Author: James Jones

When I bought this book from a Library Book Sale I was sure it was a classic. I like to read classics around Christmas and this is the one I picked for this year. I had the classic movie scene in my head of the couple on the beach with the waves crashing over them.

I’m a little at a loss with the book though as I really didn’t like it – the men in the Army before Pearl Harbour weren’t much more than womanizing, drunken idiots. And they didn’t get much better after Pearl Harbour (but then the book ends very soon after the incident). It’s a big book – about 850 pages – and you can imagine my horror when the hero (or at least who I thought was going to be the hero) ended up being shot by his own servicemen.

Perhaps I’d have been better off watching the movie. When I checked IMDb to be sure I was thinking of the right movie it was interesting to see the actors who played the roles of the characters in the book.

I’ll put the book on my Classic shelf but it won’t be one I read again. It was published in 1951 – does that make it valuable?

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