches by Michael Herr
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My review: This book is developed out of a collection of essays Herr wrote for publication in magazines during and after his time spent as a war correspondent in Vietnam. The subject is gruesome, but Herr's writing is lovely and makes this a rather enjoyable read despite the ugliness of the war he is writing about. I also liked that I had already read Graham Greene's novel The Quiet American, since Herr mentions that book a lot. The edition I read of Dispatches had a nifty timeline in the front section that gave Herr's biography alongside the history of the Vietnam conflict and significant pop culture (books and music mostly), which was interesting.
I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads.
I just used my audible credit on this one thanks to these reviews
5 starsI tend to like war novels, but have not read a great deal of nonfiction about any war. I went into this book knowing that a couple of Goodreads friends had rated it highly, so I was hopeful. And it was even better than expected. Five plus stars.
The Vietnam war has been written about extensively, and recently I have read a few fiction books set in the war. But, Michael Herr's Dispatches is by far the most intimate. It is a close, eloquent and meaningful picture of the war. I was a child during the era and had a mother who turned off the television when these images were broadcast, so I do not have any firsthand or secondhand knowledge of the war. I know only what I have seen in movies and read in books, and I felt like I had learned a lot. This book showed me the details. It showed me the men. It showed me the pain. I felt transported to the war, and I am grateful for his openness. Despite the fact that it is written in reflection, looking back on the war, the intensity is there.
Herr was a war correspondent working for Esquire magazine when he arrived in Vietnam in 1967, at the age of 27 (five years older than the average age of the men fighting in the war). He journeyed with the soldiers throughout the country. He talked with them, ate with them, and slept with them.
He was an observer. He left Vietnam in 1969 and began working on this book. He had a breakdown that kept him from his work for nearly 5 years, but eventually published the memoir in 1977. Herr died in 2016, and it seems as though he came to hate his celebrity. He left the war, but it does not to seem to have left him.
War is forever. This book should be required reading for all politicians.
Mod
This is not really a novel but journalism, nonfiction and takes place during the Vietnam War. Michael Herr was an American writer and war correspondent for Esquire. I grew up listening to these stories and seeing the pictures on the TV. Herr explores not only the war, the soldiers, and the people but also the war corespondents that went to Vietnam and reported on the war. He discussed how loyalties of the correspondents to agencies in the US kept them from reporting the realities of the war. This is about Herr's experience in the war so it is a memoir. Not sure how it contributes to the development of the novel except that it reports on the realities of the Vietnam war. It's a quick read but hard to describe as enjoyable with the death, language, attitudes, and behaviors. It's about the men who fought and reported on the war.
The 100 best nonfiction books: No 9 – Dispatches by Michael Herr (1977) | Autobiography and memoir | The Guardian.
Considered a nonfiction novel, according to Diane Z, the first of the nonfiction novel. Probably.
5/5 stars
“Herr was credited with pioneering the literary genre of the nonfiction novel.”
From Amazon: “From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time.”
Loved this book, brought me right into the Vietnam War. It is so readable and approachable. I eagerly read each chapter. I was inspired to look up places and people I did not know like the Citadel of Saigon and photographers Sean Flynn and Dana Stone. I was also glad to see Graham Greene cited many times and his novel the Quiet American, which I have read and enjoyed. Timing of this book is good as I am looking forward to the Ken Burns Vietnam War documentary coming this September.
“There wasn't anybody he wanted to thank for his food, but he was grateful that he was still alive to eat it, ...”
“He hadn't been anything but tired and scared for six months and he'd lost a lot, mostly people, and seen far too much, but he was breathing in and breathing out, some kind of choice all by itself.”
“(How do you feel when a nineteen-year-old kid tells you from the bottom of his heart that he's gotten too old for this kind of sh-t?)”