Review of Dispatches by Michael Herr
I was attempting to delve further into New Journalism and came across Michael Herr’s novel on the Vietnam War; recommended and mentioned as a good example by Tom Wolfe. Herr was in Vietnam writing for Esquire magazine and this book when first published in 1977 was the first book to write from the perspective of the average ‘grunt’. Herr wrote some of the voice-over for Apocalypse Now and co-wrote the screenplay for Full Metal Jacket later on. Sections of dialogue are taken straight from the pages.
It's a jarring dive through the foxholes and madness of Vietnam. The dark insanity of it all, the laughing, stoned, thousand-yard stares and ‘crazy’ humour of the soldiers and the ever-waiting violence of a Jungle war. It flicks its perspectives as New Journalism seems to from the War correspondent, deep amid the flying shrapnel and the men doing the fighting. The detail of the locations, different phases of the war, different missions and technical jargon are all there but coloured in with the endless snippets of conversation with and between soldiers. The darkness that inhabits their every waking hour. Endless recollections of dead comrades, names nearly forgotten and some ‘shit’ they got up to.
The relentless tales of marines going too far, doing things that in the normal world would be so far from what was considered acceptable, but in Vietnam, they are barely worth mentioning. Everyone had a few ears right?
The book dives from one mission to another, through the city warscape that we see in the later scenes of Full Metal Jacket. Something we associate more with World War II than Vietnam – which we imagine as all Jungle and not urban. The scale of the American war machine is ever present, the tonnage of bombs used to wipe the very vegetation from the side of a hill, mostly without killing any actual enemy. The pointless Catch 22 stupidy of all those in charge. The further up the chain of command they are the less grounded in reality anything they say is.
Towards the end, it perhaps loses a little momentum but the comedy element comes more into play, as it delves into the life of the war correspondents. Vietnam had more than your average war it seems. They are everywhere and they too formed their own bond which would never be broken. But their War was punctuated with holidays and breaks and they were all volunteers. “You volunteered for this shit?” is asked often and by everyone. “Why?”
Mostly what comes across and the reason this book had such a profound influence is that these men, who may or may not have once been normal, will never be again. They are affected forever, even the reporters. The ghosts will follow them around for the rest of their life.
The New Journalism style when applied to something so horrific and vivid, really does have a strong effect. It’s claustrophobic at times, impossible to escape the horror. You are there with them on the LZ, bullets flying over your head, deep in the Jungle as you are ambushed again, flying sideways in a helicopter as you take fire from the Jungle.
Vietnam sounds and feels like Hell on Earth.