Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War

by John Steinbeck, Thomas E. Barden (Editor)

Although his career continued for almost three decades after the 1939 publication of The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck is still most closely associated with his Depression-era works of social struggle. But from Pearl Harbor on, he often wrote passionate accounts of America’s wars based on his own firsthand experience. Vietnam was no exception. Thomas E. Barden’s Steinbeck in Vietnam offers for the first time a complete collection of the dispatches Steinbeck wrote as a war correspondent for Newsday. Rejected by the military because of his reputation as a subversive, and reticent to document the war officially for the Johnson administration, Steinbeck saw in Newsday a unique opportunity to put his skills to use. Between December 1966 and May 1967, the sixty-four-year-old Steinbeck toured the major combat areas of South Vietnam and traveled to the north of Thailand and into Laos, documenting his experiences in a series of columns titled Letters to Alicia, in reference to Newsday publisher Harry F. Guggenheim’s deceased wife. His columns were controversial, coming at a time when opposition to the conflict was growing and even ardent supporters were beginning to question its course. As he dared to go into the field, rode in helicopter gunships, and even fired artillery pieces, many detractors called him a warmonger and worse. Readers today might be surprised that the celebrated author would risk his literary reputation to document such a divisive war, particularly at the end of his career. Drawing on four primary-source archives―the Steinbeck collection at Princeton, the Papers of Harry F. Guggenheim at the Library of Congress, the Pierpont Morgan Library’s Steinbeck holdings, and the archives of Newsday ―Barden’s collection brings together the last published writings of this American author of enduring national and international stature. In addition to offering a definitive edition of these essays, Barden includes extensive notes as well as an introduction that provides background on the essays themselves, the military situation, the social context of the 1960s, and Steinbeck’s personal and political attitudes at the time.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, War, Journalism, Classics, Military Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2012

About the author

John Ernst Steinbeck was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters."
During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward F. Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas The Red Pony (1933) and Of Mice and Men (1937). The Pulitzer Prize–winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. By the 75th anniversary of its publishing date, it had sold 14 million copies.
Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists.

Reviews

[Brian Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author who immortalized the Dust Bowl era lived long enough to document the Vietnam War, an unknown fact about Steinbeck. His energy was flagging (he had a couple of major health scares, most likely heart attacks) but he was still searching for the post-WWII role of America in the world. Concerned with the decline of morality and nobility in the world at large, he continued to search for it all over the continental United States and finally accepted an invitation to the Vietnam conflict at its height (1966-1967). His dispatches reflect a deep concern for the outcome of the war. His son served in the conflict, and Steinbeck was a good friend to LBJ (their wives went to college together). Although he was often accused of being a communist, Steinbeck was very much anti-communist. His sympathies lay with socialist restrictions on unbridled capitalist excess, but he absolutely rejected the strict grip of total government control.

These dispatches capture the chaos and calamity of this nastiest of wars, and we can read Steinbeck turn from castigating war protestors as privileged middle class isolationists towards questioning the war himself. In fact, his widow Elaine said that if he hadn't become very frail and rapidly decline in health upon his return, his future writings were going to reveal how he had come to change his mind about the war, finding in the field that the war was a colossal waste of blood and treasure, dividing Americans as never before. All we have left to us (as Steinbeck died of heart failure in December 1968) are these dispatches, mini-essays that give us Steinbeck's unique pastiche of the conflict, an often confusing battlefield in which Steinbeck provided these fascinating clarifying glimpses.

[Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few years ago after reading Once There Was a War, I wrote in my review, "I've never read newspaper stories like these. If only our local newspaper would hire Pulitzer prize winning novelists as reporters." I didn't get that feeling from Steinbeck in Vietnam. It just didn't seem very 'Steinbeckian', though I thought it was interesting. I was surprised at Steinbeck's emphatic denigration of the antiwar movement. I think the whole thing might have been better if he had left the politics out of it, although maybe that wasn't so easy to do with the Vietnam war. The afterword by Thomas E. Barden was quite good and went a long ways in redeeming the overall impression left by the book.

[Penny -Thecatladybooknook · Rating 4 out of 5]

My interest in Vietnam and love of Steinbeck's writing in the many novels of his that I've read seemed a perfect combination when I found out about this book. This is a compilation of dispatches he wrote for Newsday, I daily publication on Long Island, NY. The Preface, Introduction and afterword by Thomas E. Barden were quite good and provided information on what politically had led to American troops being increased in Vietnam as well as ties up impressions from Steinbeck's writing on how his opinion changed (as you can also see through reading the dispatches) from being against the War to becoming a supporter for the troops.

Having read this account and another nonfiction account by a veteran plus a fictional account by a veteran of this war, I appreciated Steinbeck's mission to see for himself what was actually going on over in South Vietnam vs being a propagandist as many ended up being. All said and done, I prefer the accounts (even fictional ones based on experiences).

Steinbeck travelled to more than South Vietnam to get a full picture of how and where the V.C. were using surrounding countries and the natural elements of the land to increase their threat. It was interesting to see his take on the land and peoples that were sometimes victims of circumstance that the Communists came in to exploit (and maim and kill) to try to get ahead.

As far as reporting goes he wished that other reporters had been brave and taken the chance to ride with pilots and walk through rice paddies and come under gunfire as he did.

The opposition seems to increase in direct relation to the distance from the danger. The most hysterical objector to this war is the man or woman farthest from it. There are many American writers whom I admire and respect who find themselves in violent opposition to this war.....Indeed they have only one thing in common--they have not been there.

But one thing I can promise any fellow writers. If they ill come out and associate with the war they detest, they will not hate war the less, but they will know what they are talking about, and this is a valuable thing for a writer.

And to the people who hated our troops for what they were doing: What I have been celebrating is not war but brave men. I have in a long life known good and brave men but none better, braver nor more committed than our servicemen in the far east. They are our dearest and our best and more than that--they are our hope.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always enjoy reading a historical analysis of an important period in time. Going through the tactics behind some of the Revolutionary War generals is very fascinating. Seeing the diplomacy behind Neville Chamberlain's appeasement strategy before World War II is endlessly interesting. However, despite all of that, I find that someone with boots on the ground has a wholly different perspective on the war then a historian 80 years later. When Steinbeck went to Vietnam he did so toward the end of his life. This little war overseas turned out to be a huge disaster for America; Steinbeck's time as a war correspondent occurred at the height of America's effort in Vietnam 1966-67. Something that struck me about these articles is how entrenched in the field he actually was. Here was possibly the most well known author in the world and he very well could have died next to other servicemen. More than once does he encounter a sticky situation. Part of the reason he wanted to be a war reporter was so that he could spend time with his son who was fighting for the US army at the time. A real sense of bonding comes through the pages.
It seems that his columns were well received as well as being widely circulated among the public. Even though he wouldn't publish another book, and this one is populated solely by newspaper articles that he wrote whenever he could find time, his writing here is immensely rich. His descriptive ability of the Vietnam landscape, villages, and people is still impressive. Steinbeck had a tremendous eye. Not only was he able to paint a vivid picture of the landscape with his words, he was also able to read the minds of those around him. Do I know if he read those minds accurately? No. The trick is he is able to convince me that he's right. That is the hallmark of a great writer.
Before I started this I was pretty skeptical of the format. I've read short stories, novels, but never had I read a whole book comprised of just war correspondence. It does work though because there are enough pieces that in the end it feels like Steinbeck's journey in the war is one big arc and not simply a daily grind.
I've read online that he barely received the Nobel Prize for Literature because a lot of critics deemed his "later work" to be somewhat bad. I don't understand that. Sure, it's a big pivot from his earlier works in certain respects, but his core strengths never went away. They wavered at times, but people clearly did not understand how significant John Steinbeck was to American Literature. They still don't.
Lastly, I just want to say that I was impressed by this. Some of the stories are outdated, but war is timeless. Steinbeck managed to capture the desolation and destruction that follows in wars' path. The correspondence articles are accompanied by an impressive introduction and notes by the editor Thomas E. Barden. No doubt he spent countless hours putting this collection together. It was worth every second.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A grippingly personal compilation of Steinbeck's Vietnam war correspondence, "Steinbeck in Vietnam" is just as personably bookended by Thomas Barden's veteran prose. I hope these dispatches help those of my Iraq/Afghan generation of veterans, as much as Steinbeck's missals to Alicia connect with Barden's Vietnam generation. This is a good read across generations. My thanks to Thomas Barden for bringing these to light in a caring way.

[Nancy Hartney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steinbeck must be commended for his efforts to report the VN war. He travelled to the country as a hawk, and by the time he left, a dove. He never seemed able to make the leap from his fictionalized "The Moon is Down" to the U.S. role in Viet Nam and the American soldier's occupation thereof.

[Art · Rating 4 out of 5]

still digesting.

[Dave Carroll · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have just finished reading "Steinbeck In Vietnam" a compilation of the authors dispatches from the war in 1967. With it, I have completed a journey started five years ago: the chronological reading of a the works of one of the greatest American writers of all time.

Like most people, I had read a novel or two and believed I understood Steinbeck's point of view based upon my perceptions of his greatest work, The Grapes of Wrath.

In the process of releasing the first of my three novels at the time, I felt that I needed to understand what happens as a writer's perceptions evolve and how that ultimately affects his writing which inspired this literary adventure.

Like so many of his time, Steinbeck was a writer moved by the realities of contemporary history. While blessed with a measure of privilege, he did do hard labor jobs in his early years which made him sympathetic to the American working man, particularly as he was so indescribably ravaged by the affects of the Great Depression.

But Steinbeck witnessed and, as a writer, participated in the great rebound of the American ideal forged in the fires of the Second World War and sharpened to indomitability in the post war years. Though branded as a communist sympathizer by his critics, this label is indicative more of the extremity and simplicity of his critics rather than an understanding of his unshakeable belief in the capability of the American people when they each apply their shoulder to the wheel.

His writings during World War II, both his novels and his correspondent dispatches, reveal that same profound impression in the common man previously depicted as a down and out family man working for pennies in the field now exemplified as the turret gunner in a B-29 bomber.

The humility, bravery and selflessness of both evolved him politically to despise the politics of Russia and China and to embrace a worldview what would now be considered as "neoconservative."

Being a Cold War era Democrat and friend to the likes of Kennedy and Johnson meant being a supporter of the war in Vietnam. Likewise, it birthed repulsion for those who protested against the war for which Steinbeck had little patience.

Like the common man of the two previous eras of his writing, Steinbeck revered the men who, rightly or wrongly, answered their nation's call and went to war for a cause they didn't quite understand.

This book documents Steinbeck's foray into that war torn nation and its strife ridden East Asian neighbors with a hope of inspiring his fellow writers and long loyal readers who were decidedly in opposition to it, of its righteousness.

Having had a lifelong attraction to noble causes and having spent years crafting his definitive work on King Arthur, Steinbeck latched onto the idea of America being that shining city on the hill and first Kennedy then later LBJ the latter day Arthurian figures that would make the world great, righteous and noble.

Ironically, this same mythic ideology would be exemplified by the likes of Reagan-era Republicans to come. Of course, after five weeks of Vietnam, Steinbeck found himself coming to grips with the crushing reality of the war's futility, his confidence shaken in those who were leading good men in a pointless endeavor. Though his final published work reflect an optimism in our effort, his private letters reflect his sadness in the reality.

Reading Steinbeck this way struck home in that his personal and political evolution mirrored my own youthful household. Our family was a by-product of the depression and, like so many other Okies, we migrated from the Dust Bowl to the Pacific Coast out of desperation. In time we not only survived but thrived.

We were the people Steinbeck documented through the Great Depression and onto the battlefields of Europe, the Pacific, Korea and Vietnam. We were those working class folks who put our shoulder to the wheel and raised our hands when America needed us.
Not just out of some child like sense of patriotism but out of a profound sense of gratitude for having been allowed through the acts of a benevolent government to give us a chance to get back on our feet.

Perhaps it is my age, being seven to 10 years younger than my siblings or because I was blessed with career and non traditional educational opportunities that are true "only in America" stories that I veered back towards Rooseveltian communitarian idealism rather than the path of Reaganesque symbolic patriotic simplicity. While we all have the same background, our outcomes have been quite different and, from that, our outlooks have been shaped.

And while I profoundly disagree with the politics and religiosity of both sides of my family, Carroll and Campbell, I now better understand how we got here and who helped make that possible.

Perhaps they believe they did it on their own or by the grace of god. Like Steinbeck, I know we made it with a lot of help from a benevolent nation.

And for that, and for the fact that my family survived, I will always be profoundly grateful.

[Mike Futcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

As editor Thomas E. Barden writes in his Preface (pg. vii), it is a surprise to learn that John Steinbeck, an author more readily associated with the Dust Bowl novels of the 1930s and, at the very latest, with 1952's East of Eden, was a war correspondent in Vietnam in 1966-67. Only a year before his death, he submitted these perceptive dispatches from the frontline, and their publication in Newsday meant they have the honour of constituting his final published work in his lifetime.

Steinbeck seems to belong to a different era – and it is that, rather than any of his specific observations, which makes Steinbeck in Vietnam interesting. The venerable Steinbeck, literary champion of the downtrodden, appears to have been motivated to travel to Vietnam to remedy the seemingly false impression that the war was wrong and America the region's predator. In this, he seems to be trying to recreate his remarkable dispatches from World War Two (compiled into the volume Once There Was a War), focusing on the region's people, the experiences of the ordinary soldier, and on pen-portraits and the minutiae of life in a warzone. However – and crucially – the success of such an approach relies on the luxury of having the question of the rightness of the war already settled. That was the case in World War Two, but on Vietnam Steinbeck appears to have underestimated how much he would have to fight for his ground.

For whatever reason, the dispatches do not have the quality or literary merit of those World War Two pieces. Whereas Once There Was a War is highly recommended for your reading pleasure, Steinbeck in Vietnam remains something of a curiosity. Steinbeck still writes well and is as perceptive as ever on a human level, but I think there's just something about the Vietnam War which unseats an American mind. They never could get a handle on it, and the general sense of discomfort and confusion is ever-present. This means that Steinbeck's writing here is restless, ever seeking but rarely finding.

Steinbeck recognises that this is not a conventional war with battle lines and "pins in the map" (pg. 65), but he is still unable to translate his prose into a perspective that appreciates the full implications of that. It's an older generation unable, by its very nature, to fully understand the values of the next. Vietnam was a murky war, the first major war the American Republic fought that it could not convincingly portray as a moral crusade. So when Steinbeck focuses on the lot of the ordinary soldier, or the support given to Vietnamese villagers, it rings somewhat hollow. It may be true, and sincere, but the war was never that. The most Steinbeckian passage in the book, that the war will be decided "not in Washington, or Moscow or Peking, but in the rice paddy, the hill village, the fishing boat…" (pg. 122) may be true to some extent, but the very nature of America's presence in that country robs it of any moral force. The American determination to view geopolitics through a moral lens meant that defeat in Vietnam was always inevitable. Even if it had conquered every inch of ground, and routed every Viet Cong from the tunnels, and took Hanoi, none of it could ever have met America's own criteria for victory.

Every American commentary on the war draws its card against this stacked deck, which perhaps explains why the cynical, peacenik, counter-culture view on the war won out, both then and now. That perspective was just as flawed in its own way, but it was able to feed on such moral ambiguity, whereas the honest, good-old-boy, throwback America Steinbeck's side represented was starved and parched with thirst. It's interesting to see Steinbeck initially approach the war as he had the European theatre of World War Two, and then to pour (often justified) scorn on the hypocrisy of many of the war protestors at home, only to himself gradually become more circumspect. He doesn't come around to their view, but he does seem to gain more humility in his own, and his support of the war becomes increasingly anchored on solidarity with the men on the ground than any patriotic or geopolitical stance. One wonders how Steinbeck would have manifested such a dilemma in his writing going forward, had he not died so soon after. The America he came from and wrote about had already gone, the shining city on the hill brought down to everyone else's level by, among other things, its increasingly compromised interaction with a globalised world. Steinbeck in Vietnam might lack the merit of Once There Was a War, but it does allow for a rare reading sensation: that of seeing a great writer defeated not by doing poorly, but by doing well.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been on a Steinbeck kick lately, and while I'd always thought of him as a chronicler of the 30's - he lived and worked a long long time after that. He was active throughout the 1960's. He has a reputation of being on the side of the little guy, the common man. Which I think is, essentially, true. He was no fan of beaurocracy, or fascism, or any governmental bullshit. He got a reputation for being a communist (which he wasn't, not even close) because of his support of unions and liberal causes. When he tried to enlist during WWII, he was turned down because of his alleged political beliefs. He went to Europe anyway as a journalist/correspondent (the WWII writings are next on my list - out of order chronologically, because that was the way interlibrary loan delivered them). He's received backlash for his Vietnam writings - because he was, generally, supportive of the US cause. He went to Vietnam on the payroll of Newsday Magazine, and spent a month or two. Both of Steinbeck's sons were in the military, on active duty in Vietnam. Regardless of his position on US policy, none of the Steinbecks suffered from bonespurs. Steinbeck's writings focused on the people he met, and he was fascinated by the technology and weaponry. He was that guy, he loved the helicopters, and guns, he loved finding out how they worked. He certainly had no love for the fact that their purpose was to kill people - but he loved the engineering and technology aspects. He hated the death on all sides, but seemed to truly believe that the US was doing what it had to do. I'm going to let him slide, a bit, on this because it was early days. Though the US had been meddling in that region for years, the military offensive didn't start until March 1965. Steinbeck was in country in the first half of 1967. one of the dispatches that I found interesting was a when he met with a bunch of South Vietnamese students. One of his conclusions after this meeting was that Vietnamese intellectuals never crossed paths with the other classes. He asked if any of the students ever talked to any farmers about the problems in the land - the students said no, and looked blank. Steinbeck's takeaway from this meeting was that "the intellectual . . . maintains the right to criticize but does not take the responsiblity to reform." The distance between the intellectuals and the working people made me think of the current accusations that the 'elites' of the democratic party have no clue about the real lives of voters. Many of his dispatches demonstrated his sympathy for the ordinary people of Vietnam, those just trying to survive being pushed around by all sides. One of his later dispatches he refers to being "uneasy" about reports that the US had intentionally bombed residential areas. He doesn't say its not true. He says he knows one of the journalists reporting, and that he's a good journalist. Its clear he doesn't want to believe it, and he raises some questions as to the validity of the report - but that's as far as he's willing to go: to be "uneasy."
Update: in the afterword, which I hadn't read when I posted the above review, there was a letter Steinbeck wrote to his long time editor several months after completing his Asian tour. He expressed a great deal more doubt about the purpose and success of the war in Vietnam, and, more or less, how American Military might just wasn't going to solve the problems of these people -- the Vietnamese were going to have determine their own solutions, and then work for them themselves. I agree, can't impose "democracy" from the outside. Something our government has still not learned.

[Laroy Viviane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il n'y a rien à faire, Steinbeck reste Steinbeck. C'est-à-dire, une écrivain social et humaniste.

Au départ dans ses dépêches, il découvre un Vietnam traversé par une guerre qu'il défend. Surtout par loyauté pour le président, un ami, et l'engagement de son fils dans l'armée américaine. Et même là, je n'ai pas pu m'empêcher de sourire lorsqu'il décrit les travers de l' "âme" vietnamienne. Ses perceptions sont justes mais de là à en faire découler du mépris et de justifier une guerre particulièrement violente, bof quoi.

Tout au long de sa correspondance, cette tonalité s'adoucit. Il écrira plus tard d'ailleurs que cette guerre, comme beaucoup voire toutes les guerres sont franchement inutiles au vu de la violence provoquée.

Il avait 63 ans, avec ses problèmes de santé, il est pourtant allers sur place. Il s'agira de ses derniers écrits publiés. C'est dans la souffrance physique et puis morale qu'il découvrira ce conflit armé.

Cela se sent. Difficile de ne pas s'y attacher.

[Sheri-lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know a lot about the Vietnam War. I don't like war. I would say I'm a pacifist. But I also think war is complicated. And that is why I like this book. Although Steinbeck's dispatches are very pro-American involvement in the Vietnam War, his beliefs about the war changed afterwards. There isn't necessarily an easy taking of sides when you have all the information. And as such, this book boosts my hope ... that more people spend time thinking about and trying to see all parts of the conversation and through their gathering of info come to see truth. And maybe temper our selves and our biases.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I’m working through Steinbeck’s works, this popped up. I’m not very familiar with the Vietnam War so I thought most of this would go over my head. But Steinbeck is Steinbeck, and it was great. His non-fiction always sits better with me than his fiction because I just love to read him talk about life. He was so interesting and I love to see the world he saw. Most people probably won’t read this because it’s a very specific topic, but it was great. I liked it.

Oh, it can get quite graphic in parts because…it’s war. There were some horrifying things happening there that wasn’t shared with the public. So be aware of that.

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

A huge fan of Travels With Charley, I reveled in this chance to bask in the assured gusto of Steinbeck’s nonfiction prose. His POV on Vietnam was biased by his love of the romance of the American GI, and a belief in the inherent good intentions of the projection of American power in Southeast Asia. His is the voice of another long-gone, misunderstanding time, which is well behind us.

[Danial Ahmadi · Rating 5 out of 5]

معرکه ، جملات جادویی ، توصیف های خیره کننده ، تصویر سازیه سینمایی ، ارزش چندین بار خواندن رو داره

[PennsyLady (Bev) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...because I feel half informed, I am going to South Vietnam to see with my own eyes and to hear with my own ears"
from December 10,1966 New York essay.

Between Dec 1966 and May 1967, Steinbeck wrote a second series of columns forNewsday, also called Letters To Alicia.
Called such, they were a tribute to Alicia Patterson Guggenheim. (the recently deceased editor who had overseen its
rise to prominence.)
Drawn from various archives, they are the political and personal essays of Steinbeck as war correspondent for Newsday.
He and wife Elaine (as private citizens) traveled through southeast Asia as he compiled 58 essays.
The assignment was important to him because he would speak to a large readership, see the war independent of LBJ and the title of emisary and
see his son John IV, stationed in Vietnam.
After orientations and being given a military escort he began field operations and his work as a military field reporter.

There is the fact that he had been labeled as subversive by Army Intelligence (1943) and had an FBI dossier starting in the early 1940's
But, Steinbeck was not a Communist at any period in his life.
Because some of his writings appeared in Communist publications, military service was not an option.
Steinbeck remained patriotic despite the accusation.

Taken from a January 14th 1967 dispatch:

"This war in Vietnam is very confusing not only to old war watchers like me but to people at home who read and try to understand.
It's a feeling war with no fronts and no rear....It is everywhere like a thin ever-present gas"

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[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches From the War by Thomas E. Barden (University of Virginia Press 2012) (959.70433). Yes, it's that very Steinbeck, who was in his sixties in the 1960's and was somehow enticed to go to Vietnam as an observer/war correspondent with his wife in tow. I love Steinbeck's novels; I think that both The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men are brilliant. However, I was not at all impressed by Steinbeck in Vietnam; something is simply "off" about this work. Perhaps his energy and vitality were sagging by this point, or perhaps he realized mid-tour that bringing a wife along (who was presumably about his age) into a war zone was not his best idea. Whatever the case, the reader would be better served by choosing to skip this volume and instead rereading any one of Steinbeck's novels. My rating: 7/10, finished 3/14/13.

[giduso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iniziando questo libro, composto da lettere inviate da Steinbeck durante un viaggio in Vietnam e altri paesi del Sud-Est asiatico, sono rimasto un po' sorpreso dal grande sostegno alla guerra espresso dall'autore. Il conflitto in Vietnam viene elogiato, presentato come la lotta del bene contro il male. I contrari alla guerra vengono derisi da Steinbeck e accusati di codardia. Man mano che le lettere scorrono si capisce però che lo stesso scrittore sta iniziando a capire le problematiche di quella guerra, come infine si può capire dall'ultima lettera contenuta nella post-fazione. Una lettura consigliata per capire meglio il pensiero del grande autore e la realtà complessa della guerra del Vietnam, che ha riflessi ancora oggi.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got this from the library, and I think I'll have to purchase my own copy, as it works better as the kind of book to check in on intermittently rather than reading cover to cover. A little surprising, as expected (oddly enough), since Steinbeck often spoke in favor of the war despite his years of writing as a liberal hero. But the writing is absolutely perfect, allowing his slightly curmudgeonly notions to sneak into his traditional, gritty style. I laughed out loud quite a few times as he described himself in fatigues, and he's ever the master of making grave moments as unimaginably grim as possible. Outstanding.

[Marco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Serie di reportage dal Vietnam e dal sudest asiatico dello scrittore americano John Steinbeck, nella prima metà del 1967. Steinbeck, originariamente un 2falco", strenuo sostenitore dell'impegno bellico americano in Vietnam, con il trascorrere dei mesi in quell'area geografica cominciò a mutare la sua opinione, finendo per diventare quasi una "colomba". Purtroppo, non riuscì a comunicare alla società americana del tempo quello che realmente era l'impegno americano nel Paese del sudest asiatico, essendo morto nel dicembre dell'anno successivo (1968), a seguito di un peggioramento di dolori fisici successivi ad un incidente occorsogli nel 1967.

[K.H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps not for everyone - but perhaps it should be.

Fans of the author will find much to like in this simply because it's Steinbeck being Steinbeck - sadly for the last time. Those interested in the Vietnam War will be treated with a unique perspective of both what it was like in its early stages by someone who was there and the politics surrounding it (well, Steinbeck's politics at the time anyways.)

This an important book and Thomas E. Barden deserves a lot of thanks for putting it together and making these texts available to readers after 40+ years.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. I wouldn't have picked this up if I wasn't shooting for Steinbeck-completion. I'm sure somebody interested in Vietnam might find this interesting but this was a slog from the start. Not many times am I unable to easily finish a 160 page book but nope, not this one. I liked the WW2 book Steinbeck wrote similar to this but maybe I enjoyed that because it is WW2 and not Vietnam. I think maybe those had more of the Steinbeck flare where this had nothing that seemed like the author I enjoy. Anyway, moving on.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the Steinbeck dispatches from WWII and loved them for the way they illuminated aspects of the war that I had never read about before, and was hoping for more of the same from this book. Unfortunately, Steinbeck's need to justify the war dominates these dispatches, and they lose the anecdotal, behind-the-scenes element that animated the WWII collection. I read this book hoping to learn more about the Vietnam War, and finished it knowing not much more than I did when I started.

[Aaron VanAlstine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Steinbeck was commissioned to write a series of dispatches from Vietnam for a newspaper (I forget which.) For the most part they are breezy observations from all around Vietnam and SE Asia. One surprise was the barely disguised contempt that Steinbeck held for the hippy war protestors whom he saw as lazy, spoiled, and ignorant from the safety of their draft-deferments. This was surprising coming from a so-called lefty and champion of the oppressed.

[William Trently · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised Steinbeck was a friend and admirer of LBJ. The author of Cannery Row and The Grapes of Wrath supported this war because "the U.S. was defending a weak and oppressed people" and because "our actions, he hoped, would be the moral redemption of the nation" (he had felt a decline in America's moral values). The longer he stayed in Vietnam, the more he realized this war could not be won. The editor's chat with the colonel on the final page is a great ending to this book.

[a.t.m. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book written by a legendary author

A must read for anyone that is a Steinbeck admirer. This book is filled with deep insight about a time when America was so divided by the Vietnam war. This wonderful author chose to be where the troops were stationed throughout Vietnam and see for himself what was going on. This experience changed him and the fact that his son was serving a tour of duty as a soldier, while he was there, adds to this remarkable book.

[Raymond Rusinak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read but then again Steinbeck is probably one of my favorite authors. Very interesting hearing quite a different point of view towards this most divisive conflict. Can be a bit repetitive but that is mostly due to the nature of the original publication in a daily newspaper. The geographic descriptions are nothing short of Steinbeckian.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book well worth reading, even while I disagreed with many of the author's positions and conclusions. It is a time slice from 1967 while hope of victory in Vietnam still seemed logical to supporters. And it is a slice recorded as only a talent like Steinbeck with full access to US controlled areas could do.

[Falina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would never have read this except for the purpose of completeness, since I really have zero interest in American politics, especially of decades past. However, Steinbeck is as eloquent and thoughtful as always, and it was interesting to see how his dispatches evolve from near-propaganda to troubled doubt.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating.