Title: Soldiers once and still
First published: 2004
Description: "As the world enters a new century, as it embarks on new wars and sees new developments in the waging of war, reconsiderations of the last century's legacy of warfare are necessary to our understanding of the current world order. In Soldiers Once and Still, Alex Vernon looks back through the twentieth century in order to confront issues of self and community in veterans' literature, exploring how war and the military have shaped the identities of Ernest Hemingway, James Salter, and Tim O'Brien, three of the twentieth century's most respected authors. Vernon specifically reveals the various ways that war and the military, through both cultural and personal experience, have affected social and gender identities and dynamics in each author's work." "Hemingway, Salter, and O'Brien form the core of Soldiers Once and Still because each represents a different warring generation of twentieth-century America: World War I with Hemingway, World War II and Korea with Salter, and Vietnam with O'Brien. Each author also represents a different literary voice of the twentieth century, from modern to mid-century to postmodern, and each presents a different battlefield experience: Hemingway as noncombatant, Salter as air force fighter pilot, and O'Brien as army grunt." "War's pervasive influence on the individual means that, for veterans-turned-writers like Hemingway, Salter, and O'Brien, the war experience infiltrates their entire body of writing - their works can be seen not only as war literature but also as veterans' literature. As such, their entire postwar oeuvre, regardless of whether an individual work explicitly addresses the war or the military, is open to Vernon's exploration of war, society, gender, and literary history." "Vernon's own experiences as a soldier, a veteran, a writer, and a critic inform this critique of American literature, offering students and scholars of American literature and war studies a tool for understanding war's effects on the veteran writer and his society."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects: History and criticism, Criticism and interpretation, Intellectual life, Veterans' writings, American, American literature, War in literature, War and literature, Soldiers, War stories, American, Veterans, Soldiers' writings, American, History, American War stories, Hemingway, ernest, 1899-1961, United states, history, 20th century, War stories, history and criticism, American literature, history and criticism, 20th century
Places: United States
People: Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), Tim O'Brien (1946-), James Salter
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS374.W35 V47 2004