The Zed Word
I have eaten your bread and salt.
I have drank your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.
-Kipling
I watched Domino. It was pretty good, I guess. I am not sure what to think of Keria Knightley as an actress. She was decent in Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought about doing some bounty hunting in college. My best friend's wife--I find it hard not to call her my sister-in-law--anyway, her mother is a bail bondsman (bondsperson?) and some of our friends did some work for her. Running down people who'd skipped out on their bail, that sort of thing. Never any mercenary work or reality TV, like in the movie.
I finished From Here to Eternity. It was not bad. I particularly liked the part with the attack on Pearl Harbor. I never identified with too many of the characters, but if you subscribe to the book's philosophy, I guess this means I am out of touch with common soldiers. I don't believe this; I work closely enough with them every day that I know who they are. Their needs and wants and aspirations are very similar to mine. To all of ours. I still am not happy with the way officers were all portrayed as backbiting political jerks. Everybody is entitled to his opinion, I guess.
I am now reading Jarhead, because I wanted to see if the book was as pointless and political as the movie. I guess it is, in a way, but the movie really screwed things up. It is a very difficult book to adapt to the screen; whoever did it obviously failed. But that doesn't make it a great book. Swofford is very self-deprecating and modest, but I get the feeling that it's a coverup for being really full of himself. I wonder if the book has been ghostwritten. Is it possible that he's the only well-read, smart Marine ever to be in the Corps?I can see how many people looking to make cheap political capital on the subject of war may be enamored with this book; but it is not an anti-war book, as much as people like Mark Bowden may want it to be. Swofford questions his commander in chief and the shady connections to big business that his war has back home; he is affectedly jaded about the whole ordeal; but we all are that way. We all hate this job and this place. But it is also the life we've chosen, and a necessary if not noble calling. I have little patience with warriors who hate war. It is tough and brutal and soul-sapping, but this is what we signed on for. Anybody who has any illusions about it being romantic or easy is an idiot. Maybe it gets better toward the end, but I don't know. Again, I am having trouble identifying with the protagonist.
I guess it is difficult to measure up to the great books that have gone on before. I am still looking for something that makes me as proud to be a soldier as Once An Eagle.
I have drank your water and wine.
The deaths ye died I have watched beside,
And the lives ye led were mine.
-Kipling
I watched Domino. It was pretty good, I guess. I am not sure what to think of Keria Knightley as an actress. She was decent in Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought about doing some bounty hunting in college. My best friend's wife--I find it hard not to call her my sister-in-law--anyway, her mother is a bail bondsman (bondsperson?) and some of our friends did some work for her. Running down people who'd skipped out on their bail, that sort of thing. Never any mercenary work or reality TV, like in the movie.
I finished From Here to Eternity. It was not bad. I particularly liked the part with the attack on Pearl Harbor. I never identified with too many of the characters, but if you subscribe to the book's philosophy, I guess this means I am out of touch with common soldiers. I don't believe this; I work closely enough with them every day that I know who they are. Their needs and wants and aspirations are very similar to mine. To all of ours. I still am not happy with the way officers were all portrayed as backbiting political jerks. Everybody is entitled to his opinion, I guess.
I am now reading Jarhead, because I wanted to see if the book was as pointless and political as the movie. I guess it is, in a way, but the movie really screwed things up. It is a very difficult book to adapt to the screen; whoever did it obviously failed. But that doesn't make it a great book. Swofford is very self-deprecating and modest, but I get the feeling that it's a coverup for being really full of himself. I wonder if the book has been ghostwritten. Is it possible that he's the only well-read, smart Marine ever to be in the Corps?I can see how many people looking to make cheap political capital on the subject of war may be enamored with this book; but it is not an anti-war book, as much as people like Mark Bowden may want it to be. Swofford questions his commander in chief and the shady connections to big business that his war has back home; he is affectedly jaded about the whole ordeal; but we all are that way. We all hate this job and this place. But it is also the life we've chosen, and a necessary if not noble calling. I have little patience with warriors who hate war. It is tough and brutal and soul-sapping, but this is what we signed on for. Anybody who has any illusions about it being romantic or easy is an idiot. Maybe it gets better toward the end, but I don't know. Again, I am having trouble identifying with the protagonist.
I guess it is difficult to measure up to the great books that have gone on before. I am still looking for something that makes me as proud to be a soldier as Once An Eagle.
posted by Battler03 at 1:18 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home