Matterhorn is an audiobook by Karl Marlantes, narrated by Bronson Pinchot. The unabridged Audible edition runs 21 hrs 11 mins.
Publisher’s Summary
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.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
Audiobook Details
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 21 hrs 11 mins
- Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
- Release year: 2010
- Audible category: Literature & Fiction / Genre Fiction / Literary Fiction
Listener Ratings
Matterhorn holds an average listener rating of 4.5/5 from 9659 Audible ratings.
On Audible, ratings for this title break down into narration performance and story separately:
- Performance (narration): 4.6/5
- Story: 4.5/5
- 5-star ratings: 65% of all ratings
What Audible Listeners Are Saying
5/5 stars — “and you THOUGHT you knew everything about Vietnam”
This book is unique in that it lists all the awful day-to-day suffering of a Marine besides fighting the enemy that NO ONE ever put into the movies! It reads like a journal. It is engrossing.This author lets you feel the suffering and you listen in awe of the heroic feats (like marching in full gear without any food for days) and proud of the soldiers who managed to just live, much less fight, under the worst possible conditions.
Unglamorous but no less worthy of mention are all the things you didn’t realize were such scourge such as: a constant struggle against leeches, wearing filthy clothes for weeks, foot rot & ringworm that often bordered often on gangrenous limbs, racial bigotry within units (destroyed is the myth that Vietnam era soldiers all got along fine and were past any bigotry due to the "peace & love" movement), "career officer" making bad decisions just to impress their superiors, battle body counts that were fudged just to look good to whoever needed those numbers.
Also noted is how the new and constant use of RADIO from the central command post to field soldiers led to a *terrible disconnect* freeing those issuing absurd orders from feeling the devastating effects on the men who executed those orders.
This book nicely avoids many of true but horrid cliches that we’ve ALL heard by now such as; "We had to burn the the village to save it."
Obviously this is not the "feel-good" book of the year.
However I am very glad I read this book. I have even greater understanding and respect for the men who, despite nearly constant suffering, (BESIDES the awful direct combat) the soldiers withstood while fighting in Vietnam.
This audio book is excellently produced & narrated.
— Scott, Audible listener
5/5 stars — “Awesome Book”
I am going to have to change the answer to all my favorite book password questions to "Matterhorn." Its well-drawn characters, compelling subject and powerful storyline are a stunning achievement from a new author. Its definitely worth a credit, maybe even two and the 21 hours of listening. Even before it was over, I went looking for another by the same author. The narrator may be the best I have ever heard and I have listened to well over 100 audibooks.
Listen to this book!— John, Audible listener
5/5 stars — “a great novel”
This is a great novel, deserving of the praise it has gotten from respected book reviewers and much more deserving than most to be on the bestseller lists. It is also well-narrated, even the narrators efforts to imitate one accent or another is not annoying at all. I am not going to say that the book doesn’t have some slow spots, or a few predictable plot twists, but you can overlook that in the sweep of a story of Vietnam, a very human and believable story centering on a single lieutenant and his Marine unit working near the DMZ and the Laotian border. But this is not just a book about Vietnam, it is highly relevant to any war zone. And its power puts to shame such other efforts as the nonfiction book "War" about Afghanistan. Get this book.— D. Littman, Audible listener
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