Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Book Review: The Thin Red Line by James Jones
Writing Style-5.6
Originality-5.1
Plot-5.5
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-5.7
Overall-5.6
I was really excited about this book because I loved the movie and I loved the first book in James Jones’ World War II trilogy, From Here to Eternity. But, it didn’t come anywhere near to living up to expectations.
I don’t think there are any characters that carry over from From Here to Eternity. I really think the only thing that ties the trilogy together is that they are all military stories set during World War II. Also, the first two are sort of chronological in that From Here to Eternity is about preparation for the war and The Thin Red Line is during the war.
The Thin Red Line is actually loosely based around the battle for Guadalcanal. There is a disclaimer that Jones’ took a lot of liberties with how the actual battle played out. But still, it is about a company of soldiers taking hold of an island in the Pacific from the Japanese. This is also about the only similarity that it had to the movie. I’d like to go back and watch the movie again now that I’ve read it, but from what I can remember of the film, there are a ton of differences. The film actually is a lot better and more powerful than the book, which I can rarely say about a novel adaptation. [As an aside here, Terrence Mallick, the director of The Thin Red Line has a new movie coming out this weekend called The New World centered around the love story between Pocahontas and John Smith. It looks good from the preview except for the fact that it stars Colin Farrell, not sure what that is about. Also, it seems weird that they are releasing it at this time of year when it is about two weeks late for award nominations. And by the time next year rolls around everyone will have forgotten it. This might be a bad sign, or perhaps Mallick just doesn’t care and he just finished the film when he finished it. We’ll see. I’ll let you know. I plan to see it this Friday. FYI, Amy.]
The book reminded me a lot of The Red Badge of Courage. It had a lot to do with how people actually react in combat. Not so much about a Rambo type of courage but a more real world experience. This is always interesting. Of course, The Red Badge of Courage was a nice, concise snapshot of courage under fire whereas The Thin Red Line is far too long, clocking in at over 500 pages. I realize that he was trying to encompass the whole Guadalcanal battle from landing on the island to fully controlling it, but the combat gets repetitive. I think that it would be much more interesting if he used the blueprint of Red Badge and presented a sort of combat “slice of life” only it would be updated to World War II Pacific Theater battle, which is clearly a bit of a different experience from the Civil War.
Also, related to this, I thought that I might like The Thin Red Line as much as or better than From Here to Eternity because it had actual combat and I thought maybe this would make for more exciting reading. But the opposite was true. The combat was so repetitive that I sort of became de-sensitized to the violence and horror of it. This is another argument for shortening the book as I’ve described.
I also think that Jones’ could have narrowed the focus in terms of the number of main characters. There are far too many main characters and they are all so much alike that you can’t keep them straight. If all these characters are so similar you can’t tell them apart then there obviously is no need for all of them to get across the major themes of the book.
So there you have it. This is one of the many books that I liked, but would have liked much better if I could have changed things about it. I highly recommend From Here to Eternity. It has a lot more heart and soul, which seems weird since The Thin Red Line is about war and dying and violence and so forth, but that’s just the fact of the matter. If you really love the writing in From Here to Eternity and crave more then there’s no real reason not to pursue The Thin Red Line, but you don’t have to just because they are published as a “trilogy”. They can stand on their own. But, I certainly wouldn’t read Red Line over Here to Eternity.
Originality-5.1
Plot-5.5
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-5.7
Overall-5.6
I was really excited about this book because I loved the movie and I loved the first book in James Jones’ World War II trilogy, From Here to Eternity. But, it didn’t come anywhere near to living up to expectations.
I don’t think there are any characters that carry over from From Here to Eternity. I really think the only thing that ties the trilogy together is that they are all military stories set during World War II. Also, the first two are sort of chronological in that From Here to Eternity is about preparation for the war and The Thin Red Line is during the war.
The Thin Red Line is actually loosely based around the battle for Guadalcanal. There is a disclaimer that Jones’ took a lot of liberties with how the actual battle played out. But still, it is about a company of soldiers taking hold of an island in the Pacific from the Japanese. This is also about the only similarity that it had to the movie. I’d like to go back and watch the movie again now that I’ve read it, but from what I can remember of the film, there are a ton of differences. The film actually is a lot better and more powerful than the book, which I can rarely say about a novel adaptation. [As an aside here, Terrence Mallick, the director of The Thin Red Line has a new movie coming out this weekend called The New World centered around the love story between Pocahontas and John Smith. It looks good from the preview except for the fact that it stars Colin Farrell, not sure what that is about. Also, it seems weird that they are releasing it at this time of year when it is about two weeks late for award nominations. And by the time next year rolls around everyone will have forgotten it. This might be a bad sign, or perhaps Mallick just doesn’t care and he just finished the film when he finished it. We’ll see. I’ll let you know. I plan to see it this Friday. FYI, Amy.]
The book reminded me a lot of The Red Badge of Courage. It had a lot to do with how people actually react in combat. Not so much about a Rambo type of courage but a more real world experience. This is always interesting. Of course, The Red Badge of Courage was a nice, concise snapshot of courage under fire whereas The Thin Red Line is far too long, clocking in at over 500 pages. I realize that he was trying to encompass the whole Guadalcanal battle from landing on the island to fully controlling it, but the combat gets repetitive. I think that it would be much more interesting if he used the blueprint of Red Badge and presented a sort of combat “slice of life” only it would be updated to World War II Pacific Theater battle, which is clearly a bit of a different experience from the Civil War.
Also, related to this, I thought that I might like The Thin Red Line as much as or better than From Here to Eternity because it had actual combat and I thought maybe this would make for more exciting reading. But the opposite was true. The combat was so repetitive that I sort of became de-sensitized to the violence and horror of it. This is another argument for shortening the book as I’ve described.
I also think that Jones’ could have narrowed the focus in terms of the number of main characters. There are far too many main characters and they are all so much alike that you can’t keep them straight. If all these characters are so similar you can’t tell them apart then there obviously is no need for all of them to get across the major themes of the book.
So there you have it. This is one of the many books that I liked, but would have liked much better if I could have changed things about it. I highly recommend From Here to Eternity. It has a lot more heart and soul, which seems weird since The Thin Red Line is about war and dying and violence and so forth, but that’s just the fact of the matter. If you really love the writing in From Here to Eternity and crave more then there’s no real reason not to pursue The Thin Red Line, but you don’t have to just because they are published as a “trilogy”. They can stand on their own. But, I certainly wouldn’t read Red Line over Here to Eternity.
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Saw the New World last night and it was beautiful, really absolutely gorgeous. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, especially if you saw Thin red Line and thought it was tedious. There are a lot of similarities: long segments without dialogue, great cinamatography, poetic narrative where the main characters ask questions of themselves and life and nature and so forth, lots of shots of trees, flowing grass, water, etc.
I loved it, amy did too.
it's a great love story. I was thinking, what are some of the greatest movie love stories out there? Recent ones like Walk the Line and Lost in translation came to mind almost immediately.
I loved it, amy did too.
it's a great love story. I was thinking, what are some of the greatest movie love stories out there? Recent ones like Walk the Line and Lost in translation came to mind almost immediately.
How about Amelie? And the less seen but equally good A Very Long Engagement by the same director and lead actress.
Growing close in an unusual situation can most certainly be called love dont you think?
[indieWIRE: What inspired you to make "Lost In Translation"?
Sofia Coppola: For a while, I've wanted to do a movie in Tokyo. I knew the setting. I wanted to shoot at the Park Hyatt hotel, and I wanted [to shoot] the neon at night, and I wanted to make something romantic. I wanted to make a **LOVE STORY** without being nerdy. But it mostly came from time I spent over there when I was younger.]
**My caps
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Growing close in an unusual situation can most certainly be called love dont you think?
[indieWIRE: What inspired you to make "Lost In Translation"?
Sofia Coppola: For a while, I've wanted to do a movie in Tokyo. I knew the setting. I wanted to shoot at the Park Hyatt hotel, and I wanted [to shoot] the neon at night, and I wanted to make something romantic. I wanted to make a **LOVE STORY** without being nerdy. But it mostly came from time I spent over there when I was younger.]
**My caps
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