Dispatches の感想

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As a university teacher I am forever telling my students to "Define your terms." Before any Literary work can be fully judged and evaluated a clear and binding set of parameters must be established; benchmarks against which the piece in question can be compared, contrasted and most importantly evaluated. If no terms are defined, and no frame of reference draw or defined, then there is no way we can evaluate writing, because what are we comparing it to?

My problem therefore with this book, is how to evaluate it. What is it? What does it want to be judged as? Where should we put it in the library? Amongst whose company should it sit? These are very fundamental questions that require unambiguous answers if we are to set about processing this work as it clearly deserves to be processed. Whilst I understand this work to be Herr’s catharsis, on a more practical level is it a novel? a memoir? a historical document? Is it fiction? non-fiction? Is it journalism? war correspondence