Walking Point: American Narratives of Vietnam [Hardcover]

Thomas Myers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 1988 | ISBN-10: 0195053516 | ISBN-13: 978-0195053517 | Edition: First edition.

Arguing that the unprecedented nature of our first postmodernist war demanded either the revision of traditional modes of war writing or the discovery of new styles that would render the emotional and psychological center of a new national trauma, this study assesses the most important novels and personal memoirs written by Americans about the Vietnam War. Myers examines the work of Tim O'Brien, David Halberstam, Ward Just, Stephen Wright, John Del Vecchio, and others working in the modes of realism, the classical memoir, black humor, revised romanticism, and mnemonic narrative. Drawing on the work of thinkers such as Hayden White, Fredric Jameson, and Michel Foucault--whose understanding of the written text as a battleground of competing historical voices expands any definition of historical text--Myers defines the historical novel as a text that self-consciously and imaginatively shapes lived experience into a readable aesthetic form.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Meyers combines literary criticism and historical analysis in his examination of representative Vietnam novels and memoirs. The works of Graham Greene, Philip Caputo, David Halberstam, Michael Herr, and Tim O'Brien are among those discussed. Myers evaluates these texts within five distinct frameworks: realism, the classical memoir, black humor, revised romanticism, and mnemonic narrative. His analysis of the discrepancy that existed between mythic idealism and sordid reality in the Vietnamese conflict as compared with earlier wars, and its effect on the American conscience, is especially interesting. Along with Philip Beidler's American Literature and the Experience of Vietnam ( LJ 2/15/ - correction: Martine de Courcel's Tolstoy: 8 the ultimate reconciliation ( LJ 5/1/88), which was to have been published by Scribner's in May 1988, will not be published until Au gust. 83), this book belongs in all research-level literature collections. William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Walking Point is by far the best commentary I have read on the literature of the Vietnam War: lucid, thoughtful, and full of fresh insights, not only on the writing to come out of the War, but on the War itself. Too often, Vietnam War fiction and memoir has been viewed as a dark and exotic tributary of the American literary mainstream. Thomas Myers performs an invaluable service in showing that its headwaters begin with Crane, Melville, and Cooper, and that it is as much a part of our national literature as the works of Heller, Mailer, Jones, and Hemingway."--Philip Caputo

"Intelligent, well cited and wide-ranging."--Journal of American Studies

"This book belongs in all research-level literature collections."--Library Journal

"The critical method gives the analyses breadth and depth, and the extensive notes and secondary references provide resonance and authority to readings that could stand firmly without the assistance of either....Walking Point is well conceived and deftly written, a major contribution to both literary criticism and American intellectual history."--American Literature

"Reaches far beyond its topicality of subject to become one of the most astute analyses of not just fiction abou the war but of the larger transformation that has come to characterize the style of writing other critics have labored to call postmodern, poststructural, innovative, or antitraditional....Stands as one of the best self-contained treatments of what distinguishes post-modern American fiction."--American Literary Scholarship

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; First edition. edition (July 7, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195053516
• ISBN-13: 978-0195053517
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,878,210 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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