Rating
The Pequod Review:
A classic book of Vietnam reportage, Michael Herr's Dispatches takes an unconventional and mythopoeic perspective in focusing on war more generally — what it does to its participants and how it impacts a nation. Through it all he appreciates the horrors of war but also the excitement and allure of battle. Near the end of the book, Herr describes a memorable moment when his friend Tim Page was asked by a publisher to write a book that would "once and for all take the glamour out of war":
Page couldn’t get over it.
“Take the glamour out of war! I mean how the bloody hell can you do that? Go take the glamour out of a Huey, go take the glamour out of a Sheridan … Can you take the glamour out of a Cobra, or getting stoned on China Beach? It’s like taking the glamour out of an M-79, taking the glamour out of Flynn … you can’t take the glamour out of that. It’s like trying to take the glamour out of sex, trying to take the glamour out of the Rolling Stones.”
He was really speechless, working his hands up and down to emphasize the sheer insanity of it.
Recommended.