"There It Is": Narratives of the Vietnam War / Tom Burns

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burns, Tom, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Vietnam War.

Vietnamkrieg.

War literature.

Kriegsliteratur.

Wissenschaft.

englische Literaturwissenschaft.

Local Subjects:

Vietnam War.

Vietnamkrieg.

War literature.

Kriegsliteratur.

Wissenschaft.

englische Literaturwissenschaft.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (687 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Hannover ibidem 2021

Biography/History:

Tom Burns graduated in Classical Languages and Literature at the University of California, Berkeley, served in the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, and has a doctorate in Literatures in English from the Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil. He is professor of Literature in English at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and co-founder of the Núcleo de Estudos de Guerra e Literatura (Center of Studies of War and Literature) at that institution.

Summary:

This book provides a critical survey of the literature on the Vietnam War and is intended both for academic and general readers. Earlier works of this kind constantly recycled criticism of a half-dozen of the same works. In this study, the aim was to discuss a much greater number of works, including a few that have never been discussed. To appeal to non-academic readers, Lit-Crit jargon was kept to a minimum, and parallels with earlier works of war literature, especially those of the two world wars, were established.

Contents:

Intro

Acknowledgments

Introduction

i. The Vietnam War

ii. The Soldiers

iii. The Narrative Literature of the War

iv. The Present Study

Notes

Part I Partisans

Chapter One Early Adventurers

i. Lieutenant-Colonel Landsdale

ii. Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955)

iii. William J. Lederer &amp

Eugene Burdick, The Ugly American (1958)

iv. M. J. Bosse, The Journey of Tao Kim Nam (1959)

v. Jean Lartéguy, Yellow Fever (1962

English Translation, 1965)

vi. Epilogue: Ward Just, A Dangerous Friend (1999)

Chapter Two Fictional History &amp

Historical Fiction: The Fall of Diem

i. President Ngo Dinh Diem

ii. Stuart Hempstone, A Tract of Time (1966)

iii. Robert Vaughn, The Valkyrie Mandate (1974)

iv. Morris West, The Ambassador (1965)

v. Conclusions

Chapter Three Advisors &amp

Friendlies: Pro-War Novels

i. Optimism in the early phases

ii. Robin Moore, The Green Berets (1965)

iii. Scott C. S. Stone, The Coasts of War (1966)

iv. Richard Newhafer, No More Bugles in the Sky (1966)

v. Gene D. Moore's The Killing at Ngo Tho (1967)

vi. James Crumley, One to Count Cadence (1969)

vii. Charles Larson, The Chinese Game (1969)

viii. Conclusions

Chapter Four Advisors &amp

Friendlies II: Ambivalent Warriors

i. Doubt sets in

ii. David Halberstam, One Very Hot Day (1967)

iii. Daniel Ford, Incident at Muc Wa (1968)

iv. John Rowe, Count Your Dead (1968)

v. Alan Clark, The Lion Heart: a Tale of the War in Vietnam (1969)

vi. Josiah Bunting, The Lionheads (1972)

vii. Bo Hathaway's A World of Hurt (1981)

viii. Donald McQuinn, Targets (1980)

ix. Conclusions

Chapter Five Soldiers &amp

Civilians

i. Protestors &amp

Reporters

ii. Norman Mailer, Armies of the Night (1968).

iii. Pamela Sanders, Miranda (1978)

iv. Thomas Fleming's The Officers' Wives (1981)

v. Joan Didion, Democracy (1984)

vi. Takeshi Kaiko's Into a Black Sun: Vietnam 1964-65 (1968, English trans. 1983)

vii. Bernard Kalb and Martin Kalb, The Last Ambassador (1981)

Part II Modes and Genres

Chapter Six Combat Memoirs

i. Autobiographical War Writings

ii. Ron Kovic, Born on the Fourth of July (1976)

iii. Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War (1977)

iv. Tim O'Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (1975)

v. Frederick Downs, The Killing Zone (1978)

vi. W.D. Ehrhart, Vietnam-Perkasie-A Combat Marine's Memoir (1983)

vii. Robert Mason, Chickenhawk (1983)

viii. Tobias Wolff, In Pharoah's Army-Memoirs of the Last War (1994)

Chapter Seven Allegory

i. Allegorical Vietnam

ii. Jonathan Rubin, The Barking Deer (1974)

iii. Asa Baber, The Land of a Million Elephants (1971)

iv. Victor Kolpakoff, The Prisoners of Quai Dong (1967)

v. Norman Mailer, Why Are in Vietnam? (1967)

vi. Robert Stone, Dog Soldiers (1974)

vii. Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (1975)

Chapter Eight Combat Realism

i. Conventions of Realism

ii. Robert Roth, Sand in the Wind (1973)

iii. Stephen Philip Smith, American Boys (1975)

iv. Tom Suddick, A Few Good Men (1974)

v. William Pelfrey, The Big V (1972)

vi. William Turner Huggett, Body Count (1973)

vii. Larry Heinemann, Close Quarters (1974)

viii. Conclusion

Chapter Nine Combat VS. Ideology

i. Two Authors

ii. James Webb, Fields of Fire (1978)

iii. John Del Vecchio, The 13th Valley (1983)

iv. Comparisons &amp

Conclusions

v. Epilogue: Karl Marlantes, Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War (2010)

Chapter Ten Deviations.

i. Alternatives to Realism

ii. William Wilson, The LBJ Brigade (1966)

iii. James Park Sloan, War Games (1971)

iv. John Clark Pratt, The Laotian Fragments (1974) &amp

Vietnam Voices (1984)

v. Ward Just, Stringer (1984)

vi. Lloyd Little, Parthian Shot (1975)

vii. Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers (1979)

Chapter Eleven Inventions: Fantasy &amp

Metafiction

i. Literature of the Optative Mode

ii. William Eastlake, The Bamboo Bed (1969)

iii. Tim O'Brien, Going After Cacciato (1975)

iv. Nicholas Rinaldi, Bridge Fall Down (1985)

v. Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

vi. Conclusions

Chapter Twelve Correspondents

i. Reporters in the Nam

ii. Library of America collection: Reporting Vietnam (1998)

iii. John Sack, M (1966)

iv. Harrison E. Salisbury, Behind the Lines-Hanoi (1967)

v. Jonathan Schell, The Village of Ben Suc (1967) &amp

The Military Half (1968)

vi. Gloria Emerson, Winners and Losers (1976)

vii. Mary McCarthy, Vietnam (1967) and Hanoi (1968)

viii. James Jones' Viet Journal (1973)

ix. Michael Herr, Dispatches (1968)

x. Conclusions

Chapter Thirteen Ordinary People: Oral Memoirs

i. War Stories &amp

Oral History

ii. Al Santoli, Everything We Had: an Oral History of the Vietnam War by Thirty-Three Soldiers Who Fought It (1981)

iii. Mark Baker, Nam-The Vietnam War in the Words of the Men and Women Who Fought There (1987)

iv. Keith Walker, A Piece of My Heart: The Stories of Twenty-Six American Women Who Served in Vietnam (1985)

v. Wallace Terry, Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans (1984)

vi. Conclusion

Chapter Fourteen Vets: The Return of the Repressed

i. A.R. Flowers, De Mojo Blues (1985)

ii. Jack Fuller, Fragments (1984).

iii. Bobbie Ann Mason, In Country (1985)

iv. Larry Heineman, Paco's Story (1986)

v. Stephen Wright, Meditations in Green (1983)

vi. Michael H. Cooper, Dues: a Novel of War and After (1994)

vii. Tim O'Brien's In the Lake of the Woods (1994)

Bibliography

Primary Works

Secondary Works.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

3-8382-7561-6

OCLC:

1259591280

Publisher Number:

9783838275611