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Amazon.co.uk Review
If you've seen the movies Apocalypse Now and Platoon, in whose scripts Michael Herr had a hand, you have a pretty good idea of Herr's take on Vietnam: a hallucinatory mess, the confluence of John Wayne and LSD. Dispatches reports remarkable front-line encounters with an acid-dazed infantryman who can't wait to get back into the field and add Viet Cong kills to his long list ("I just can't hack it back in the World", he says); with a helicopter door gunner who fires indiscriminately into crowds of civilians; with daredevil photojournalist Sean Flynn, son of Errol, who disappeared somewhere inside Cambodia. Although Herr has admitted that parts of his book are fictional, this is meaty, essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Vietnam.
Michael Herr, who wrote about the Vietnam War for Esquire magazine, gathered his years of notes from his front-line reporting and turned them into what many people consider the best account of the war to date, when published in 1977. He captured the feel of the war and how it differed from any other theatre of combat, as well as the flavour of the time and the essence of the people who were there. Since Dispatches was published, other excellent books have appeared on the war--may we suggest The Things They Carried and The Sorrow of War--but Herr's book was the first to hit the target head-on and remains a classic. --Simon Kelly
Review
'We have all spent ten years trying to explain what happened to our heads and our lives in the decade we finally survived - but Michael Herr's Dispatches puts all the rest of us in the shade' HUNTER S. THOMPSON
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Insightful and real. I was a combat photographer for the Army in I Corps in 1968 to 1969.His activities mirrored mine to the degree that on every page I just kept nodding my head, yes, that was the way I saw it, too; yes,that happened to me, too. And just keep recording it on paper and on film. His acceptance of distorted reality kept him going and me as well. Herr made me realize that no amount of preparation could get one ready for the horror that was Viet Nam and, that I was not crazy, only traumatized.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is not a book about why the Vietnam War was fought. It may not even be a book about what it was like to actually fight in the war, but it is a book that clearly, and often with a twisted and strange language, shows what it was like to be surrounded by a war in which you were only an observer.
It is worth reading the book just for the cast of characters it contains - Tim Page, Dana Stone and Sean Flynn could not have been invented and if you have watched either "Full Metal Jacket" or "Apocalypse Now" you will recognise the soldiers within the book.
Don't read this book if you want an account of tactics and battles - a point some of the other reviewers seem to have missed. This book is about the Vietnam War looking from the inside outwards towards the world; it is about the war as an experience, not an historical event.
The freedom that Herr and the other journalist had to go where they pleased, when they please gave rise to both language and images that did not sit well with government - and the way that wars have been covered since this time reflect the desire to control the flow of information from war zones.
This is a stunning book, the likes of which may never be produced again.
It is worth reading the book just for the cast of characters it contains - Tim Page, Dana Stone and Sean Flynn could not have been invented and if you have watched either "Full Metal Jacket" or "Apocalypse Now" you will recognise the soldiers within the book.
Don't read this book if you want an account of tactics and battles - a point some of the other reviewers seem to have missed. This book is about the Vietnam War looking from the inside outwards towards the world; it is about the war as an experience, not an historical event.
The freedom that Herr and the other journalist had to go where they pleased, when they please gave rise to both language and images that did not sit well with government - and the way that wars have been covered since this time reflect the desire to control the flow of information from war zones.
This is a stunning book, the likes of which may never be produced again.
28 of 30 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A whole book of cameo snapshots - surreal, stoned, " cassette roll and rock in one ear and door gun fire in the other" with these linked memories woven together Herr has taken us back to the time he watched the madness. If you ever want to try and understand the Vietnam war, or want to see it, the blood, the fear, the humour, cynicism, the irony, she sheer futility of it all, through the eyes of a professional observer then this is the only book for you. I first read it twenty years ago and every time I read it, it just gets better. It's multi layered, a book you can dip into at any page and marvel at Herr's ability to recount the insanity with evocative prose of immense power. If I could write like this, I'd want nothing more from heaven. Its humbling, funny, profound, disturbing. Its awesome.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
An angry and poetic account of being at war
Dispatches had been on my list of books to read for a while. Having just finished it I don't know why I waited so long. This is a book about Herr's memory of being in Vietnam. Read more
Published 9 days ago by P. M. Skelton
what war is
this is perhaps the best known memoir from the vietnam war but it is more then that. it is not just a memoir about the war but is a broad look at what war is in general. Read more
Published 21 days ago by john
An essential read
Dispatches is a well written book on the futility of war and the damage it causes everyone, in mind and body.
Published 2 months ago by Pilgrim
Herr's Hell
Heavee...What else can you expect from a first hand reporter's revue of war?
Michael Herr has been to hell and survived. What's unusual about that? Read more
Michael Herr has been to hell and survived. What's unusual about that? Read more
Published 4 months ago by duncan cameron
A Journey into Hell
This book takes the reader close to understanding the sheer frustration, boredom, helplessness, ferocity, and blind fear of fighting men operating in forward positions against a... Read more
Published 9 months ago by David
An Intense Journey
It's easy to see why Michael Herr's Dispatches is hailed as one of the greatest pieces of war reporting of all time. Read more
Published 11 months ago by CitizenWolfie
Fantastic read, but grim
One of the most unputdownable books I've read. Fascinating, gripping, great writing but very hard to stomach. Read more
Published 11 months ago by minornine
What is this?
As a university teacher I am forever telling my students to "Define your terms." Before any Literary work can be fully judged and evaluated a clear and binding set of parameters... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Andrew W
"The horror! The horror!"
I first read this book some 30 years ago, not long after its publication. Even "splurged," and bought the hard back version. Read more
Published 12 months ago by John P. Jones III
Dispatched
Great book about the journalistic style of reporting in the 'American war' the end seemed a bit disjointed/rushed. Read more
Published 14 months ago by S Danger
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