I tried to apply this term to the books I read in my recent quest which
seems to have begun with four books written by Ann Pachett followed by
one by Graham Greene, one by Mickey Spillane, and one by Nelson
DeMille. I read Ann Patchett as part of my half-hearted but on-going
quest to question Harold Bloom's Western Classics' choices, and by
implication his definitions. Patchett was being touted by some as being
an important novelist, someone who wins prizes, someone who might
someday be considered as great. I read four of her novels/. /I thought
them not bad, but I'm not sure that any of them mattered to me. Graham
Greene's novel may matter to those interested in Cold War literature. I
have enjoyed Nelson DeMille more than any of the others. His treatment
of the murder of a female West Point cadet is an excellent mystery story
and at the same time he addresses discrimination against women in the
military in the best literary fashion, meaning, without preaching.
The main character in /The General's Daughter /is Army Warrant Officer
Paul Brenner who even though he solves the General Daughter's murder is
chastised for disobeying some direct orders in the process. He receives
a formal reprimand; so, in a huff he retires. Ten years after /The
General's Daughter, /DeMille wrote /Up Country. //Up Country /takes
place six month after the end of /The General's Daughter. /Paul Brenner,
still in a huff, is talked into returning to Vietnam to solve a murder
that occurred during the war. I am 20% through /Up Country /and
enjoying Brenner's reminiscences as well as life in later-on (Demille
wrote this novel in 2002) Vietnam. This novel matters a little to me
because I made a decision, back in 1955, not to stay in the Marine Corps
and instead to go to college on the G. I. Bill. When I enlisted in the
Corps in 1952, I thought I might make a career of it. I was in Korea
during the last two battle seasons, but didn't see combat. I was over
there when the truce was signed; so during my remaining enlistment I
experienced what it was like to be a peace-time Marine; which wasn't
what I signed up for.
Years later while working on the C-17 Program I represented engineering
on a change board where Gene Lindley, a retired Marine Corps Captain
represented Product Support. He was a heavy smoker and though I didn't
smoke I would go outside with him when he did and we we would talk about
the Corps. I mentioned that the only enticement they offered me to stay
in was the increase in rank to Staff Sergeant. Gene said that was a
very good deal. Rank became very hard to get at about that time. If
I'd stayed in I would likely have been among the sergeants sent to South
Vietnam as advisors in 1962. In retrospect that doesn't seem like
something I would enjoy doing, but back in 1955 a Staff Sergeant tried
to talk me into "shipping over" (re-enlisting for six years) and I
considered it. I asked if he could give me embassy duty and he said the
list of those trying to get that was prohibitively long, but he could
offer me sea duty and the increase in rank. I was enjoying being a
senior rifle instructor at Camp Pendleton and had that been a permanent
assignment (or as permanent as those things go) I might have stayed in,
but as soon as we had everyone qualified we would be sent back to our
previous assignments and mine was at Twenty-Nine Palms, an extremely
miserable place; so I left and four years later had a degree in English
qualifying me for 39 years in Douglas which merged with McDonnell which
was bought out by Boeing.
I didn't see combat in Korea, but had I shipped over in 1955, I would
have seen it in Vietnam; so DeMille's Paul Brenner novels matter to me.
I've described a personal set of considerations. Whether and in what
sense Demille's novels might matter to someone else, I can't say.
Lawrence
On 1/27/2021 3:51 AM, epostboxx@xxxxxxxx wrote:
Thanks Lawrence, for your writings on the literary canon and the Franklin
library, which brings to mind many other 'Great Books' series (and
controversies surrounding them and other efforts to evaluate and 'classify'
works of literature).
'Books That Matter' is perhaps the most straight-forward of evaluatory
classifications - found in the title of an article I found on the NYTimes
website yesterday:
. . .
