From Here to Eternity (1951)

I would be lying to you if I said this didn't sometimes feel like the most aptly named novel ever. My recurring question—how many more miles to eternity?—was probably not helped by reading a version with all the original excisions restored (mainly swearing and sex). It's not really a war novel, though it's set in Hawaii and includes the Pearl Harbor attack in a chapter near the end, but more a novel of the Great Depression. The cast of characters is a roundup of officers, noncommissioned officers, enlisted men, and their various women. There's a kind of manly unadorned style of language that is simple and clean, and rarely ornate, but often strays into self-consciously clunky. James Jones is not a skilled storyteller any more than a gifted stylist, by this novel. So it goes on for a long time. I like the way it's fully committed to the underdog, but honestly, a lot of these underdogs are not that sympathetic, even if we get how they got that way. From Here to Eternity has much more in common with Catch-22 than The Naked and the Dead, focused fiercely on the stultifying bureaucracy that was day-to-day life in the prewar military. Most of the characters, even the women, are hard drinkers. As usual, women and non-white people get the worst of everything. There are prostitutes and the usual related issues (hearts of gold, "I don't have to pay for it!" etc.). As a sheltered white boomer from the suburbs I have to say this kind of thing is mostly lost on me. Not only were prostitutes never any kind of formative experience for me, they were never even a factor at all. These lives look dreary and suffocating, going ridiculously flinty no harm no foul on all kinds of severely questionable behavior. I've also spent my life repelled by the kind of drinking reported here. The novel seemed most interesting to me in the section on the stockade. Our main hero (of two or three), Prewitt, was played by Montgomery Clift in the movie. He's a bit of a '50s antihero type, self-destructive and poetical, but that side of him (seen in his bugle playing, for example) is not very convincing, though Jones is often trying hard. Another important character, Sgt. Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster), is a similar case but with a slightly different flavoring as a noncommissioned officer. Another, Sgt. Maylon Stark (George Reeves, but the character was mostly written out of the movie), is more of same. Arguably a fourth, Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra), is yet more of the same. From Here to Eternity is an interesting big mess in many ways, but I'm still not sure it's really worth the time, let alone one of the 20th century's best novels.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic.