Product Description

It is 1942. An American rifle company is sent to the island of Guadalcanal as the Japanese mount a desperate offensive aimed at establishing their superiority in the South-West Pacific. James Jones's story of C-for-Charlie Company is told with graphic and unsparing realism.
Every man fights his own war.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #245452 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review

"When compared to the fact that he might very well be dead by this time tomorrow, whether he was courageous or not today was pointless, empty. When compared to the fact that he might be dead tomorrow, everything was pointless. Life was pointless. Whether he looked at a tree or not was pointless. It just didn't make any difference. It was pointless to the tree, it was pointless to every man in his outfit, pointless to everybody in the whole world. Who cared? It was not pointless only to him; and when he was dead, when he ceased to exist, it would be pointless to him too. More important: Not only would it be pointless, it would have been pointless, all along."

Such is the ultimate significance of war in The Thin Red Line (1962), James Jones's fictional account of the battle between American and Japanese troops on the island of Guadalcanal. The narrative shifts effortlessly among multiple viewpoints within C-for-Charlie Company, from commanding officer Capt. James Stein, his psychotic first sergeant Eddie Welsh and the young privates they send into battle. The descriptions of combat conditions--and the mental states it induces--are unflinchingly realistic, including the dialogue (in which a certain word Norman Mailer rendered as "fug" 15 years earlier in The Naked and the Dead, appears properly spelled on numerous occasions). This is more than a classic of combat fiction; it is one of the most significant explorations of male identity in American literature, establishing Jones as a novelist of the calibre of Herman Melville and Stephen Crane.

Chicago Daily News
'An indubitable masterpiece ... THE THIN RED LINE is among the very best novels written about World War II.'

About the Author
James Jones (1921-1977), one of the major novelists of his generation, is known primarily as the author of fiction that probes the effects of World War II on the individual soldier. Born in Robinson, Illinois, Jones entered the U.S. Army and had the distinction of being the only individual who would become a major writer to witness the attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour. A member of the 27th U.S Infantry Regiment, Jones was wounded at Guadacanal and returned to Robinson, where he started to write about his experiences. After shelving his unpublished first novel, They Shall Inbherit the Laughter, Jones completed the critically acclaimed international bestseller From Here to Eternity (1951). He assisted in the creation of the Handy Writers' Colony in Marshall, lllinois (which lasted from 1949 to 1964) before taking up residence in Paris as part of the Second Generation of American Expatriate writers and artists. Joe Mantegna has starred in the feature films HOUSE OF GAMES, HOMICIDE, GODFATHER III, BUGSY, and UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL, and on Broadway in Glengarry Glen Ross, for which he won a Tomy Award.

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Customer Reviews

Classic war fiction.
Sometimes I despair when reading reviews of a book of this nature.............this book is not about war......it is about men and the effects that war has on them.James Jones was a fine literary writer who died before being able to complete the sequel to this novel,which was about the Normandy invasion.....and the effect that had on men.Guadalcanal remains paramount,as does Tarawa and Iwo Jima,in the American Psyche and I salute all the Americans who fought those,and many other battles but The Thin Red Line is not about that...........in the same way as Norman Mailers classic 'The Naked And The Dead'is not.Both of these books are about men.Superb and very disturbing writing.

Even if you have seen the film, you must read the book
This book provides a much more detailed account of the battle of guadalcanal than the film. It is an excellent read and i strongly recommend it to anyone who has an interest in world war II and the battles of the pacific.

world class war literature
This book hits you like a ton of bricks. What Stephen Crane did for the Civil War in "The Red Badge of Courage" James Jones does equally imptactful for World War II. As they invade Guadalcanal the men of C-for-Charlie company will each discover what it is to go into combat, to be acutely aware each and every minute that there are other people out there intent only on killing you. Some will lose their lives, others their sanity, and those that live will never be the same as before.

I'm not a particular fan of WW II literature, but this book is surely not only one of the best of the genre but also by far transcends that particular war.