James Jones (1) (1921–1977)

This is on my to-read list for a while, because I have long been a fan of the Terrence Malick film and wanted to see how the novel compared.

The film is a typical Malickian meditation on man's desecration of nature (and himself). Witt is the moral voice of the film, asking a series of questions that are basically Zen koans: what is this war in the heart of man? What is this war in nature? It came out the same year as Saving Private Ryan, a more jingoistic film that went on to win Best Picture while TTRL was relegated to the dustheap.

The blurbs compare TTRL to All Quiet on the Western Front and Red Badge of Courage. All three consider the meaning of courage in the face of the absurdity of war. Jones presents courage as an act: everyone in C-for-Charlie Company is terrified of their first attack up the Elephant's Head, but the social pressure to not seem like a coward in front of peers is too strong to cause men to turn in free in the face of likely, and pointless, death.

It is this social pressure that is the fulcrum on which the war turns. I think Jones is playing with an existentialist metaphor: there are a few soldiers who seem to accept death, and volunteer for the most dangerous missions. They are the few making a moral choice outside of the battle numbness and the fog of war. A clerk named Fife is presented as a coward who eventually must conquer his fear, only to be evacuated for a bum ankle at the end of the novel. He also makes a moral choice to flee the theater of war, leaving the comrades who pushed him to face death in battle. He resists the social pressure to stay with the group.

This is a profound novel that gives real insight into the culture of an Army company during WWII.… (mere)