Whistle

Although Whistle takes place in 1943, it is really about post-war America and the effect it had on the psyche of American males. We have met all of the four main characters (with different names, but the author identifies them in a foreword)in earlier volumes of James Jones great trilogy: From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line. Now they are in a hospital in Tennessee. They all come to bad ends, but it isn't really the war that destroys them. It is the peace and their inability to live with the changes wrought by the war. One can't cope with his inability to protect his men, one rebels when he is forced to become a public relations flack in order to stay in the army, one rejects the honor and traditions of the military ethos only to regret it and the other one is appalled by the nihilism which he sees as the wave of the future. Jones fought a battle to complete this book before he died. He didn't quite succeed - a few chapters toward the end are sketched out in summary form - but this is a complete and important work by one of the greatest American writers of the Twentieth Century and a very worthy finale to a trilogy comprised of masterpieces.

No author captures the mind and plight of the ordinary soldier better than James Jones, and "Whistle" is the third book of a trilogy that includes the indomitable "From Here to Eternity" and the gritty "The Thin Red Line." From Here to Eternity portrays barracks life in Hawaii just before the attack at Pearl Harbor; The Thin Red Line is a wrenching account of island fighting in the South Pacific; and Whistle is the story of four men from the same infantry company, all wounded in battle, who are brought back to the U.S. on a hospital ship and then sent to an Army hospital in the South. The book does a fine job of portraying the complex relationships between the four men and the inner demons each has to face. First Sergeant Martin Winch is a cynical, but superb leader who struggles with congestive heart failure while trying his best to protect the other three men. Mess Sgt. Johnny Strange is the nurturer who looks after the others while he struggles with the infidelity of his wife, and the injustices of the Army pecking order. Buck Sergeant Marion Landers tries but fails to handle the monstrous fury that wells up inside him. Corporal Bobby Prell fights to save his legs from amputation and copes with feelings of guilt over a Congressional Medal of Honor that he does not believe he deserves. This was Jones’ final book, and he was unable to finish the final three chapters before he died of congestive heart failure (his death is portrayed in the movie "A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries" based on the book written by his daughter, Kaylie.) Unfortunately, the last book of the trilogy doesn’t measure up to the first two, and it pains me to write this because I am one of Jones’ major fans. The story, the writing, Jones’ unique ability to get into the head of the GI just aren’t as sharp in this work. There is also the matter of his preoccupation about a man performing oral ... on a woman– he goes on and on and on about it throughout the book. The ... is graphic, even by today’s standards. All well and good, but the preoccupation with oral ... stretched and exceeded the limits of its role in the story line. It’s like Jones’ had a statement to make, and he made it too often; and he made it too important for credibility. And then there is the end of the book, which should have been handled differently. Jones was unable to complete the final three and one half chapters, but he let his intentions for the finale be known in detail. A friend and neighbor, Willie Morris, wrote the last chapters from notes and recordings. They are not written as fiction, but as a summary of what the author intended to happen. The novel would have been much better had a skilled writer done the end as a continuing fictional narrative, imitating Jones’ style. (Of course, there would need to be an appropriate explanation of how it was handled at the beginning of the book.) Whistle is not James Jones best work. But it’s still a fine story by one of America’s most underrated authors.

"Whistle" is one of the best books I have read. WWII is my favorite story genre. James Jones has never been disappointing in showing the reality of the soldiers' character. There were parts of the story where I audibly gasped at what had taken place. Although some of the language was Army technical and foreign to me, it was an easy read. The sexual encounters and explicit descriptions of them, was not offensive,but enlightening. It was very real and a breath of fresh air compared to the sugar coated versions of what happened during the war in other stories and films of the same time period. The main characters, Winch, Landers, Strange and Prell are so different from the stereo-type "war hero" It is a story of WWII which reveals the horror but does not dwell on it with blood, violence & gore and shows it from so many different perspectives.

After having read FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and THE THIN RED LINE, I couldn't figure out what would be so interesting about an army war hospital(the setting for WHISTLE). I was dead wrong proving once again that a great writer makes anything interesting. The guys are back from Gradualcanal and suffering both physical and psychological effects. They are happy to be alive and ashamed they didn't die along side their buddies. It's hard to believe that so many people they meet know nothing about the war being fought out there. They believe in the other men from their old company, but little else. It could be argued that it is the weakest of the trilogy. Jones hurried to write the book before his early death at age 55. It was published more than 20 years after the war's end and suffers somewhat from the knowledge of those 20 years. The references to the songs seem more nostalgic than informative. His analysis of the sexes would have been brilliant in 1946, but easily made in the 1970s. But those are minor points, because the book is every bit as honest as gritty as anything that he ever wrote. Good enough that you don't want it to end, but harsh enough that you're afraid to read it a second time.