Customer Reviews

The Fearless Man: A Novel of Vietnam

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The two main characters in the book are Mac, the Dirty Delta Company commander and Father Paul, a Navy chaplain, assigned to Mac's Marines in Vietnam during 1967-1968. After fighting the VC and NVA in a jungle raid upon suspected enemy caches just off the Ho Chi Minh trail, Mac's company is rushed northward to try and help retake Hue' City in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, a great military victory for the U.S. but a better propaganda victory for North Vietnam thanks to the media. There are descriptive firefights in the book but much of it is devoted to the thoughts of these men as various tragic situations confront them. Mac is a law school dropout who describes himself as a civilian caught in the Crotch until his tour is over. He develops into the best company commander in the battalion. Plus he has the assistance of Gunnery Sgt. Hitchcock, a battle hardened (maybe even blood thirsty)and combat savy fighter. Father Paul, a Catholic priest, has absolutely no idea what he has gotten himself into and loses his courage while huddling in a shell crater, trying to muster up the courage to go to a wounded Marine who is calling out for him. The ups and downs of the officers' wives back in the States waiting for their men to return are also looked at as well as the increasing polarization of Americans in their view of the war and its morality. Brought back a lot of memories for this old vet. There are Nam novels out there with better battle scenes but the philosophical approach of the main characters in the book makes for absorbing reading.

I seldom rate a book that I've read all the way through as less than a four star book, because if I don't think they're that good, I don't finish them. This book was an exception to that loose rule in that I felt sure early in the book that it was going to be very good, but I became more and more disillusioned with it as I plodded to the final page. My fundamental problem with the book was that I never felt the author did a good job of clearly describing what was going on so that the reader could follow and visualize the story. At first I thought that might have been a writing style, but as it repeated itself, I just concluded it was a writing flaw. In my opinion, great writers put the reader into the story so that they can see and feel what's going on. This author either couldn't or chose not to do that for me in this book.

And, that's a shame and a lost opportunity for me, because the story of this book is a pretty interesting one about a very strong combat leader and his friend, the chaplain. Their personalities and experiences in life and in combat provided a sturdy skeleton of a story that might have become what I'd rate as a great book. Instead, because of what I see as a failute to clearly describe what's happening, especially in the combat scenes, I found this book to be more and more of a chore to read rather than a joy. You may read it and have a totally different view, but, if you ask me, I'd say you'd be better served to read anything written by James Webb rather than this book.

This book joins the classic and very best portraits of men in battle. Its accounts of the fighting on the ground in VietNam will ring true to any who have entered that hellish zone we call combat and emerged alive, relatively intact, with the hope that they can rejoin and still make a life in the world at home and with the women they left behind.

This is not just a book for men and it is not simply a war story. It is for all of us. It is about an unending phenomenon in the human experience - war - and how civilized people struggle to do what they must and, at the same time, keep alive the feelings and values that, within, they treasure. Readers who have not experienced combat will find Pfarrer a clear eyed and sympathetic but never bathetic guide to and within this other world that each generation seems destined to create, this parallel world that has clear boundaries and into which we often send our best.

"A Fearless Man" succeeds brilliantly in communicating the complexities and stresses of both combat and the spiritual component of life. In a clear, dialogue-driven manner, Donald Pharrer's depiction of men in battle and wives in waiting examines the ambiguities and certainties that define their existence. This is a book that you will remember long after the final pages have been turned, because the protagonists' struggles inform the decisions that every person faces when life turns tough. Read it and be prepared to ponder!

A wonderful read all the way to the last chapter or so when "Hollywood" took over. An accurate depictment of combat throughout until one's imagination went astray.

This book depicted the Vietnam War from several different view points and did a terrific job. It is a great read for anyone interested in this time period in our country and how it affected the people involved, from soldiers, to family members, to politicians, to draft dodgers. I would highly recommend it. The story captures the reader from the first page to the last page.

Donald Pfarrer has brought into being a vivid, living work of art, a classic story of men at war. The Fearless Man joins a handful of Vietnam books that have transcended the genre; it is a coolly amazing epic, a well drawn, reflective work of literature.

The story follows two men, Mac Clare, a law student who drops out to volunteer for service in Vietnam, and Paul Adrano, a Jersey boy who joins the priesthood against his father's wishes. Adrano, a navy chaplain, arrives in Vietnam and volunteers for duty with the Marines-hoping that combat will confirm his faith and the existence of God. He meets Mac Clare, a company commander who leads from the front. Mac Clare is a Marine's Marine, an officer whose seemingly unshakable courage conceals a deeply thoughtful and conflicted soul. These two unlikely companions are thrust into the crucible of war, combat made real, almost visceral by Pfarrer's taught, rhythmic prose. Pfarrer portrays the swirl of jungle fighting with scrupulous detail and piercing emotion. Multiple narrative threads contain Adrano's struggle with faith and temptation, Mac's agony at the loss of his men, and the quiet, valiant ordeal of Mac's beautiful wife, Sarah, who waits with other officer's wives back in Quantico, all of them knowing their worlds hang by a thread... a thin cord waiting to be cut by a single telegram.

With its comrades, Dispatches, by Michael Herr, The Things they Carried, Tim O'Brien and Tobias Wolff's In Pharaoh's Army , The Fearless Man strikes to the heart and remakes our judgments of the Vietnam war and the soldiers who fought it. Let me expand Donald Pfarrer's peer group: The Fearless Man joins The Red Badge of Courage, A Farewell to Arms, and The Naked and the Dead as one of the most impressive and best books of the American language.

Powerfully written, masterful in its description and commanding in intellect, The Fearless Man will become a classic.

An excellent read! The plot kept me thoroughly absorbed. The battle descriptions are vivid and harrowing. I felt, in contrast to some reviewers below, that the characters were very well developed. If you enjoy war novels, you will enjoy this book.

Throughout the reading of this novel, I was entirely engrossed. Yet, in the end, I was oddly unsatisfied. The book is subtitled "A Novel of Vietnam," but--aside from the setting--the book could have been written in any American war zone. The uniqueness of Vietnam was barely confronted. It was a fine war novel, but to compare it to the Vietnam novels that directly deal with the confounding aspects of that war is inaccurate.

Perhaps the author intended to write a novel that universally addressed the moral conundrums of battle--not just those in Vietnam. Or perhaps the author wished to address the existence of God in an overtly cruel world. Those, in fact, would be grander ventures. Unfortunately, the narrative does not rise to those sweeping purposes, either. We know nothing of the enemy, little of the average marine, and never have clarity regarding the motivation of the principals. Consequently, readers cannot adequately fathom the choices--moral or amoral--made by them. Finally, frustratingly, the narrative lets Mac off the hook morally for his choices in Hue, thus, obscuring one's ability to understand him or the war.

It seems the author intends to expand his insight into certain characters, but gets lost or disinterested. For instance, about a third of the way through the novel, Pfarrer seems to consider elucidating the motivation (and perhaps even mental stability) of Gunnery Sargeant Hitchcock. Unfortunately, he jettisons that aspect, and, ultimately, presents the reader with a simple hellbent-for-leather marine, a characterization just this side of stock.

That being said, this is a good and worthy novel. The battle scenes are meticulously detailed and carry the verisimilitude that could only come from one who had similar experiences. The narrative is gripping if not profound. It raises questions --ontologically and morally--that are potent in a war context. Unfortunately, the novel does not have the depth to allow any answers.

Three quarters of the way through The Fearless Man, I simply abandoned reading it.
While the experience of the grunt in Vietnam was captured realistically, the characters were two-dimensional - from Mac to the Chaplain to the women back home . A shame because Pfarr's Vietnam is vivid and harrowing. But to truly add depth to the novel, a good deal more craft is required.