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Summary: What is The Meaning of Honor?
Review: Ben Tyson, a corporate guy whose at the top of his game one day must face his military past, despite the promise that he made with his fellow platoon members.The press, who will and does explore the pasts, puts the word out there, making all involved, military, et. al, investigate what really happened, 25 years ago. DeMille is an excellent writer. And he develops the characters in this book so well that no matter what side you take, you will find yourself deeply involved in this drama.
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Summary: after reading this on holiday in Vietnam
Review: It's a good story, well written. A real page-turner.
Sitting here in NaTrang, watching the kids running on the beach it's hard to believe that the War ended 27 years ago. But the book forgets something very basic about the war: most of the soldiers were not college kids, but working class lads who had no grasp of the huge mistake they were involved in. It was a class-war for the benefit of generals who needed a place to stage a conflict. What a sad time it was.
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Summary: Magnificent, beautifully written, hard-hitting
Review: This is quite simply the best novel I can ever recall reading. It is the story of Benjamin J. Tyson, a former Army combat lieutenant and Vietnam veteran. By a series of odd, but plausible and believable events, the conduct of Tyson's platoon in the battle of Hue, in Vietnam, is scrutinized by the Army and the nation twenty years later. This is not a book about the Vietnam War per se. It is the story of how one group of men, and one extraordinary man, handled an intolerable combat situation, and how the country might have responded to these actions once exposed. It is also a pretty realistic analysis of military law. The segment of the book that deals with the court martial is, quite simply, wonderful.
The characters in this novel are realistic and vibrant. Benjamin J. Tyson is unforgettable. Many of the other characters are vivid and memorable. Demille is profound, funny, serious, and insightful. Demille at his best is better than anyone, and this is Demille's best novel, even exceeding The Charm School.
The story picks up momentum gradually, but the reader will be rewarded if he or she "hangs in there." And really, it is pretty easy to stay interested even at the rather nondescript beginning of the novel. This book is a great read.
The only reason I can imagine that this incredible book was not made into a major motion picture is the overall public disaffection with the Vietnam War. This is a mistake. At a time when comic book stories are being made into high-budget movies, this book cries out for attention! And yet this book is not primarily about the Vietnam War--it is about how men react to combat and how Tyson and the country deal with an apparent scandal. Although the book does not try to "reform" the general notion that a lot went wrong with America's involvement in Vietnam, this is no anti-war book either. The novel rings true to any number of political events that have actually occurred.
Read this book. Keep it and re-read it time and again. It is that type of novel.
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Summary: Best of DeMille
Review: Nelson DeMille can be quite dark. Spencerville, The General's Daughter, and even Plum Island come to mind. The more books he writes, the darker he becomes, it seems. I have been a fan since Charm School. I worked my way through Gold Coast, Cathedral, Rivers of Babylon and even Mayday, one of his earlier, co-authored, often overlooked books. Mayday shows the signs of his greatness. DeMille works best for me when he maximizes the humor (often irony) and tension while minimizing graphic viloence or the dark side of human nature. Often his villains are driven but not inherently evil. His heroes are always flawed and usually funny in the worst situations. Word of Honor balances all of these features and the result is one of DeMille's best, if not THE best. Vietnam has been cathartic for many Americans. Unlike World War II, where good and evil seem clear (and the basis for more heroic fiction than any other event in the world), Vietnam is nuances and conflicted lives. DeMille uses these to fine tune his humor and his hero. This one is well worth checking out.
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Summary: VIET NAM
Review: THE EVENTS ABOUT VIET NAM ARE BELIEVABLE--BUT TYSON APPEARS
TOO GOOD A GUY TO BE BELIEVABLE.
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Summary: Loved it; by the author of PRESSURE POINTS
Review: Lots of us discover Demille's older stuff after our first experience with the more current work; hence, if you liked UP COUNTRY, then your next stop should be WORD OF HONOR. Frankly, it's even better. Why? Well, let me say right off that I loved UP COUNTRY. WORD OF HONOR, however, doesn't have that book's "travelogue" element, which many reviews have said bogs the story down. Nor is it the obvious catharthis that UC becomes. But it has all of the raw Vietnam experience and the resultant anger and no-BS insight that the new book has, wrapped in a story that never lets up. There's a Kafka thing happening here that makes the reader feel this story even more than the new book. I wasn't crazy about the main character, but when we discover what he's been through, no wonder he leans to the slightly unlikeable side. It is to Demille's credit that we still root for this guy despite not wanting to hang out with him or, God forbid, be like him. As a relatively new author myself, I hold Mr. Demille's work out as a model and a target -- I learn something new about the craft with every book I read. The greatest compliments my books have received on-line are a couple of comparisions, stylistically, to Demille's work. I'll settle for a fraction of his success, which he wholeheartedly deserves. And, maybe someday, a cover blurb from The Man.
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Summary: Quite different from DeMille's other books
Review: Word of Honor is a very fine novel about Vietnam. It is not at all like Demille's other books. It is well researched and nicely written. Though the hero, Tyson, is racist, elitest and absurdly macho the reader relates to him -- his midlife crisis is exacerbated by this pesky thing from his past -- during the war his unit slaughtered a hospital full of innocents. Okay, okay, there's the usual government conspiracy nonsense that appears in Demille's other books, and other thrillers. Even that can't derail this finely crafted novel about the American military's legal system and one man's cat-like wait for revenge. Check it out.
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Summary: Another Demille Hit!
Review: Nelson Demille knows how to write about the Vietnam War. He knows how to write about New York. This is another story in which he combines his two areas of expertise and comes out with a winner! This is a great story of ethics, of the meaning of character and a discovery of America at a time of war and in the aftermath of that war. He's a great author and this is a great book.
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Summary: DeMille is the best storyteller
Review: I don't even like books like this and I couldn't put this one down. Nelson DeMille had me from the first paragraph. It is certainly one of my favorites behind Plum Island and Lion's Game.
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Summary: What we've come to expect from DeMille
Review: This book had almost everything you expect from a DeMille novel: Superb dialog, excellent character development, and a seamless plot. It was lacking the action scenes you find in some of his other works, but it was more "thought provoking". I loved the characters, and the way he revealed the plot a little at a time to keep the reader going. I consider it a good sign that it was 700+ pages, kept my interest the entire time, and some plot lines could have been even more detailed. Overall a great DeMille book. Not my favorite of his, but I'd rather read anything of his than most any other author's best. I love his writing style, and his dialog is always flawless. I never have to reread a section of his text because I didn't get what he was trying to say.
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