Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes, Fiction, 598 pages. Check our catalog.
Downloadable Audio.
When we first meet Marine Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas, new to the bush, and fresh from the world, he is struggling to remember just some of the 212 names of the men in Bravo Company. All the Marines, black kids and white kids, look the same to him. He came to Vietnam from Princeton, thinking that if he was running for congress someday, it would be good to do so as a former combat Marine. As the book is winding down, sixty some days and 590 some pages later, congress never crosses his mind, but he does know everyone's name, all of the splibs and the chucks (it's in the book, read it), the living and the dead. He's just Mellas now, or Mel, and he has lived a whole life with them on this one small patch of South Vietnam, on the two hills; Matterhorn and Helicopter hill, near the Laotian border, coming to understand something about the difficulties of race relations, something about love and hatred, and something about the nature of good and evil in this beautiful, sad book. I read this one, but we also have it on downloadable audio and on CD. Really a wonderful book, but for those who don't get the significance of the subtitle, there is a bunch of shooting, killing, and dying-so be warned.-Patrick