Customer Reviews

From Here to Eternity

5 star:		(54)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was in the U.S. Army for four years, '67-71. During those years, I did not read Jones, Mailer, or any other military-related novels. I was able to do so a couple of years later. From Here To Eternity struck me as no other novel had. Jones absolutely captured the depravity, decency, tenderness, and brutality of what it is to be a soldier. No one has ever done it better. I read the last page on a bus, and still feel the loss of it ending. I wish it had continued. As good as the other two books in the trilogy, Thin Red Line and Whistle, they do not approach the depth and truth of From Here to Eternity. One of the few great american novels.

If you've heard of this book, chances are you've seen - or at least heard of - the classic movie. Rest assured, no matter how many times you've seen the movie, there's a lot more to discover in the book, as is usually the case. Through the eyes of an all too human soldier on the eve of Pearl Harbor, Jones provides a stark glimpse at the relations between friends and foes in the most basic, fatalistic of surroundings: an Army base on the eve of a great war.

Private Robert E. Lee "Prew" Prewitt is the epitome of tragic heroism, a great man who allows himself to be torn down bit by bit through his own flaws, all the while knowing it and thinking he can beat it in the end. The men he serves with and the harsh environment they create for him are vividly illustrated as well, in unsentimental descriptions of a time and place that are often romanticized by people who weren't there. War IS Hell, and so, Jones reminds us, are the conditions that set the stage for it. Amidst all the ugliness, Prew reflects a somewhat unwilling but noble spirit of persistence in the face of adversity and individuality against the ultimate culture of conformity. Even in the book's more slow-moving passages, the reader is aware that Prew's resilience will inevitably lead to a stormy climax, and when it comes, Jones manages to make it somewhat unexpected but satisfying all the same.

So why only four stars for such a brilliant novel? There are a couple of major flaws here. For one, the pace of the story is wildly uneven; it takes off very quickly just past the halfway point, but those first 400 pages tend to be slow or even stagnant. Jones does a superb job throughout of setting the scene, but at times in the early chapters, there just doesn't seem to be much going on, no matter how vividly we can picture the surroundings. This, of course, is the sort of technique that Hemingway always received so many accolades for; but even he wasn't always so good with it. With other writers it can be excruciating. Then there's the salty language, which is undeniably accurate, but overdone in some places. I don't doubt that soldiers really do talk like that among themselves, but Jones pushes that aspect of military life to the point of self-parody, even using it in his more formal third-person narratives on occasion. (Does anyone ever really refer to the absence of hunger as "a comfortably full bowel"? And is there any reason to do so other than to turn the reader's stomach?) Even non-squeamish readers might grow tired of this long before the end of the book.

There is a reason why the movie is more famous than the book: it simply isn't a quick or easy read, and it's not for everyone. But for fans of World War II-era novels or military fiction in general, it's a giant of the genre. Enjoy it, but expect to do so slowly.

It is almost a pity that the movie From Here to Eternity was one of the greatest movies ever made. This is because not only will fewer people read the book, but because it is so rich in character, mood and plot that you could make five movies without duplicating any scene. The only problem is that Sgt. Warden would be a key actor in each movie and there are no actors like Burt Lancaster in Hollywood today.

One reviewer criticized the book for its pacing: there are slow sections and faster moving chapters, but this is an accurate reflection of military life, where you will have boredom alternating with intense excitement. So Jones just reflects the world he depicts in his pacing.

There are only two crucial works of fiction about World War II which must be read: From Here to Eternity and James Gould Cozzens' Guard of Honor. The action is minimal in both (non-existent in Guard of Honor: it all takes place on a Florida airbase over the course of a weekend) but both capture the times like no other book. They complement each other, too, with Jones capturing the life of enlisted men and Cozzens doing the same for officers.

One word of warning, however. If you are of a mind to read Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead (not that I recommend it), read Mailer first. Once you've read Jones, you will not be able to wade through Mailers' sophomoric, tedious, preachy tome. At the end of 900 pages of From Here to Eternity, I was sorry to see the book end. After 50 pages of The Naked and the Dead, I feared that it never would.

"From Here to Eternity" is an epic about life in the Army at Schofield Barracks in Oahu, Hawaii, in the months preceding the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Jones portrays the Army as a system in which enlisted men are like pawns in a political chess game played by the officers. The everyday drudgery of Army life contrasts sharply with the promise of high adventure advertised by the recruiting posters. A common peacetime practice is rewarding soldiers for athletic prowess that has little to do with their military training, and boxing is a popular pastime.

Private Robert E. Lee "Prew" Prewitt, having grown up dirt poor in eastern Kentucky and spent much of his adolescence as a vagrant, does not have many options in life and serves in the Infantry with the intention of being a career soldier. When the novel begins, he has just transferred into G Company where, much to the chagrin of his superior officers First Sergeant Milton Warden and company commander Captain Holmes, he is unwilling to join the boxing team despite the fact that he is a champion welterweight. His superiors try to break him by putting him through systematic psychological intimidation they call "The Treatment." Prew is wise to their motives, but accepts it with cynical indifference.

Meanwhile, Warden is having a clandestine affair with Holmes's wife Karen, whose promiscuity is a rebellion against her imposed domestic lifestyle as an Army wife. Prew also has a love interest, a prostitute named Lorene, who provides sanctuary when he gets into trouble.

The climactic incident of Prew's "treatment" occurs when he gets in a scuffle with a sergeant named Old Ike (who, oddly enough, talks like Yoda). Prew is sentenced to the Stockade, where he must endure swinging a sledgehammer on a rockpile, solitary confinement in the "Hole", and sadistic guards who wield a reign of terror through physical abuse. When one of the guards beats an inmate to death, Prew vows revenge, and making good on it is yet another step in his downward spiral. And here I think it's worth mentioning that Jones writes some of the best fight scenes ever.

What I liked most about "From Here to Eternity" is that, for a military novel, it avoids formulas of jingoism and contrived heroism in order to tell realistic stories about soldiers who are not necessarily honorably dedicated to fighting for their country, and are doing so more out of being in the wrong place at the wrong time than out of patriotism. This is reflected in Prew, who lives for the Army and ultimately is destroyed by it in more ways than one, and the several other disparate characters Jones introduces to emphasize the Army's internal conflicts. And the most indelible memory this novel leaves me is Jones's succinct and brilliant description of a suicide victim's final thoughts in the split second after pulling the trigger of the rifle lodged in his mouth.

Easily one of the top 100 books of the century.

Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt and 1st Sergeant Milton Warden were more interesting than any two characters from any book that I can remember. Each with their own code that occassionally jives with the Army code. Jones has a sharp mind and his characters do much philosophizing. Prewitt spends his time looking for the answers and living up to his own code. He never makes it easy on himself. He always takes the tough way.

Warden, who seems more in control than any character in the book, will occassionaly take a dangerous risk just out of boredom.

An earlier review stated that Prewitt was too smart for his education, but it struck me odd that Warden had read most of the books on Prewitt's "to read" list. Where does a First Sergeant get that much time to read?

The relation between men and women in this book was also quite interesting. As is the relationship between the soldiers themselves.

Give it a look. I'm moving onto The Thin Red Line.

This book captures the mindset of how many enlisted military men think. Whether a war is about to happen, or we are at peace time, enlisted men enter the military, based upon the wonderful promises of adventure, heroism, and "be all you can be."

In the military social conditioning, those who enlist are taught to live for the military. They are taught to disown their limitations, feelings, needs and wants, for the good of military missions. This includes taking what comes your way, as being part of developing your right of passage.

The main protagonist in this story, Private Robert E. Lee, "Prew" Prewitt, finds himself constantly in trouble, amongst his peers, and with the girls that he chooses. But he won't allow the reality to be something to drive him to think of the here and now.

He is so removed from the here and now that he is willing to put up with anything, this includes being brutally beaten up, and being in the stockade. He has that conditioned military mind set of, "Oh. I can handle it. Bring it on."

What impresses me most about this novel is from page one, through the last page, there is so much to absorb, think about, process, and consider from so many angles.

Reading this novel offers readers a glimpse into the human condition, and a chance at making some pretty powerful decisions about living in the here and now.

When he witnesses another person being beaten to death, Prew becomes consumed with revenge. His commitment of revenge becomes self-fulfilling. Which leads him further down the path of destruction.

And what I most admired about this novel is

The Army serves as microcosm in this novel--not a particularly original or inspiring technique--but the probing depth of the character study displays a profound understanding of human capacity for love, hatred, violence, cruelty and self-destruction . . .

Okay, the itemizing of theme and ordeal in this satisfyingly unpretentious work of art makes commentary like my ponderous opening as pointless and muddled as it comes across: a cold, barren critque of a book far too vast to write off so condescendingly. From Here to Eternity tells a story of men in that very hotbed of macho cliches: the military on the eve of World War II. All of your classic stereotypes are re-imagined: the hard-boiled individualist, the tough yet sensative sergeant, the drunken fools and lascivious pigs, the violent, self-doubting brutes, the high-faulting, arrogant officers and the long-suffering army wives and miltary brats--each one of these characters is either given birth to here or expanded and humanized so deeply that you cannot help but experience all their carnal lusts and hopeless longings right alongside them.

Taken back and pulled forward to the present one begins to see through the encrypted miltary codes and notices men of every walk of life wandering passionately through each situation, locked up inside their doubts and too proud to stop trying to become what they can never hope to be. For all the history, for all the drama (and sometimes melodrama) of Jones' searing vision, the true picture of life he exhibits here is striking. It is a massive portrayal of man under strain, trapped in jobs they are loyal to and love, but can never hope to get ahead at due to the snivelling incompetence of superiors or the selfish agendas of men so far out of their class and league that the very indivudual understanding the book so boldly expresses is not taken into their consideration. Apparently such is Army life . . .

Jones wrote a masterpiece, a truly gargantuan book that deploys its rage at every target of masculine emotion, from the petty prejudices that are justified simply by living to the rainbow of dreams that we all know will never come true. It exposes the lies that we tell ourselves when we need something to hope for and the outcome of such tragic delusions.

If there is one criticism to be made it relates to something that frankly helps to express certain situations more convincingly. There are sometimes long, rambling, ultimately nonsensical passages of drunken joy and drunken loathing, written so convincingly drunkenly that the reader just knows that Jimmy was plastered, giggling no doubt over the sheer authenticity of his character's ambitions. These are not necessarily poorly written scenes (nothing is poorly written in this book and neither is anything so achingly profound that you find yourself remembering one single line that defined your own understanding of some larger issue), but they are sometimes distracting, particularly when you are so caught up in the action that they occur around the 200th page you've read in a single sitting, mournfully flipping ahead to realize you're not even halfway through.

And yet the length is required, pouring more and more of the same thing over and over again until it is no longer a story but an epic of life being lived out before your eyes, telling you the reasons for living and the reasons for dying. It is a prayer, ultimately, a blunt, harsh prayer for mankind that swoons its serande of mutual understanding in a blunt, harsh manner of impatience. It will stay with you for a very long time . . .

Oddly enough, I first read this novel in the early 1950s when I was a child, and the sweaty barbaric brutality of it scared the wits out of me. No one can deny the sinewy power of this book. The peacetime army of the Schofield Barracks in the late 1930s is gone, of course, but the bitterness and cruelty, the brotherhood and cameradie can be found wherever men work and live together. This novel shows the effect of both Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe (author of LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL) on American writing. One of the most impressive features of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY is the way Jones orchestrated his many characters, themes, and plots. He wrote with a masculine, despairing/ecstatic voice that was his alone in American literature. I am very sad that this wonderful novel is currently out-of-print and will probably be forgotten altogether soon, because I've read it 4 times and consider it a part of my life at age 49.

I've read only a few war novels in my day and most of them are about, well, war. Which is interesting and all, but there's only so many ways you can depict war as horrifying and dehumanizing, and the soldiers involved as both heroic and all too human, the command structure as haphazard and detached. So I wasn't looking terribly forward to the prospect of diving into yet another massive examination of soldier life, and yet, that's not really what this is about. Jones' novel isn't so much about WWII as about sitting on the cusp of WWII, taking place in the months just before Pearl Harbor. Everyone is training for a war that may or may not happen, more or less hanging out in Hawaii, killing time in between drills with drinking or prostitutes, living the Army life as best they can. The story pivots around two characters, enlisted fellow Prewitt and staff sergeant Warden, following their separate stories as well where they intersect, and how they interact with everyone around them. Prewitt's tale is the slightly more visceral of the two, he's an excellent boxer that refuses to go out for the team, even though his superiors would very much like him to. They'd like him to so much that they'll go to nearly any lengths to break him, in order to make him fall in line and fit in, with the entire company eventually trying to wear him down. It's a rather frightening depiction at times of the military's somewhat necessary need for comformity taken to a new level, stamping down on anyone who dares to deviate. Meanwhile, Warden is attempting to hold the company together, and pursuing an affair with the wife of his superior officer. The stories of these men collide with everyone else they come into contact with, as Jones vividly relays military life on the base and in the town, detailing the trials and loves the men endure and force themselves into. It's a surprisingly angry book at times, the language coiled and sharp, etching out the duality of the longtimers who both love and hate the Army that nourishes and captures them. The salty language and somewhat brutal scenes are shocking not in how graphic they are but how frank and matter of factly they're presented. The prose achieves a strange jagged beauty in parts, as Jones dives right into the minds and emotions of the men involved. It becomes, as I said, not a book about war but about people at war. Pearl Harbor doesn't even occur until most of the book is over with. It's not the fastest paced book, the early chapters are necessary to set up everything that will come later but you are going to be about halfway through before all the setting up starts to gain momentum but after that it barely pauses. It's tragic and visceral and sort of beautiful in its own way, not because it glorifies but in the way it shows everything, the times when the system beats them down, the small moments of friendship, the way men you depend on with both look out for you and let you down, sometimes in the same moment. Surprisingly readable despite the length, it carries a fire and passion that most books can't even approach. Probably one of the best military books ever written that doesn't involve long descriptions about how a gun works.

It's been noted before in these reviews, but the strength of the film "From Here to Eternity" almost acts as a counterweight against this book, because we all think we're in such a hurry that we'd rather watch the 2-hour movie than read the 800+ page novel. Yes the movie is phenomenal, one of the all-time greats, and in fact yes as a work of art it is probably a little better than the book...but the book is GREAT, it gives so much more depth to the characters than the movie (any movie) could ever hope to do. If you want to swim, see the movie. If you want to dive and explore, read the book. That's my advice.

The book makes much deeper points about human life than the movie does, and that's the chief reason to read it. Jones wasn't just going for a portrait of Army life before the war, he was going for a portrait of ALL life, at least life for people at or below the poverty line, which is where most people are whether they want to admit it or not. All the characters, from Maggio to Warden to Alma (but Prewitt in particular), are living symbols of a culture that destroys most of its men and women before they even get a chance to start their lives by crushing them under the need to spend those lives scrambling for survival. But more than this, the book shows how we defeat OURSELVES by falling into the low expectations of the culture. "The Man" doesn't need to hold us down, Jones says; we do it for him. The book shows how Prewitt slowly, steadily defeats himself by refusing to play the game of life, refusing to exploit his talents for his own gain, refusing to accept that life is just simply unfair so play along with it and take what comes your way, even if it's for someone else, because it's not coming around again. Prewitt knows he's stubborn, he knows he's only beating himself, and nobody cares if he holds onto his principles or not---but he DOES hold onto them, at terrible cost, because his principles are all he has to hold on to. He has no power, no money, no property, nothing. Holding onto these ideals keeps him down and makes his life hard and small, but without them, without his honor, then his life is totally meaningless and it doesn't matter what privileges come his way. Prewitt and the others are trapped, and they know it, and there's nothing they can do about it. So maybe devoting their lives to inherently empty concepts like "The Army" or "country club respectability" is the best they can hope for.

So why only 4 stars out of 5? Well, the only quibble I'd have with this book is that it makes its point too many times. After page 600 or so you get it, you're with Jones all the way, but it gets to be too much after awhile. You kind of wish he'd get to Pearl Harbor and move along. But his writing is so powerful, his characters so real, his ideas so profound, it's hard to say anything against the book. It's just a fantastic picture of humanity.