Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War

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Matterhorn: A Vietnam novel is a contemporary novel by Karl Marlantes about the Vietnam War , which reflects the author's experiences in a fictional plot. The book was published in May 2009 in a small edition by El León Literary Arts and in a slightly modified version on March 23, 2010 by Atlantic Monthly Press . The Arche Verlag published a from August 1, 2012 Nikolaus Stingl translated into German version.

In 2011 the book received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize .

author

Karl Marlantes is a graduate of Yale University and a Rhodes Scholar from the University of Oxford . The American author is a highly decorated officer in the United States Navy who served in Vietnam . He was awarded the Navy Cross , the Bronze Star , two Navy Commendation Medals for bravery, two Purple Hearts and ten Air Medals . The author worked on the novel for 35 years, which several publishers refused to publish. Since the 1970s, Marlantes tried to get his book published. Within a year the author wrote a manuscript of 1700 pages. The action takes place in Vietnam in 1969 and is based on Marlantes' experience as a platoon leader of an infantry unit . The novel gives an unadorned impression of the adversity that the Marines had to endure in the Vietnam War.

action

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam

It tells the story of Lieutenant Waino Mellas, a 19-year-old college graduate, and his comrades in Bravo Company, most of whom are still teenagers. Matterhorn is the code name for a fire support base on an elevation located 2 km south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and 3 km east of Laos . Numerous adversities and dangers, which the soldiers suffer during their advance in the impassable terrain of the tropical mountain forest, under unfavorable climatic conditions, as well as from diseases and poisonous animals , are described in detail. At the beginning of the novel, the Marines set up a fortified artillery position, only to abandon it shortly before completion. The further course of the novel is about the multiple, fatal attempts to recapture the positions now occupied by the North Vietnamese People's Army .

people

Main characters according to chain of command

  1. Major General Neitzel, division commander
  2. Colonel Mulvaney, Regimental Commander 24th Regiment
  3. Lieutenant Colonel Simpson, Battalion Commander 1st Battalion
  4. First Lieutenant Fitch, Company Commander B Company
  5. Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas, platoon leader 1st platoon - main character
  6. Second Lieutenant Goodwin, platoon leader 2nd platoon
  7. Second Lieutenant Kendall, platoon leader 3rd platoon
  8. Corporal Connolly, group leader 1st group / 1st group train
  9. Vancouver, Mole, 1st Group Shooters / 1st Group train
  10. Corporal Fisher, Squad Leader 2nd Group / 1st train
  11. Corporal Jacobs, group leader 2nd group / 1st train
  12. Hippy, shooter of the 2nd group / 1st train
  13. Corporal Jancowitz, group leader 3rd group / 1st group train
  14. Lance Corporal Jackson, Squad Leader 3rd Group / 1st train
  15. Cortell, Mallory, Parker, Pollini, Williams, 3rd group shooters / 1st group train

background

The background to this is the gradual retreat of the Americans from the Southeast Asian theater of war. The fictional Bravo Company (1st Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 5th Marine Division) is actually Charlie Company (1st Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division ). The events around Matterhorn are probably based on the skirmishes at the landing zone Mack (Hill 484) and Hill 400 between March 1 and 6, 1969. With the Lima Kompany (3rd Battalion, 4th Marines) in reserve, two infantry platoons fought Bravo Company several times to conquer and secure the hill, with at least 15 soldiers wounded and at least 7 killed in battle. The author Marlantes was the commanding officer of Charlie Company and received the Navy Cross for combat duty . In capturing Hill 484 and 400, a total of 20 Marines were killed and many wounded. The hill was abandoned after the conquest.

subjects

The novel deals with various contemporary topics such as B. subliminal racial conflicts in the Marine Corps up to the religious dimension of the war. It is about a proxy war that the USA is waging in Vietnam, while anti-war demonstrations escalate in their own country and divide an entire nation. Second Lieutenant Waino Mellas is only 19 years old and already has to run a train. The story of this rifle platoon is told as it makes its way through the remote hilly landscape between Laos and North Vietnam during the cooler monsoon season to interrupt the supply lines of the People's Army of North Vietnam (PAVN) and the Viet Cong . In addition to the fighting with the mostly invisible opponent, natural events such as the permanent monsoon rain and the dangers of the tropical mountain forest play a special role in Marlante's novel, which particularly troubles the young soldiers. Another topic is the issuing of military orders, which is perverted here in senseless attack and retreat orders and firefights around a strategically completely meaningless area.

Language and style

Marlantes uses harsh realistic language.

“He watched the blood and pus on his fingers and wrists mix with the dirt and rainwater. Sooner or later everything had the same greasy consistency anyway and mixed with the urine that he couldn't quite hold back because he was so cold, the semen from his last wet dream, the cocoa he had spilled the day before Snot that he had shed, the pus from his skin ulcers, the blood from the burst leeches and the tears that he wiped away so that no one could see that he was homesick. "

- Karl Marlantes : Matterhorn - A Vietnam novel. German by Nikolaus Stingl. Arche Verlag, Zurich / Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-7160-2662-5 .

The author uses explicit descriptions of scenes to bring the horror of the Vietnam War closer to the reader. It's about a soldier who threatens to die from a leech getting into his urethra and who cannot be removed urologically by the paramedic. Others become victims of a tiger attack. The numerous poisonous snakes such as the banded krait ( Bungarus caeruleus ), the white-lipped pit viper (Trimeresurus albolabris ) or the king cobra ( Ophiophagus hanna ), which are common in the Vietnamese jungle, pose a further threat . The soldiers suffer from immersion feet ("jungle rot") and from cuts from so-called "razor grass". It is a bold, poignant book in strong language, often in GI slang . It is about the “human limits” and the “psychology of the state of emergency” from which American soldiers suffer.

“The never-ending orgy of mutilation is described with rude accuracy, all the ripped open bodies, oozing viscera, torn legs, bursting heads and shot lower jaws. This is reminiscent of the slow-motion hyperrealism of the first twenty minutes of Spielberg's film ' Saving Private Ryan ' - with the difference that Marlantes does not let unknown soldiers die, but characters that slowly but sustainably emerge from the dialogues and descriptions of the novel to have. He manages to portray the different types and temperaments in the troupe in an impressive manner. "

At the end, technical terms and abbreviations such as B. Baseball team or Chuck explained in a glossary .

Reviews

Matterhorn has been praised by several critics. In the New York Times newspaper , the journalist Sebastian Junge described the novel as "one of the most profound and devastating novels ever to come out of Vietnam — or any war."

“ Matterhorn poses the question of the meaning, not just of this specific war, not just of the war in general, but of the meaning of human existence. To ask yourself this question: That is what makes Matterhorn a heroic book. "

- Richard Kämmerlings : The world

“Marlante's language is sober and interspersed with military jargon. More than half of the novel consists of dialogue, which is often quite rough. Nikolaus Stingl's translation brings this into German without cramps and artificiality, and it also conveys the laconic, grotesque tone that prevails when it comes to the career games behind the heroic theater. This novel is a bloody farce, an outcry of suffering, a memorial for the battered and tattered one day, which was debited in the official press release under 'light losses'. "

- Wolfgang Schneider : Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

“If you ask why you should read something about this war, Marlantes' book is recommended. Not that it's perfect as a work of art, it's not. But from an internal perspective and in an almost hyper-realistic, feverish style, it fans out all facets of death, suffering and the senselessness of everyday war life. [...] Karl Marlantes is not an elegant narrator. Every now and then he has a tendency to over-explicit and also to psychological short circuits. "

- Christoph Schröder : Süddeutsche Zeitung

“Marlantes' writing is evocative. We feel the Marines' exhaustion as they dig gun pits, carry dead and wounded comrades, and nearly die from hunger. ”

“Marlante's spelling is moving. We feel the exhaustion of Marines when their shooters wells digging, carrying their dead and wounded comrades and nearly dying of hunger. "

- Carol Memmott : USA Today

literature

Web links

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ Nils Markwardt: Apocalypse Anytime. In: Friday . October 6, 2012, accessed September 8, 2018 .
  2. ^ John Blake: A war hero returns home, 40 years later. In: CNN . April 9, 2012, Retrieved September 8, 2018 (American English).
  3. ↑ Thomas Hermann: The war in the head. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . January 12, 2013, accessed September 8, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Matterhorn. In: Österreichischer Rundfunk . August 22, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Peter Münder: Karl Marlantes: Matterhorn. In: CulturMag. October 7, 2012, accessed September 8, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Major General
  7. ↑ Colonel
  8. ↑ Lieutenant Colonel
  9. ↑ First Lieutenant
  10. ↑ Lieutenant
  11. ↑ NCO
  12. ↑ Karl Marlantes: Matterhorn - A Vietnam novel. German by Nikolaus Stingl. Arche Verlag, Zurich / Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-499-26191-6 , p. 7.
  13. ↑ Navy Cross. (No longer available online.) In: Military Times. Archived from the original on December 31, 2015 ; Retrieved October 27, 2013 (American English).
  14. ↑ a b Richard Kämmerlings : Green Hell. Fatigue, emaciation and leeches. In: The world . August 31, 2012, accessed November 9, 2014 .
  15. ↑ Skin disease caused by permanent moisture and tropical temperatures around 30 ° C
  16. ↑ possibly Miscanthus elephant grass or Pennisetum purpureum
  17. ↑ a b c d Wolfgang Schneider: Rapture of ecstasy in carnage. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . November 23, 2012, accessed October 12, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Radio code for a group of 13 marines
  19. ↑ pejorative term for a white marine
  20. ^ Sebastian Junge : The Vietnam Wars: Matterhorn. In: The New York Times . April 1, 2010, Retrieved July 22, 2020 (American English).
  21. ↑ Christoph Schröder: Wide awake in the dirt hole. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . February 5, 2013, accessed September 8, 2018 .
  22. ↑ Carol Memmott: 'Matterhorn' stands tall as a reminder of war's great. In: USA Today . March 24, 2010; Retrieved November 9, 2014 (American English).