Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes
Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes
113 Rating(s)
List: $31.95 | Sale: $22.36
Club: $15.97

Matterhorn
A Novel of the Vietnam War

Author: Karl Marlantes

Narrator: Bronson Pinchot

Unabridged: 21 hr 11 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/23/2010


Synopsis

An incredible publishing story—written over the course of thirty years by a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, a New York Times bestseller for sixteen weeks, a National Indie Next, and a USA Today bestseller—Matterhorn has been hailed as a "brilliant account of war" (New York Times Book Review).Matterhorn is an epic war novel in the tradition of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones' The Thin Red Line. It is the timeless story of a young marine lieutenant, Waino Mellas, and his comrades in Bravo Company, who are dropped into the mountain jungle of Vietnam as boys and forced to fight their way into manhood. Standing in their way are not merely the North Vietnamese but also monsoon rain and mud, leeches and tigers, disease and malnutrition. Almost as daunting, it turns out, are the obstacles they discover between each other: racial tension, competing ambitions, and duplicitous superior officers. But when the company finds itself surrounded and outnumbered by a massive enemy regiment, the marines are thrust into the raw and all-consuming terror of combat. The experience will change them forever. Matterhorn is a visceral and spellbinding novel about what it is like to be a young man at war. It is an unforgettable story that transforms the tragedy of Vietnam into a powerful and universal story of courage, camaraderie, and sacrifice—a parable not only of the war in Vietnam but of all war, and a testament to the redemptive power of literature.A bonus PDF is included, with maps, a Chain of Command hierarchy, a glossary, and other interesting facts and information.

About Karl Marlantes

Karl Marlantes, a cum-laude graduate of Yale University and Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, was a marine in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Navy Cross, the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals for valor, two Purple Hearts, and ten air medals. His novel Matterhorn and his nonfiction book What It Is Like to Go to War, both based on his combat experience, are also both New York Times bestsellers.

About Bronson Pinchot

Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on October 27, 2019

"Just below the grim tranquillity Mellas had learned to display, he cursed with boiling intensity the ambitious men who used him and his troops to further their careers. He cursed the air wing for not trying to get any choppers in through the clouds. He cursed the diplomats arguing about round and s......more

Goodreads review by Kemper on August 27, 2016

Today I’ll be reviewing Matterhorn, a novel about the Vietnam war. Play your favorite classic rock song of the era while reading. Buffalo Springfield’s For What’s It’s Worth is always a popular choice. You could use Credence Clearwater’s Fortunate Son. For myself, I'll be listening to The End from T......more

Goodreads review by Andrew on September 04, 2022

I listened to this on audiobook, competently read by the ever reliable Jeff Harding. It’s quite long, at over 22 hours, but it’s such a compelling story I’d have been happy to spend longer in its company. I'd read some background to the Vietnam war but was really quite sketchy on the detail surroundi......more

Goodreads review by Michelle on April 24, 2011

This is the best book I've read so far in 2010. I will say that again: This is the best book I've read so far in 2010. I received Matterhorn from Powell's (Indiespensable #17, a wedding present, I decided) and avoided it for a while, busy with other books, and honestly, looking at it with trepidatio......more


Quotes

“Narrator Bronson Pinchot should get a medal for his extraordinary portrayal of Lieutenant Waino Mellas…Pinchot breathes life into each member of Mellas’ Bravo Company…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.” AudioFile

“Carefully constructed and beautifully realized…Filled with truth, wisdom, love, and a rich vein of dark gallows humor.” Newsweek

“A raw, brilliant account of war that may well serve as a final exorcism for one of the most painful passages in American history.” New York Times

“A brutally vivid debut novel…The visceral Matterhorn is as much a tribute to the marine culture of bravery as it is a dissection of a contentious war and a meditation on the American civil rights movement…Marlantes’ writing is evocative. We feel the marines’ exhaustion as they dig gun pits, carry dead and wounded comrades, and nearly die from hunger…[Marlantes] pitches us into a harrowing narrative we won’t soon forget.” USA Today

“One of the most powerful and moving novels about combat, the Vietnam War, and war in general, that I have ever read.” Dan Rather, award-winning television news anchor

“There’s a reason this big Vietnam War novel made such an impression on the public consciousness. It is a deep and devastating achievement.” George Pelecanos, New York Times bestselling author

“There has never been a more realistic portrait or eloquent tribute to the nobility of men under fire and never a more damning portrait of a war that ground them cruelly underfoot for no good reason.” Mark Bowden, New York Times bestselling author

“Marlantes doesn’t introduce you to Vietnam in his brilliant war epic—he unceremoniously drops you into the jungle, disoriented and dripping with leeches, with only the newbie lieutenant as your guide…Readers gain a new perspective on the ravages of war, the politics and bureaucracy of the military, and the peculiar beauty of brotherhood.” Amazon.com

“The Vietnam novel has come of age, and this is a worthy addition to the genre…An engrossing chronicle of men at war.” Booklist

“Even as the Vietnam War recedes into the past, the despair, confusion, and mythology it generated retains a grip on our culture. Debut novelist Marlantes offers a realistic, in-the-trenches look at that war…A valuable addition to any permanent collection.” Library Journal


Awards

  • New York Times bestseller
  • USA Today Best Book
  • AudioFile Best Book of the Year
  • Amazon Best Books of the Year
  • AudioFile Earphones Award
  • Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize
  • San Francisco Chronicle Best Book
  • Washington Post Best Book
  • Colby Award
  • W. Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction
  • RUSA Notable Book
  • Time Magazine Top 10 Book
  • New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books
  • Indies Choice Book Award
  • New Yorker’s Best Books