Rating: 
Summary: THE Best Infantry Novel of WWII ever Written...
Review: This is the best combat novel of World War II infantry ever written. The second of an autobiographical trilogy planned by Jones (with "From Here to Eternity" being the first, and "Whistle" planned to finish the storyline) it covers the shortest span of time, and it is also the shortest. But it is probably the most intense and I think, the most gripping. Avoid Terrence Malick's cinematic version which I think missed Jones' vision by a mile.In this novel, we see "C for Charlie" company's struggle for some fictional territory on Guadalcanal in late 1942. It carries some of the most intense sequences of infantry combat ever committed to paper (one of the most harrowing is the company clerk, Bead and his run-in with a roving Japanese soldier while attempting to relieve himself is particularly effecting to make it all the more remarkable, it's based on Jones' own personal experience). I can't recommend this masterpiece highly enough. Jones has captured for all time, the sights and smells of infantry combat better than anyone before or since. Read it. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Skip the film, read this book, and be absorbed
Review: In a word - incredible. Terrence Malick's sketchy, loooong, underdeveloped movie does not do this classic justice. If you care about the WW II soldier, what this generation did for ours, and what it was like to fight on an infernal island thousands of miles from home, witnessing savagery and experiencing traumas that you could never fully recover from, you simply must read this one. James Jones masterfully goes from one character to another, introducing the reader to the character's internal thoughts, while keeping the novel moving, marching through the jungle, to a conclusion that is exactly how it was for the soldier - this battle over, on to the next, what for, who cares - you didn't die, but you probably will on the next island. How does one manage these thoughts, as a sane, rational human being? Jones' does an amazing job of bringing out these subleties in each character, how each one deals with it, how each one thinks about it. You can almost feel yourself there on the island, having made it through a day of horrors, lost some acquaintances, exhausted, and what for? In WW 2, it wasn't one year and out of service - you were in it 'til A.) you died, B.) you were maimed, or C.) the war ended. After 24 hours of constant combat and no water during a battle, all you had to look forward to during your "recovery" (a day, two days, a week?) was the same thing all over again, until you either died or somehow, the war ended. While Mallick's films fails spectacularly in attempting to illustrate these points, Jones succeeds in ways that will only cause you to keep reading, imagining what it must have been like, yet thanking your God that you weren't there, and that these brave men were there for us. I cannot imagine why the earlier reviewer here at Amazon trashed this book. Please make your judgements based on the 30-some glowing reviews and his/her one negative review. My only criticism with this book is that Jones seems to be fixated on the p*nis (can you write p*nis at Amazon?!), and writes about homosexuality among the troops quite frequently. Well, he was there, so he must know, and while I personally don't enjoy reading about a man longing for another's "sweet, girl-like buttocks," I have to defer to the author and trust his experience on this one. Do yourself a favor, buy this book, and like "All Quiet on the Western Front," add a timeless war classic to your collection that will help add to your "humanistic" understanding of the war, a war which was about tactics and generals and presidents and prime ministers, but more than anything, like all wars, came down to the individual courage and suffering of the individual soldier. Sermon over.
Rating: 
Summary: A war novel for intellectuals
Review: "The Thin Red Line" is not your average war novel. I've read books like "Battle Cry" and "The 13th Valley", and while they explored the feelings and experiences of soldiers in combat, neither of those books - or any similar novels I've read - discussed war in terms used in your average college course. "The Thin Red Line" discusses war in the terms of an intellectual exercise, although there's also plenty of action throughout the novel. This does not make it a bad novel, but it does make it into a different type of war story than you may be used to reading. You need to understand that going into this book, or you may not want to keep reading it.
Rating:
Summary: THE Best Infantry Novel of WWII ever Written...
Review: This is the best combat novel of World War II infantry ever written. The second of an autobiographical trilogy planned by Jones (with "From Here to Eternity" being the first, and "Whistle" planned to finish the storyline) it covers the shortest span of time, and it is also the shortest. But it is probably the most intense and I think, the most gripping. Avoid Terrence Malick's cinematic version which I think missed Jones' vision by a mile. In this novel, we see "C for Charlie" company's struggle for some fictional territory on Guadalcanal in late 1942. It carries some of the most intense sequences of infantry combat ever committed to paper (one of the most harrowing is the company clerk, Bead and his run-in with a roving Japanese soldier while attempting to relieve himself is particularly effecting to make it all the more remarkable, it's based on Jones' own personal experience). I can't recommend this masterpiece highly enough. Jones has captured for all time, the sights and smells of infantry combat better than anyone before or since. Read it. You won't be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Book and an Excellent Movie
Review: I thought both this book and the movie were excellent but the two are so unique in their own way, you almost can't compare them. Both address the difficulties of facing and accepting death brought on by war. The book does this in a realistic, almost 'in your face' way with its detailed depictions of soldiers' experiences, both on the front line and off, and as it delves into each character's evolving thoughts and emotions. James Jones really brings you onto the battle field and into the soldiers' minds. The movie on the other hand takes a poetic, almost ethereal approach, leaving you to wonder and reflect upon death and war. While it doesn't take you deep into all of the character's minds, the movie does offer powerful imagery and eloquent narratives to illustrate its message...as well as excellent performances by the actors themselves. I highly recommend reading this book and seeing the movie, but don't expect them to take you down the same road. And if you're expecting another "Saving Private Ryan", then you should see "Saving Private Ryan". "The Thin Red Line" is on a whole other level.
Rating:
Summary: A war novel for intellectuals
Review: "The Thin Red Line" is not your average war novel. I've read books like "Battle Cry" and "The 13th Valley", and while they explored the feelings and experiences of soldiers in combat, neither of those books - or any similar novels I've read - discussed war in terms used in your average college course. "The Thin Red Line" discusses war in the terms of an intellectual exercise, although there's also plenty of action throughout the novel. This does not make it a bad novel, but it does make it into a different type of war story than you may be used to reading. You need to understand that going into this book, or you may not want to keep reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: great with popcorn
Review: The Thin Red Line is not a bad book, in many ways it's a great book. It's just that there is a thin line between great and OK. And Jones almost gets there but never quite hits the mark like the movie does. While the book strugles with divining what the thin red line is, the movie makes it crystal clear.
The movie which adds haunting poetic mystery to the world yet able divine a story of good and evil, love and hate, beauty and ugly, fear and bravery, etc. and that thin line between them. Add to that great acting and beautiful fliming. Someone made a better movie then the book.Is that's the ultimate praise of a movie? Maybe not, but someone did it.
Rating: 
Summary: Bang your head on the wall... it'll feel better.
Review: I can only say that I believe all reading is worthwhile, so reading this book wasn't a complete waste of time. I found a great deal not to like about this book. First, and most important, Jones doesn't give the reader any characters that are very likeable at all. If he had presented one even remotely worthwhile character, it might have made the experience a bit more tolerable and worth seeing through to the end. Second, he so overwrites the thing that after about 100-150 pages you start hearing a voice in the back of your mind begging for it to end. I began to wonder if he challenged himself to see how many different ways he could describe Welsh's grin or whether he just kept inserting references to it, slightly varied, to fill words on a page. I also began wondering if he challenged himself to try and refer to every act of war as some kind of erotic, sexual thrill. Further, I believe he overdoes it with the references to homosexuality - totally degarding the memory and dignity of every soldier who's served his country. Finally, while I've only read this one book by Jones so I haven't anything to compare to, he seems to needlessy inject far too many '$2 words,' which to me came across as almost condescending. I've always been trained that when it comes to art 'less is more.' All that said, there were a couple compelling and relatively well done battle sequences. However, by the last 30 pages or so of the book, I just quit. Why? I really didn't care about any of the characters or what happened to them and had had enough already. Needless to say, I wouldn't recommend the book, nor would I be inclined to read anything else by James Jones.
Rating:
Summary: Carrying the news
Review: George Plimpton has stated that "The Thin Red Line" contains the best writing about war ever put on paper--"better than Tolstoy, better than anyone."
Irwin Shaw has said that one of the key obligations of novelists is "carrying the news of one generation to those that follow. If you want to know what it was like to be alive and be an American soldier during World War Two--not only in the foxholes of the front lines but in the bars, on the parade grounds, on the hospital ships and military hospitals. If you want to know what it was really like to be alive and walking the streets of 1941 Honolulu or 1943 Memphis, or to fight on Guadalcanal, then you read James Jones. He has carried the news and will be read hundreds of years from now by those who want to understand this war and this era."
Rating:
Summary: Keystone of a monumental trilogy
Review: I have always liked the James Jones trilogy of the war era army--
"From Here to Eternity"
"The Thin Red Line"
"Whistle" "From Here to Eternity" details in unmatched accuracy what the pre-Pearl Harbor
professional army was like for the enlisted man.
"The Thin Red Line" carries that army and those men into combat in the Solomons
with the same honesty and intensity.
"Whistle" takes men wounded in combat home via hospital ship and stateside
rehabilitation center. Most people have heard of "From Here to Eternity" and "The Thin Red Line" because
they have been made into movies.
"Whistle," the concluding, and in many ways the most important volume of the
trilogy, is less known. Jones has always dwelt in the shadow of the more famous Norman Mailer. But I
have always thought of Mailer as poseur who wrote what he wrote in order to be
accepted into literary society and become famous. Jones has always seemed to
me the real deal. He enlisted in the army in 1939, was at Pearl Harbor when
the Japs attacked, fought in the Solomons, receiving the Bronze Star with V for
Valor and the Purple Heart.
With the money he made from "From Here to Eternity," Jones founded a writer's
colony and paid the hospital bills of the great and tragic poet Delmore
Schwartz, who clearly influenced Jones' writing. See especially the poem "For
the One Who Would Take Man's Life in His Hands" from the collection "Summer
Knowledge" published in 1938.
As far as I know, no critic has ever noticed this, but the first stanza of this
poem in 12 lines gives the storyline of "From Here to Eternity." The second
stanza gives that of "The Thin Red Line," and the third and final stanza that of
"Whistle."
Jones carried out something remarkable, getting the vision for a monumental
literary undertaking from a poem he read as an enlisted man in a garrison army,
actually carrying out the vision and producing what, in my opinion, is the
definitive American fictional narrative of the war. In short, Jones turned his
life into a poem and that poem into splendid novels.
I stand in awe.
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