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01-22-2009, 07:16 PM | #21 |
Cobra Viper
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 157
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Review
"We forced him into it over there and now he's bringing it all back home." Him is Rambo, a young kid who had been trained as a Green Beret to survive, no matter how; over there was Vietnam; and, having won a Congressional Medal of Honor and having had a crackup, he's now on the road. Actually he's run out of town and then picked up by Teasle, a Korean war veteran and chief of police in Madison, Kentucky - Teasle carries a load of cowardice and personal bitterness underneath his American Legion shirt. Fighting his way out of the haircut Teasle attempts to give him, Rambo grabs the razor, guts a nearby policeman, and then takes to the hills when the posse starts - dogs on the ground, a helicopter overhead. Rambo shoots them down - the animals and the men - and somehow all through the long nights and days your sympathies stay with him. As another man with a Green Beret (at the head of the National Guard which is also recruited to get him), says - Rambo is one of ours - these are the lessons we've taught him. A book like this also leaves us to search our own conscience - it's a reflection of the violence we've all learned to tolerate only too well. Even if you want it to end, you won't stop reading it. Morrell's first novel is a brutal zinger and it's expected to be successful - beginning with its Literary Guild alternate selection. (Kirkus Reviews) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Product Description From New York Times bestselling author David Morrell comes the novel upon which the box office superhit Rambo was based. First came the man: a young wanderer in a fatigue coat and long hair. Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang up from the pages of First Blood to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with -- or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky. About the Author My father was killed during World War II, shortly after I was born in 1943. My mother had difficulty raising me and at the same time holding a job, so she put me in an orphanage and later in a series of boarding homes. I grew up unsure of who I was, desperately in need of a father figure. Books and movies were my escape. Eventually I decided to be a writer and sought help from two men who became metaphorical fathers to me: Stirling Silliphant, the head writer for the classic TV series "Route 66" about two young men in a Corvette who travel America in search of themselves, and Philip Klass (whose pen name is William Tenn), a novelist who taught at the Pennsylvania State University where I went to graduate school from 1966 to 1970. The result of their influence is my 1972 novel, First Blood, which introduced Rambo. The search for a father is prominent in that book, as it is in later ones, most notably The Brotherhood of the Rose (1984), a thriller about orphans and spies. During this period, I was a professor of American literature at the University of Iowa. With two professions, I worked seven days a week until exhaustion forced me to make a painful choice and resign from the university in 1986. One year later, my fifteen-year-old son, Matthew, died from bone cancer, and thereafter my fiction tended to depict the search for a son, particularly in Fireflies (1988) and Desperate Measures (1994). To make a new start, my wife and I moved to the mountains and mystical light of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where my work changed yet again, exploring the passionate relationships between men and women, highlighting them against a background of action as in the newest, Burnt Sienna. To give his stories a realistic edge, he has been trained in wilderness survival, hostage negotiation, executive protection, antiterrorist driving, assuming identities, electronic surveillance, and weapons. A former professor of American literature at the University of Iowa, Morrell now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. |
01-22-2009, 07:56 PM | #22 |
Banned
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Where people are De-evolved
Posts: 2,125
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Quote:
Slightly confused by what you are saying regarding the book. In the "First Blood" movie, John Rambo does nothing wrong. The fact that he is slightly "unkept" and wearing a military jacket is why the Sheriff picks him up and drives him out of town. If you remember, he is booked on trumped up charges of vagrancy. While he is in jail, he is harassed and somewhat tortured. Now, after he escapes, John Rambo has motive to defend himself......the last scene, when he is crying, summarizes the plight of Vietnam Veterans: value during the war as compared to no value when they came home. Therefore, I always took the movie as a Pro-Soldier/Pro-Veterans film. Now, here lies my confusion: Is the book Anti-War? Is the author, who you stated was a professor (liberal?) claiming that VV were broken tools of war who could not fit back into society? Was the book trying to say that VV and American citizens could no longer interact? What was the purpose of the book.......and for the record, I think that only The Godfather had a movie that rivalved the book.
The author was not saying that ALL VV's are "broken tools of war who could not fit back into society." He WAS saying, however, that Rambo was. I have met quite a few 'Nam Vets that have had a difficult time readjusting, I'm sure Rambo was a composite character of a lot of guys like that. The author left the conclusion of whether or not war is wrong up to the reader, and IMO showed no bias to one side or the other. The author was, however, commenting metaphorically through both the Rambo and Will Teasle characters, that we all have hang ups, and we must not let them cloud our judgment of what is right and wrong. |
01-23-2009, 12:32 AM | #23 |
Cobra Viper
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 157
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I have to read the book...his biography was an interesting read and the idea of father-son/Trautman-Rambo concept is something I am sure has deeper meaning...Was also interested to see that he wrote Desperate Measures...Never read the book, but did see the movie...not great, but a very interesting topic....good thread by the way.
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01-23-2009, 01:44 AM | #24 |
Banned
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Where people are De-evolved
Posts: 2,125
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Quote:
I have to read the book...his biography was an interesting read and the idea of father-son/Trautman-Rambo concept is something I am sure has deeper meaning...Was also interested to see that he wrote Desperate Measures...Never read the book, but did see the movie...not great, but a very interesting topic....good thread by the way.
The father son aspect was definitely there with Trautman and Rambo in the book too. Though I feel that aspect was explored a little MORE in the movie than it was in the book. The book DOSE however tell you some things about Rambo's real father, and mother that the movies never did. The movies don't even mention Rambo's parents, or much else about his past until the last movie (RAMBO 4). Even then it's pretty vague in it's details. I won't tell you anymore, as I'm affraid I'll spoil it. thanks for rapping with me about this, god knows the other people in my real life are sick of hearing about it from me Thanks, Dan |
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