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So I finished From Here to Eternity.
I'm not sure about spoilers because I've been talking about it pretty freely so far, but that final portion is...It's something. James Jones once again surprised me.
I don't know if anyone has been following along as I've read this absolute brick of a book, but I can only imagine what they would wonder, if they were, watching me work through a novel like this.
It's old, cynical, sinful, racist, homophobic, sexist and sad. Nobody gets what they want, in the end, nor do they get what they deserve. It is not, I'd imagine, the kind of thing most Dreamwidth readers would really enjoy, or any modern reader at all, considering how much of the book is dedicated to long conversations between characters and finely detailed descriptions of the geography and streets of 20th century Hawaii. Not exactly best-seller stuff.
Thing is, though, it's a damn passionate book, I'd say even a good one, and it is, at the core of it, about nothing less than love.
Physical love, of course - the book's full of that. But also true love, intimacy, the desire, as the book itself says, "to touch another human soul." It's about loves that are impossible, about loves that hurt you, about loves that are only loves, just so long as they stay unfulfilled.
And of course it's about more than that, too - It's about poor whites, and immigrant's sons, it's about Indians and Jews, gays and whores, prisoners and gamblers and class and rank. It's about the poor and the angry and the lost, who end up in the army, not because they belong in the army, but because they have nowhere else to go, or they just love it anyway, to the point where they can't be themselves without it.
It's about being a soldier, in a very particular place in time, and I have rarely encountered a book that has ever made such a thing feel quite so real.
Despite it all, it's a book worth reading at least once, even if it's not the kind of thing I'd put on my favorites list or go out of my way to recommend. It's a bonafide experience, and if you're willing to stick with it, almost guaranteed to give you something to think about, after.
That said I am definitely picking up something less heavy after this, either conqueror's Pride or Orion in the Dying Time, a book that isn't the first in the series but looks interesting anyway.
Sitting back in my chair, I'm thinking Orion, on the sound and logical basis that there's a shirtless guy in tight leather pants and combat boots on the cover, and that's about the mood I'm going for right now.
We'll see how it goes.
I'm not sure about spoilers because I've been talking about it pretty freely so far, but that final portion is...It's something. James Jones once again surprised me.
I don't know if anyone has been following along as I've read this absolute brick of a book, but I can only imagine what they would wonder, if they were, watching me work through a novel like this.
It's old, cynical, sinful, racist, homophobic, sexist and sad. Nobody gets what they want, in the end, nor do they get what they deserve. It is not, I'd imagine, the kind of thing most Dreamwidth readers would really enjoy, or any modern reader at all, considering how much of the book is dedicated to long conversations between characters and finely detailed descriptions of the geography and streets of 20th century Hawaii. Not exactly best-seller stuff.
Thing is, though, it's a damn passionate book, I'd say even a good one, and it is, at the core of it, about nothing less than love.
Physical love, of course - the book's full of that. But also true love, intimacy, the desire, as the book itself says, "to touch another human soul." It's about loves that are impossible, about loves that hurt you, about loves that are only loves, just so long as they stay unfulfilled.
And of course it's about more than that, too - It's about poor whites, and immigrant's sons, it's about Indians and Jews, gays and whores, prisoners and gamblers and class and rank. It's about the poor and the angry and the lost, who end up in the army, not because they belong in the army, but because they have nowhere else to go, or they just love it anyway, to the point where they can't be themselves without it.
It's about being a soldier, in a very particular place in time, and I have rarely encountered a book that has ever made such a thing feel quite so real.
Despite it all, it's a book worth reading at least once, even if it's not the kind of thing I'd put on my favorites list or go out of my way to recommend. It's a bonafide experience, and if you're willing to stick with it, almost guaranteed to give you something to think about, after.
That said I am definitely picking up something less heavy after this, either conqueror's Pride or Orion in the Dying Time, a book that isn't the first in the series but looks interesting anyway.
Sitting back in my chair, I'm thinking Orion, on the sound and logical basis that there's a shirtless guy in tight leather pants and combat boots on the cover, and that's about the mood I'm going for right now.
We'll see how it goes.
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