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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Awesome.
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...
Published on 2 Dec 2000
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
On balance, a valuable glance at the war in Vietnam.
A very vivid account of what life on the ground was like in Vietnam. I have some knowledge of the war, which was at times necessary to understand a number of references in the text. Hence, I'd suggest reading a more conservative history of the conflict before taking on 'Dispatches'.
The sections at the beginning and end of the book are rather garbled and I...
Published on 3 Feb 2007 by Overseas Reviewer
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
Awesome., 2 Dec 2000
By A Customer
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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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
The first Viet Nam war account I read after I came back., 30 Aug 1999
By A Customer
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.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
A masterpiece, 6 Aug 2006
If you want to find out why the Vietnam war happened, don't read this book, because it won't tell you. If you want to find out how the course of the war unfolded, don't read it - same reason. If you want to find out about how utterly bizarre it was to fight in the war on the American side, then read it. That's what it does better than any other book I've read.
Michael Herr was a war correspondent who went to Vietnam and reported on what he found there in a style that can best be described as 'disciplined gonzo'; no wonder he was hired by Coppola to work on the script of 'Apocalypse Now', that other mad, trippy, scary account of the American end of the war. Herr is not interested in strategy, justifications, the rhetoric of America's heroic mission to liberate the Vietnamese from themselves. Like most of the soldiers he meets, he takes it for granted that that's all a crock of manure. From his perspective, the war is a futile and drug-soaked mess, in which America's participation lacks any kind of honour and dignity. The fact that that's a perfectly rational perspective is still often forgotten by people who like to pretend that the Vietnam war was a well-meant affair that just went astray because those pesky GIs smoked too much grass.
There are other, perhaps more crucial perspectives on the war, not least that of the Vietnamese, who were not only the true victims of it but also, most importantly, the winners - the peasant nation that kicked the crap out of a superpower and forced it into a humiliating retreat. But if you want to understand something about the damage Vietnam did to the aggressors, read 'Dispatches'. Only an illiterate person would deny that it's some of the finest American writing of the last century.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
It's better than that, 18 Feb 2004
I've just read the other reviews of this book. All bar one seem to say it is either a) great because it is so truthful in detailing the awful nature of war, or b) terrible because it doesn't explain the history. Well, it's true it doesn't describe strategy, but how the point of this confusion and lack of context can be missed by someone reading such a book is beyond me. And, as for whether the book tells the truth about war - I have no idea. I'm not sure such a thing even exists. What sealed my admiration for the book - already having been seduced by the skill and passion of the storytelling - was the fact that - rather than being a plea against the futility of war - the book actually acknowledges the glamour of Vietnam. Some guys liked it - some guys loved it - some guys saw the end of the war as a tragedy. Now there's a thought to be left with on closing a back cover.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Gripping and visceral, 7 Jul 2009
"Patrol went up the mountain. One man came back. He died before he could tell us what happened." This is a war story told to the author on p7, and it aptly sets the tone for this bleak yet gripping account of Vietnam. Herr was ostensibly reporting the war for Esquire magazine, but at times here he seemed to be dug in so deeply with the troops (which included his use of weapons) that he appears to be speaking their words as they struggle to make sense of the waste and complexity of the war. There are searing accounts of specific incidents he witnessed, such as the battle of Hué City and the siege of Khe Sanh, together with pen portraits of some of his friends and colleagues (mostly fellow journalists, but soldiers as well).
There are echoes of "Apocalypse Now" in Herr's book, which isn't surprising since some of its characters were based on soldiers he describes here, and he was one of the contributors to the script for that film. His casual use of contemporary jargon here is almost poetic: the most memorable being the expression "back in the world", which is used repeatedly for the post-Vietnam life. As he makes clear in this remarkable book, the things that they'd seen and done while they were there meant that this was never going to be easy.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Frenetic, flickery-eyed genius, 5 Oct 2006
This is the sort of writing that tosses into a mixing bowl the fluid, stream-of-consciousness style of Kerouac and the clear-eyed cynicism of Conrad. The end result is often confusing, garbled, shocking, violent, disconnected, but is an eye-opening account of what it feels like to be fighting an unwinnable war. This is not the strategy, logistics, politics and posturing that often surrounds our modern view of the Viet Nam War. It is what it was really like for the American fighting man on the ground, regardless of how you feel about the morals of the war or those men in the first place. And it also provides some uncomfortable parallels between what happened in Viet Nam then and what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan now.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Compelling war reportage, 16 Dec 1998
By A Customer
This stunning piece of war reportage deserves to rest along side the true fictions of Tim O'Brien and Bao Ninh. Based around Herr's time in Vietnam as war correspondent for Esquire magazine it is a beautifully lyrical examination of the nature of modern warfare. Looking at the glamour as well as the horror of war it doesn't toe the trite "War is hell" line of Hollywood but searches for a more complete understanding. Unafraid of being self-critical this is a powerful and compelling book.
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8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
The true horror of War., 15 Dec 2002
When people first saw Apocalypse Now, Hamburger Hill and Platoon they were shocked by the scenes of violence they portrade, drug taking and in some cases disreard for the 'higher-ups', that were for the most part taken from experiences that people underwent during their 'tour'.To read Michael Herr's 'Dispatches' you get a sense of where some of this hatred for other peoples and their own lives comes from. Not some much about the war insomuch as what went on within the base areas, while trying to get some 'rack time', drinking, smoking 'pot' and trying to find comfort within a country that was being torn apart at the seams by a War that nobody had direct control over. This book has been called 'the best book to come out of the Vietnam War'. Since its release others books have tried to lay claim to this accolade, in my view although some are 'up there', this is the original and the best.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A brilliant, hallucinatory, personal journey, 25 Jan 2002
By A Customer
Not a 'war' book as such, in that Dispatches doesn't really cover the war itself, but a trip through the sheer terror and hell that reigned in the authors head during his time there. I read this book many years ago and I still return to it time and time again. Herr manages somehow to capture a very personal experience, a very surreal and frightening experience and put it onto the page for the reader. Trippy, arrogant, freaky, sickening and exciting all in one read. I promise, if you pick this up you won't put it down. And as soon as you do, you'll want to read it again.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
On balance, a valuable glance at the war in Vietnam., 3 Feb 2007
A very vivid account of what life on the ground was like in Vietnam. I have some knowledge of the war, which was at times necessary to understand a number of references in the text. Hence, I'd suggest reading a more conservative history of the conflict before taking on 'Dispatches'.
The sections at the beginning and end of the book are rather garbled and I did not enjoy reading what, in my opinion, represent little more than rather pretentious ramblings. However, these do not form a large proportion of the text, and the rest is very good and incredibly atmospheric. The battles at Khe Sahn and Hue are featured and I have never read anything that conveys the spectrum of experiences and views of the men involved, both soldiers and reporters, as well as this book.
A considerable achievement in fewer than 300 pages.
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