Dispatches

Rating:
Summary: Still Worth A Read
Review: A classmate gave me this book in 1980, when I was a 13 year old girl with a voracious reading appetite. Strange as it may seem, girls do like war books and this one still stands out in my mind as one of the best written from a nitty-gritty, no-holds-barred point of view. Our history classes never quite made it to an in-depth look at Vietnam even though we were born of an era that witnessed Vets coming home, injured, despondent and forever changed. This book gave me my first understanding of what it was like to be a "grunt" in that war, which the antiseptic history books would never do. It also gave me respect for all who were stuck in that quagmire and how war could make anyone go quite loony. It's very compelling and hard to put down, even for a 13 year old.

Rating:
Summary: Mind-blowing... Left me breathless...
Review: More about the mind than war - Herr's Dispatches is for the unconventional. If you're looking for an epic tome, look elsewhere; Dispatches is for those with just enough cross-wiring to be able to drop into its disjointed self. An introspective yet open rock and roll account of the Rock 'n' Roll generation at war, it left me breathless at the end. At the top of my favorites list.

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary
Review: I have studied literature my entire life and I can honestly say that this IS one of the finest accounts of war (any war) ever written. I will not drop down a level by defending the book to those who simply don't like Herr's writing style. It does take a while to absorb the work and if you just can't get into it, perhaps you should go pick up some Stephen Ambrose.
This is not Ambrose, however. This is more bordering on a blend of history and journalism ("New Journalism" for the schooled) and it is an amazing, hearwrenching account.

For those of you willing to give it a chance, there is a method to the madness, a reason he writes the way he does. It is unapolegtic and unrelenting. Those of you who read it all the way through are smart enough to figure it out.

Rating:
Summary: The Worst Form of "Literary" Torture I've Ever Experienced
Review: I recently was asked to read this "book" for a class, and I nearly died trying. There are numerous passages in this book that are inexcusable, such as "Peoples of the Republic, tumbling dominoes, maintaining the equilibrium of the Dingdong by the ever encroaching Doodah" (Herr 20). Later on, Herr graciously begins to use descriptive, specific language and something to grasp onto, but by then it is too late. _Dispatches_ is suitable as a screenplay, but that's about it. The fallacy of imitative form is alive and well in the first 100 pages of Herr's embarrasing attempt at writing, but all it does is make you squint and moan through vague, nondescript sentences. Read Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," instead.

Rating:
Summary: Not the best book
Review: "The best book I have ever read on men and war in our time" - John le Carre.
This quote is printed on the cover of Herr's book.
I do not know who is John le Carre, but I stopped reading "Dispatches" after struggling through first 54 pages without much understanding what I read about. I do not plan to continue.
I did not like his muddled writing style, period.
There are definitely better books to learn about humans involved in this horrific war, books written by the soldiers (for example a splendid piece of work "A Rumor of War" by Philip Caputo).

Rating:
Summary: good book if you like rambling.
Review: Dont get me wrong by the title, but at times the author seemed to go off on different tangents. I origonally bought this book becase i am a history major, but it lacked on history. but what it did have for me any way were ""s that appear in the movies that he helped write. movies as in fullmetal jacket. however wordy this book was i thought it was a decent book. i have read worse.

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional...
Review: It's hard to tell if this is a great book of literature or a great history book, but then it`s actually both.
It's hard to find a history book written in such vivid style and i have read a LOT of history books. Every page takes you literally "there". While Michael Herr was "there" of course as he was a war correspondent in "'Nam" and it shows. All the films youve seen about Vietnam dont amount to this. An accurate description of the american psyche in the one of the dirtiest wars ever conducted. And Herr doesnt mince his words, you get an "in your face" account of the facts, a gut-stirring story of brutality, dehumanisation, madness, agression and ...war.
Not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Wordy, Wordy, Wordy.....
Review: I started the book several months ago and stopped reading it because I didn't like the style of writing. I started it again last month and struggled to finish it. Herr's writing style is awful. He talks and talks and talks without really saying anything. He may described, for example, a soldier's fear in the jungle. However, Herr gets so chatty with his word imagery that one cannot really follow what he is trying to describe. His style of writing reminds me of Dennis Hopper's character in Apocalypse Now - constant chatter without really saying anything and not understanding what he just said! I would not waste my time again on this book. I was expecting something akin to Caputo's "A Rumor of War". Now, THAT book was good. I recommend skipping Herr's "Dispatches".

Rating:
Summary: What can you say? He's a writer.
Review: The problem with writers is that they are writers. As such they are basically dishonest. This is not Vietnam as told by a soldier. This is Vietnam as told by a piece of garbage journalist who is "in-country" to the precise extent he cares to be and hotfoots it out of there when the going gets rough. In the beginning of the book Herr describes the horrors of night patrol by describing his own abject fear. He then informs the bewildered reader that this is a bit too much for him and he's gonna take his journalistic eye somewhere else. The difference between a journalist and a soldier is that the soldier can't leave when he feels like it and so he doesn't have the luxury of drama. Drama is the luxury of the insincere. And this book is drama. Readers interested in reality rather than cranked-up journalistic dramatics would do better to read Vietnam memoirs by actual soldiers, which are in good supply and are usually written in a matter-of-fact way.

Rating:
Summary: Unrealistic and grossly dramatic
Review: This book over-dramatizes everything. It's not possible to see a look in a man's face and get 6 ultra-dramatic impressions from it. And then to write about every one of them!! Herr might say,"The look in his face could have sheared off a mountain at its base, chopped it into a million pieces and scattered it over a thousand square miles. Puuuhlease!!! A few times in a book such a description adds impact, but this entire book is written this way. Seldom have I seen an author pound a writing technique to such smitherines as this guy does.