Into the Valley: Marines at Guadalcanal [Paperback]

John Hersey (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2002

John Hersey (1914–93) was a correspondent for Time and Life magazines when in 1942 he was sent to cover Guadalcanal, the largest of the Solomon Islands in the Western Pacific. While there, Hersey observed a small battle upon which Into the Valley is based. While the battle itself was not of great significance, Hersey gives insightful details concerning the jungle environment, recounts conversations among the men before, during, and after battle, and describes how the wounded were evacuated as well as other works of daily heroism.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Brings home, as do few war stories, one of the hundreds of thousands of little episodes which make up this war. . . . It might be held up alongside Stephen Crane''s Red Badge of Courage."—New York Times

(New York Times )

"Will be part of the abiding literature of this war."—The New Republic

(The New Republic )

"Terse, faithful, moving."—The New Yorker

(The New Yorker )

"Hersey has produced one of the good pieces of writing which must emerge from this war."—The Saturday Review of Literature

(The Saturday Review of Literature )

"Hersey is skillful in communicating what he saw and felt, and his skill gains strength from the fact that he describes not a brilliant action, but an obscure one which was successful in a qualified and unspectacular way, gaining its ends only after some things had first gone wrong. His story is successfully, in fact, what it claims to be: a reality of war, seen at the closest of quarters."—Manchester Guardian

(Manchester Guardian )

About the Author

John Hersey wrote several nonfiction books and numerous novels, including A Bell for Adano, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Product Details

• Paperback: 164 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803273282
• ISBN-13: 978-0803273283
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #741,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Told As It Was, September 1, 2003

By 

Lee N. Minier (Albion, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Into the Valley: Marines at Guadalcanal (Paperback)

Please do not be put off by fours stars: this is a superb book about early WWII written by someone who 'was there'. The lack of a fifth star merely reflects my desire to have seen a longer, even more in-depth, book. I was born in 1950, so my knowledge of those days is gained mostly by people like John Hersey. Also, my uncle (and namesake) was a member of Edson's Raiders--and he was there, too. I have had the great good fortune to have met many of the Raiders and others on Guadalcanal and I find "Into the Valley" to be most accurate of the descriptions told to me by these veterans. All human, the Marines had to draw on their training and leadership to get themselves through the bitter fighting and to prevail against unsettling odds on Guadalcanal. Hersey allows us to see the Marines as human--young boys and men, for the most part. He paints success and he paints failure with an honest brush. This is a "must read" for anyone interested in WWII and the South Pacific.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for what it is, April 5, 2007

By 

B. Dunn (SoCal, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Into the Valley: Marines at Guadalcanal (Paperback)

I was pretty surprised by how short this book was -- not counting illustrations, there are maybe 45-50 pages of content here. That said, it gives a really good perspective on being in battle and how the every-day must have been. It feels a little "cleaned up" and therefore slightly propagandistic (e.g., no one swears, no one is lazy, everyone is helpful to the writer, etc.), but for me at least, that's also helpful in understanding the time and place. The other issue is that you never for a moment forget that this is being written by a journalist (and not by an infantryman) -- the book never pretends to be anything else, though, and the reporter's POV is still useful and in some ways perhaps better for its "objective" third-partyness.

All-in-all, worthwhile for anyone interested in the subject matter.

bkd

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic!, July 1, 2008

By 

brian "eldoaker" (Baltimore, Md.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Into the Valley: Marines at Guadalcanal (Paperback)

I loved this book because, along with Guadalcanal Diary, it is one of the only contemporaneous narratives of life on Guadalcanal. I only wish it were 1000 pages. Most war memoirs are seemingly written 30 years on whereas this book has a great sense of immediacy...read it if you love WW2!