Vietnam War in Literature

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Vietnam War in Literature

1.

Fighting and Writing the Vietnam War
by Don Ringnalda. 266 pgs.

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A new paradigm for perceiving the Vietnam War & the literature it produced.

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

One Prospero Goes to Vietnam

Two Guerrilla Texts

Three Stephen Wright's Chlorophyll Overdose

Four Michael Herr's Spectral Journalism

Five Tim O'Brien's Understood Confusion

Six Civilian Perspectives in Peter Straub's Koko

Seven Poems "Whittled from Bone"

Eight the Theatre of Doing It Wrong, Getting It Right

Nine the Paralysis of Uniqueness

T E N Memorials to War

Works Cited

Index
2.

Search and Clear: Critical Responses to Selected Literature and Films of the Vietnam War
by William J. Searle. 215 pgs.

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Search and Clear: Critical Responses to Selected Literature and Films of the Vietnam War

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Section I: The Quest

John Wayne in a Modern Heart of Darkness: the American Soldier in Vietnam

'Old Kids': the Adolescent Experience in the Nonfiction Narratives of the Vietnam War

Mias, Myth, and Macho Magic: Post-Apocalyptic Cinematic Visions of Vietnam

Section II: Differences and Debts

Words and Fragments: Narrative Style in Vietnam War Novels

Vietnam Fiction and the Paradoxical Paradigm of Nomenclature

From the DMZ to No Man's Land: Philip Caputo's a Rumor of War and Its Antecedents

Section III: Craft and Techniques

Fact, Fiction, and Metafiction in James Park Sloan's War Games

When Buffalos Fight It is the Grass That Suffers: Narrative Distance in Asa Baber's Land of a Million Elephants

David Rabe's Theater of War and Remembering

The Past and the Possible: Tim O'Brien's Dialectic of Memory and Imagination

Section IV: Return and Partial Recovery

Soldier's Home: Images of Alienation in Sticks and Bones

Walking Wounded: Vietnam War Novels of Return

Bringing Vietnam Home: Bruce Weigl's the Monkey Wars

Section V: Wider Perspectives

Women in Vietnam War Novels

Born of Two Fathers: Gender and Misunderstanding in Platoon

Platoon and the Mythology of Realism
3.

Warring Fictions: American Literary Culture and the Vietnam War Narrative
by Jim Neilson. 260 pgs.

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A well-documented investigation of the Vietnam fiction canon & an exposure of the critical minds that inadequately defined it.

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Acknowledgments

Introduction: Manufacturing Canons

1: Commercial Literary Culture

2: Academy Literary Culture

3: La Condition Humaine

4: Official Distortions

5: Rock-And-Roll-War

6: America as Home

7: Undying Uncertainty

Conclusion: True War Stories

Notes

References

Index
4.

The Lessons of Vietnam: Using Literature to Introduce Students to the Vietnam War, in Social Education
by Toni Fuss Kirkwood-Tucker, Janet E. Benton. 8 pgs.

Journal Article
5.

Teaching Hearts and Minds: College Students Reflect on the Vietnam War in Literature
by Barry M. Kroll. 200 pgs.

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Preface

1: Reading, Writing, and . . . Vietnam?

2: Connected Inquiry

3: Literary Inquiry

4: Critical Inquiry

5: Ethical Inquiry

6: Lessons

Appendix A: The Battle of AP Bac

Notes

Notes

Appendix B: The Rifleman's Dilemma

Appendix C: List of Course Texts

Notes

Works Cited

Index
6.

Vietnam, We've All Been There: Interviews with American Writers
by Eric James Schroeder. 219 pgs.

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Vietnam, We've All Been There a unique collection of interviews with noted American writers who made the Vietnam war a subject of their work. The writers represented here were chosen by Dr. Schroeder because their books, plays, poems, and reportage are among the best of the particular genre in which each one works - Norman Mailer, David Rabe, and Michael Herr among them. Provocative not only for the opinions and memories of the interviewees, this book is also interesting for its focus on the variety of literary forms and styles that emerged from the Vietnam experience. The author makes the point that the more successful literature to come out of the war was from writers who stretched the limits of particular forms, giving birth to narratives that broke all the rules. For example, where journalism usually demands facts, Michael Herr, the author of Dispatches, insisted on much more. He described psychological states, assessed personal losses, and personified the war in ways that were radically different from accepted reporting. As Dr. Schroeder reminds us, Vietnam deeply affected everyone who lived through it - thus there were many cultural effects that still beg for examination and thought. He spent nine years gathering these interviews and during that time the war was a constant presence in his life. For many Americans even a lifetime may not make it possible to come to terms with the war. And while it is important not to forget where we've been, it is also important to move forward. In this book, the writers we hear from, like the works they created, help us to remember the past with a reflective wisdom that is essential to informing our future.

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Acknowledgments

Introduction

"Playing a Diabolical Trick on the Reader"

"We've All Been There"

"It Became an Absolute Crusade"

"Propaganda in the Purest Sense"

"The Hubris of the American Vision"

"Keep the Levels of Consciousness Sharp"

"Maybe So"

"Novels Are More Polite than a Simple 'Fuck You'"

"Eventually I Had to Confront the Subject"

"Poetry Grabbed Me by the Throat"

"A Harrowing Audience Experience"

Bibliography

Index

About the Author
7.

Vietnam War Stories: Innocence Lost
by Tobey C. Herzog. 244 pgs.

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Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

1: Thematic Contexts

2: Innocence

3: Experience

4: Consideration

5: Aftermath

Afterword

Bibliography

Index
8.

The Viet Nam War/The American War: Images and Representations in Euro-American and Vietnamese Exile Narratives
by Renny Christopher. 344 pgs.

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Preface

One: Introduction

Two: Vietnamese Exile Narratives

Three: U.S. Wars in Asia and The Representation of Asians

Four: Euro-American Representations Of the Vietnamese

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Acknowledgments and Permissions
9.

Connecting Times: The Sixties in Afro-American Fiction (Part I "Novels of the Vietnam War")
by Norman Harris. 204 pgs.

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Introduction: the Quest for Freedom and Literacy

References

Part I Novels of the Vietnam War

1: Black Perspectives on Vietnam: An Overview

2: Captain Blackman and Cultural Literacy

3: Coming Home: Ending Alienation

4: Tragic Magic: A Metaphorical Solution

Part II Novels of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements

5: The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements: An Overview

6: Meridian: Answers in the Black Church

7: Look What They Done to My Song: New Music for the Black Church

8: The Cotillion as Symbol and Reality

9: The Last Days of Louisiana Red: The Hoodoo Solution

Conclusion

References

Index
10.

MIA: African American Autobiography of the Vietnam War, in African American Review
by Jeff Loeb. 19 pgs.

Journal Article
11.

Vietnam and the Southern Imagination (Chap. 8 "The Southern Poet's Vietnam")
by Owen W. Gilman Jr. 206 pgs.

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A revealing look at how the new generation of southern writers links southern cultural heritage & the American experience in Vietnam.

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Acknowledgments

1: The Vietnam War in Southern Time

2: Vietnam and the Warrior South

3: In Which Country?

4: Vietnam and the Flight of Time

5: Regenerative Violence; or Grab Your Saber, Ray

6: Civil War Redux: Brotherhood or Fratricide?

7: Back to Alabama, Heart of Dixie

8: The Southern Poet's Vietnam

9: You Must Go Home Again, but What is Home?

10: Vietnam in the South: Deliverance

Notes

Works Cited

Index
12.

Friendly Fire: American Images of the Vietnam War
by Katherine Kinney. 221 pgs.

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Hundreds of memoirs, novels, plays, and movies have been devoted to the American war in Vietnam. In spite of the great variety of mediums, political perspectives and the degrees of seriousness with which the war has been treated, Katherine Kinney argues that the vast majority of these works share a single story: that of Americans killing Americans in Vietnam. Friendly Fire, in this instance, refers not merely to a tragic error of war, it also refers to America's war with itself during the Vietnam years. Starting from this point, this book considers the concept of "friendly fire" from multiple vantage points, and portrays the Vietnam age as a crucible where America's cohesive image of itself is shattered--pitting soldiers against superiors, doves against hawks, feminism against patriarchy, racial fear against racial tolerance. Through the use of extensive evidence from the film and popular fiction of Vietnam (i.e. Kovic's Born on the Fourth of July, Didion's Democracy, O'Brien's Going After Cacciato, Rabe's Sticks and Bones and Streamers), Kinney draws a powerful picture of a nation politically, culturally, and socially divided, and a war that has been memorialized as a contested site of art, media, politics, and ideology.

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Title Page

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Persistence of John Wayne

Chapter 2: American Exceptionalism and Empire

Chapter 3: Black Historical Authority and the Vietnam War

Chapter 4: The Vernacular of Postmodernism

Chapter 5: Women and the Memory of War

Conclusion

Notes

Index
13.

Carrying the Darkness: The Poetry of the Vietnam War
by W. D. Ehrhart. 288 pgs.

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Foreword to the 1989 Reprint

Foreword

Glossary of Unfamiliar Terms

Michael Anania a Second-Hand Elegy

Philip Appleman Peace with Honor

Waiting for the Fire

Along the Mekong

John Balaban the Guard at the Binh Thuy Bridge

Mau Than

Graveyard at Bald Eagle Ridge

Opening le BA Khon's Dictionary

The Dragonfish

For Miss Tin in Hue

After Our War

For Mrs Cam, Whose Name Means "Printed Silk" 17 April 30, 1975

Dead for Two Years, Erhart Arranges to Meet Me in a Dream

In Celebration of Spring

News Update

Thoughts before Dawn

Story

Jan Bany in the Footsteps of Genghis Khan

Nights in Nha Trang

A Nun in Ninh Hoa

Floating Petals

Green Hell, Green Death

Harvest Moon

Lessons

Letter from an Hoc (4), by a Seedbed

R L Barth the Insert

Postscript

P.O.W.S

Stephen Berg May 1970

D: C Berry the Sun Goes

They Say Spring Came

The Perfume on the Oriental

If I'm Zapped Bury Me

Sgt Sam Sublime Never Died

Robert Bly Counting Small-Boned Bodies

At a March against the Vietnam War

Section VI of "The Teeth Mother Naked at Last"

Free Fire Zone

Igor Bobrowsky the Journey

D: F Brown Coming Home

Patrols

Returning Fire

When I Am 19 I Was a Medic

Illumination

I Was Dancing Alone in Binh Dinh Province

Eating the Forest

Still Later There Are War Stories

First Person—1981

Steven Ford Brown after the Vietnam War

Again

Thomas Brush Waiting for the End of the War

Christopher Bursk Lies

Marylin Butler Listen

Joseph Cady Starting 1973: What to Do Now That Peace Has Been Announced

Hayden Carruth on Being Asked to Write a Poem against the War in Vietnam

Ron Carter Vietnam Dream

Ray Catina Negotiations

Philosophy

Horace Coleman OK Corral East/Brothers in the Nam

Night Flare Drop, Tan Son Nhut

Remembrance of Things Past

In CA Mau

A Black Soldier Remembers

A Downed Black Pilot Leams How to Fly

Frank a Cross, Jr Gliding Baskets

The Fifty Gunner

Rice Will Grow Again

When Chicken Man Came Home to Roost

An Accident

Robert Dana at the Vietnam War Memorial, Washington, D.C

Steve Denning Kim-San

Night on the Kho Bha Dinh

The Movie

Fire Support Burk

This Time

W D Ehrhart Farmer Nguyen

The One That Died

Night Patrol

Guerrilla War

Time on Target

Hunting

A Relative Thing

Making the Children Behave

To Those Who Have Gone Home Tired 97 Letter

A Confirmation

The Invasion of Grenada

The Blizzard of Sixty-Six

' the Light That Cannot Fade '

Charles Fishman Death March

Bryan Alec Floyd Private Ian Godwin, U.S.M.C

Sergeant Brandon Just, U.S.M.C

Corporal Charles Chungtu, U.S.M.C

Lance Corporal Purdue Grace, U.S.M.C

Private Jack Smith, U.S.M.C

Captain James Leson, U.S.M.C

Corporal Kevin Spina, U.S.M.C

Private First Class Brooks Morgenstein, U.S.M.C

David Hall Disgrace

Excerpts from "The Ambush of the Fourth Platoon"

Gustav Hasford Bedtime Story

Armed Forces Day

Steve Hassett Mother's Day

Thanksgiving

Christmas

And What Would You Do, Ma

Patriot's Day

Samuel Hazo Battle News

George Hitchcock Scattering Flowers

Daniel Hoffman a Special Train

Peter Hollenbeck Anorexia

John F Howe the Land

Christopher Howell a Reminder to the Current President

Memories of Mess Duty and the War

Liberty & Ten Years of Return

David Huddle Nerves

Theorv

Bac Ha

Wolds

Cousin

Vermont

Allston James Honor (1969)

Yusef Komunyakaa Somewhere near Phu Bai

Starlight Scope Myopia

A Break from the Bush

Tiger Lady

The Dead at Quang Tri

After the Fall of Saigon

Boat People

Herbert Krohn Can Tho

Farmer's Song at Can Tho

Fenyman's Song at Binh Minh

My Flute

Lucy Lakides Armed Forces

James Laughlin the Kind-

The Mob

Mcavoy Layne on the Yellow Footprints

Gettin' Straight

On Hats & Things

Guns

Beautiful Ladies

Intersection in the Sky

Collect Call

Denise Levertov Excerpt from "Staying Alive"

Lou Lipsitz the Feeding

Dick Lourie for All My Brothers and Sisters

Paul Martin Watching the News

Gerald Mccarthy Excerpts from "War Story"

Arrival

Finding the Way Back

The Sound of Guns

The Fall of Da Nang

The Hooded Legion

Walter Mcdonald the Winter before the War

For Kelly, Missing in Action

Faraway Places

War Games

Caliban in Blue

Interview with a Guy Named Fawkes, U.S. Army

Rocket Attack

Veteran

For Harper, Killed in Action

The Retired Pilot to Himself

Once You've Been to War

Hauling over Wolf Creek Pass in Winter

Thomas Mcgrath Reading the Names of the Vietnam War Dead

Go Ask the Dead

Richard M Mishler Ceremony

Larry Moffi Putting an End to the War Stories

James Moore One Reason I Went to Prison

David Mura the Natives

Huy Nguyen: Brothers, Drowning Cries

Perry Oldham War Stories

Noon

Joel Oppenheimer Poem in Defense of Children

Simon J Ortiz War Poem

Mark Osaki Amnesiac

Basil T Paquet They Do Not Go Gentle

In a Plantation

Night Dust-Off

Basket Case

Morning-A Death

Easter '68

It Is Monsoon at Last

Graves Registration

Mouming the Death, by Hemorrhage, of a Child from Honai

Group Shot

Anthony Petrosky V.A. Hospital

John Clark Pratt Words and Thoughts

Don Receveur Night Fear

August 17, 1970

Eagle in the Land of Oz

Doper's Dream

Dale Ritterbusch Search and Destroy

Larry Rottmann APO 96225

Vem Rutsala the Silence

John C Schafer Battle Lines

Richard Shelton Eden after Dark

Joseph a Soldati Surroundings

William Stafford Report from an Unappointed Committee

Michael Stephens after Asia

The Carp

Frank Stewart Black Winter

Bill Tremblay Mayday

Home Front

Tom Wayman Despair

Teething

Ron Weber a Concise History of the Vietnam War: 1965-1968

Bruce Weigl Sailing to Bien Hoa

Surrounding Blues on the Way Down

Gid at the Chu Lai Laundry

Mines

Temple near Quang Tri, Not on the Map

The Sharing

The Ambassador

Burning Shit at an Khe

Song for the Lost Private

Him, on the Bicycle

Anna Grasa

Monkey

Mercy

Song of Napalm

Amnesia

Deborah Woodard Tower

Ray a Young Bear Wadasa Nakamoon, Vietnam Memorial

Notes on Contributors
14.

Unaccustomed Mercy: Soldier-Poets of the Vietnam War
by W. D. Ehrhart. 148 pgs.

Book

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Title Page

Preface

Contents

Introduction

The Guard at the Binh Thuy Bridge

John Balaban

Along the Mekong

Mau Than

Opening le BA Khon's Dictionary

The Dragonfish

After Our War

For Mrs Cam, Whose Name Means "Printed Silk"

April 30, 1975

In Celebration of Spring

News Update

Thoughts before Dawn

Story

Mr Giai's Poem

Words for My Daughter

Jan Barry

In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan

Nights in Nha Trang

A Nun in Ninh Hoa

Green Hell, Green Death

Floating Petals

Harvest Moon

Lessons

D F Brown

Coming Home

Patrols

Returning Fire

When I Am 19 I Was a Medic

I Was Dancing Alone in Binh Dinh Province

Illumination

Eating the Forest

Still Later There Are War Stories

First Person—1981

Vietnamization

Michael Casey

A Bummer

Road Hazard

The Lz Gator Body Collector

For the Old Man

Hoa Binh

Horace Coleman

OK Corral East/Brothers in the Nam

Remembrance of Things Past

Night Flare Drop, Tan Son Nhut

In CA Mau

A Downed Black Pilot Learns How to Fly

A Black Soldier Remembers

W D Ehrhart

The Next Step

Night Patrol

Farmer Nguyen

Guerrilla War

Hunting

A Relative Thing

Making the Children Behave

To Those Who Have Gone Home Tired

Letter

A Confirmation 63 The Blizzard of Sixty-Six 66 Twice Betrayed

Private Ian Godwin, U.S.M.C

Bryan Alec Floyd

Sergeant Brandon Just, U.S.M.C

Corporal Charles Chungtu, U.S.M.C

Lance Corporal Purdue Grace, U.S.M.C

Private Jack Smith, U.S.M.C

Corporal Kevin Spina, U.S.M.C

Captain James Leson, U.S.M.C

Private First Class Brooks Morgenstein, U.S.M.C

Yusef Komunyakaa

Somewhere near Phu Bai

Starlight Scope Myopia

A Break from the Bush

Prisoners

The Dead at Quang Tri

After the Fall

Boat People

Thanks

War Story [Excerpts]

Gerald Mccarthy

Arrival

Finding the Way Back

The Sound of Guns

The Fall of Da Nang

The Hooded Legion

The Winter before the War

Walter Mcdonald

For Kelly, Missing in Action

Faraway Places

War Games

Caliban in Blue

Interview with a Guy Named Fawkes, U.S. Army

Rocket Attack

For Harper, Killed in Action

Once You've Been to War

The Retired Pilot to Himself

New Guy

The Food Pickers of Saigon

Christmas Bells, Saigon

After the Noise of Saigon

For Friends Missing in Action

Basil T Paquet

In a Plantation

They Do Not Go Gentle

Night Dust-Off

Basket Case

Morning—a Death

Easter '68

It Is Monsoon at Last

Graves Registration

Mourning the Death, by Hemorrhage, of a Child from Honai

Group Shot

Bruce Weigl

Sailing to Bien Hoa

Surrounding Blues on the Way Down

Girl at the Chu Lai Laundry

Temple near Quang Tri, Not on the Map

Mines

Burning Shit at an Khe

The Sharing

Song for the Lost Private

Him, on the Bicycle

Anna Grasa

Monkey

On the Anniversary of Her Grace

Song of Napalm

Amnesia

What Saves Us

Glossary

Recommended for Further Reading
15.

The Vietnam Experience: A Concise Encyclopedia of American Literature, Songs, and Films
by Kevin Hillstrom, Laurie Collier Hillstrom. 323 pgs.

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The Vietnam War was one of the most painful and divisive events in American history. The conflict, which ultimately took the lives of 58,000 Americans and more than three million Vietnamese, became a subject of bitter and impassioned debate. The most dramatic--and frequently the most enduring--efforts to define and articulate America's ill-fated involvement in Vietnam emerged from popular culture. American journalists, novelists, playwrights, poets, songwriters, and filmmakers--many of them eyewitnesses--have created powerful, heartfelt works documenting their thoughts and beliefs about the war. By examining those works, this book provides readers with a fascinating resource that explores America's ongoing struggle to assess the war and its legacies.

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Advisory Board

Preface

After Our War

Apocalypse Now

The Armies of the Night

‘‘The Ballad of the Green Berets’’

The Best and the Brightest

Bloods: an Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans

Further Reading

‘‘Born in the U.S.A.’’

Born on the Fourth of July

A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam

Casualties of War

Further Reading

Coming Home

Further Reading

The Deer Hunter

Dispatches

Fields of Fire

Further Reading

Fire in the Lake

‘‘Fortunate Son’’

Friendly Fire

Full Metal Jacket

Further Reading

Go Tell the Spartans

Going after Cacciato

Further Reading

The Green Berets

The Hanoi Hilton

Hearts and Minds

Home before Morning

In Country

Further Reading

In Pharaoh’s Army

Further Reading

In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

Further Reading

The Killing Fields

‘‘Masters of War’’

Meditations in Green

Further Reading

‘‘Ohio’’

‘‘Okie from Muskogee’’

Paco’s Story

Further Reading

Platoon

The Quiet American

Rambo: First Blood, Part II

Further Reading

The Real War

Further Reading

A Rumor of War

Further Reading

Song of Napalm

Sticks and Bones

Further Reading

The Things They Carried

The 13th Valley

‘‘We Gotta Get out of This Place’’

Winners and Losers

Index

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