The Bamboo Bed

by William Eastlake

"Written shortly after William Eastlake's return from Vietnam where he was a reporter for Nation magazine, The Bamboo Bed was one of the first novels to proclaim the insanity of the Vietnam War. The plot revolves around Captain Clancy, who - mortally wounded while leading a charge up Ridge Red Boy - lies dying in a bamboo bed. His final thoughts about the war are juxtaposed against the escapades of Captain Knightbridge and Nurse Jane of the Search & Rescue Unit, who copulate in their helicopter - the "Bamboo Bed" - at 10,000 feet, setting a wartime record. Down below, two hippie kids wander the jungle trying to end the Vietnam War with a dream and a guitar."--BOOK JACKET.

Genres: Fiction, Literature

285 pages

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bamboo Bed by William Eastlake is included on the list of 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, the last book that I enjoyed from that compilation is Suite Francaise and my look at it is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... together with a few hundred other notes



7 out of 10



The book with Vietnamese characters that I like most is A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain https://realini.blogspot.com/2016/10/... by Robert Olen Butler – we are friends…on Facebook, which normally means exactly nothing, but this connection has a little story



There it is, not much of a saga, but still – I placed a YouTube video with my view of the mesmerizing Pulitzer Prize Winner, and then I see there is a comment and it was from…Robert Olen Butler, to the effect that the author was appreciating my view, to some extent, probably considering the remote place where I reside

But I had not just doubts, the feeling that this is not real, you do not have every day a Pulitzer Prize Winner noticing you (I don’t, in any case) and when he contacted me on Facebook, I had to ask my daughter, Hannah, about the veracity of this event, I mean, it could not be real, it was some impersonator?



It turned out it was the Pulitzer Prize Winner!



Furthermore, we even had some lines of dialogue, he liked my macaws, sent me a link to a story about some parrot, the way I remember it was quite tragic, the owner dies, then the daughter breaks the neck of the bird, and though terrifying, I am thinking what will happen to my two macaws, when I will be departed

For a while, it will be the spouse, who is thirteen years younger as it is, then women live longer than men, but these boys live sixty years, maybe more…well, they will be lucky, Insha’Allah, and now back on The Bamboo Bed, which seems impressive, only the subject, the fact that Orange Jesus has won the elections just two days ago, do not offer the best circumstances and this is why I must say I did see some merits…



Only left it out nevertheless, despite of the fact that critics said ‘this is a brilliant, strange, wondrous performance...The Bamboo Bed is the war in Vietnam 🇻🇳 superb...vivid…’ William Westlake was a correspondent in Vietnam in 1968 and returned to the war in 1969

It is written with Dark, cynical humor 😄 needed in age of OJ ‘one dead is not many, unless the one is you. Then it is an enormous figure.’



Also good, succinct, curt, poignant style ‘call them shit holes. That's how soldiers talk. All soldiers. All wars. War is not nice. It is something else’

War! What Is It Good For https://realini.blogspot.com/2015/08/... is written by one of my favorite authors, Ian Morris, and answers the question, from a different angle



The war described by William Eastlake is Absurd, outré: there is a drummer, who lands from the sky, oil is poured on a pool and then set on fire, Captain Clancy is an exotic figure, with a plume and helmet like he fought for 1000 years and then you have a tank landing from the sky, they lift a house with a plane now

The tank flips and is upside down, this reminds me of Apocalypse Now, or The Heart of Darkness https://realini.blogspot.com/2017/04/... by Jospeh Conrad, Apocalypse Now is



A modern adaptation of Heart of Darkness – ‘Madame Dieudonne arose, stark and stripped, in her underground 🚇 villa at 0600 and heard the report that Captain Clancy was dead, then walked 🚶‍♂️, still naked and blew her pretty French 🧠 brains out. Pas vrai. Not true…

That's the way the papers 📃 had it, but they did not get it right. They never do. The newspapers seldom get anything right ✅️ because they are not creative. Life is an art’



‘It was true that Madame Dieudonne went to the jewel box, but nothing more. The newspapers 📰 made a good story. But there is a better one. The truth.

If you make plans during a war you are lying. Her body was still good. But a body is for someone else. A body is never for yourself. Really?! My note



There are Some pretty peculiar ideas...’A bed is not a bed without two people…Dieudonne means God gives. I do not know the significance of this. But time will work it out…It was an American Search and Destroy operation Captain Clancy leading it wearing a helmet with…a parrot feather 🪶

Surfeit of madness. Captain Clancy had panache says Madame Dieudonne, Americans called it 'weird fucking outfit'

Style. That's what Clancy had. If you can't win a war with that, then you can't win a war. We will pursue that later. I will pursue that later is not what Madame Dieudonne thought when she first saw Clancy...hahaha

The magic 🎩 man. The magician. Not the taker but the giver of life. Clancy was the soldier magician

What were the Americans doing here? The same thing they were doing in Indian Country. In Sioux territory. They were protecting Americans. They were protecting Americans from the Red Hordes…’





Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/u... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se



There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know



As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...



Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works



‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’



‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’



“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We would regroup right here at the VC bunkers and start up again. I now had about 90 ambulatory patients left to make it to the top. We had come 400 meters up 904. Everyone has been hit by something. Those that were hit too bad I left along the way and perimeters. Old Charlie made it too hot to bring in a medevac. The Bamboo Bed flew over a couple times. She took heavy ground fire. She took so many holes we waved her off. When she came back we took a couple of shots at her ourselves. Everybody shoots at the Bamboo Bed. Both sides. Both sides shoot the s*** out of her. Why? Because she's there. Because the Bamboo Bed always shows up at a disaster. When you see the Bamboo Bed you know it's the end. Both sides.

"Like I said before, we started up 904 again. I was leaving the too bad wounded in perimeter. The dead could take care of themselves. I had three flesh wounds. None too bad. The thing that hurt like s*** was the muscle of my left arm where I had taken napalm back there in Paradise. The military call it infogel and that's what it feels like. They must have missed some of it. Leroy and Dummy Dumfries cut it out of my arm while Peter Scott sat on my head. But they must have missed some. It hurt like s***. No morphine. As long as you have command position there can be no morphine.

"Well that's it sir," Peter Scott said.

"Are we all set to go? Who's missing?"

"God is missing," Peter Scott said.

[Robert Pierson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps you had to have been in 1969 to grasp this. Well I don't know how anyone can miss the explosion of astounding prose.

Eastlake had it that poetry was easy and prose was the real challenge. He met it here.

Note; this is not anti war. As Eastlake knew, a WWII vet, wars happen and men, mostly, fight in them. Grow up.

I am aware that it is highly idiosyncratic but without apology I place this in the vicinity of the highest level of American literature.

[Darren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Potent mixture of Catch-22, M*A*S*H and Apocalypse Now, with amazing stream-of-consciousness style that highlights the surreality of war.