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    To the End of the War: Unpublished Fiction
    To the End of the War: Unpublished Fiction
    To the End of the War: Unpublished Fiction
    Ebook267 pages4 hours

    To the End of the War: Unpublished Fiction

    By James Jones

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    Never-before-published fiction by one of the finest war authors of the twentieth century In 1943, a young soldier named James Jones returned from the Pacific, lightly wounded and psychologically tormented by the horrors of Guadalcanal. When he was well enough to leave the hospital, he went AWOL rather than return to service, and began work on a novel of the World War II experience. Jones’s AWOL period was brief, but he returned to the novel at war’s end, bringing him to the attention of Maxwell Perkins, the legendary editor of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe. Jones would then go on to write From Here to Eternity, the National Book Award–winning novel that catapulted him into the ranks of the literary elite. Now, for the first time, Jones’s earliest writings are presented here, as a collection of stories about man and war, a testament to the great artist he was about to become. This ebook features an illustrated biography of James Jones including rare photos from the author’s estate.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateOct 11, 2011
    ISBN9781453215708
    To the End of the War: Unpublished Fiction
    Author

    James Jones

    James Jones (1921–1977) was one of the most accomplished American authors of the World War II generation. He served in the U.S. Army from 1939 to 1944, and was present at the attack on Pearl Harbor as well as the battle for Guadalcanal, where he was decorated with a purple heart and bronze star. Jones’s experiences informed his epic novels From Here to Eternity and The Thin Red Line. His other works include Some Came Running, The Pistol, Go to the Widow-Maker, The Ice-Cream Headache and Other Stories, The Merry Month of May, A Touch of Danger, Whistle, and To the End of the War—a book of previously unpublished fiction.

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    Reviews for To the End of the War

    3/5

    17 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was well worth the time for a Jones fan, or WWII buff. I read this in quick succession with _Helmet for my Pillow_ and _With the Old Breed_, two more traditional Marine memoirs. Taken together they provide a thorough glimpse into the horror of the South Pacific, as well as the horrors at home and of the thoughts of returning to combat. As long as the reader is content with the short fiction format and is not expecting a comprehensive whole than they will not be disappointed.
    • 3/5
      Fans of James Jones, a writer well known for his powerful World War II fiction, have long been intrigued by his unfinished last novel, Whistle, wondering how different it might have been if he, and not Willie Morris, had finished it. But if most of those fans are like me (someone who has read Whistle three times), they probably still give little thought to Jones’s unpublished first novel, They Shall Inherit the Laughter. Intriguingly, that first novel has now (more or less) been published, and curious readers can decide for themselves whether the publishers of Jones’s day were correct to judge it “unpublishable.”I use the term “more or less” published because of the manner in which this new book’s editor, George Hendrick, has prepared it for its long delayed release. They Shall Inherit the Laughter is not being presented as a novel. Rather, it has been re-titled To the End of the War: Unpublished Fiction, and its best bits have been recast as a series of interconnected short stories that are largely, and obviously, based on Jones’s personal experiences. Johnny Carter, the protagonist of this short story collection, is simply James Jones under another name.Jones was bitter and cynical about his war experience by the time the military returned him to the U.S. to recover from wounds suffered in the Pacific. Jones, well aware that he was just being patched up for reassignment to another combat unit, used his repatriation to the States as an opportunity to go AWOL, hiding for a while in his hometown of Robinson, Illinois. He largely spent his time in Robinson drinking, womanizing, and seeking the company of combat veterans as disillusioned about the war effort as him. All of this, in fictional format, is at the heart of what Johnny Carter experiences in these newly released “short stories.”To the End of the War, one must remember, is very early James Jones. However, even though it does not live up to the standard of Jones’s later work, it is a clear link to what was to come, both in theme and in style. The book makes clear why Maxwell Perkins, despite refusing to publish They Shall Inherit the Laughter, saw enough in Jones to encourage him, if indirectly, in his second attempt at a novel, one that would become world famous as From Here to Eternity. There are certainly enough flashes of the real thing here, particularly in the dialogue between Johnny Carter and other combat vets, to make To the End of the War a worthwhile reading experience for all fans of World War II fiction.Rated at: 3.0

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      First of all let me say I've been a solid fan of the late James Jones for probably four decades or more, having read back in the 60s and 70s his two most famous and successful novels of WWII: FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and THE THIN RED LINE. I have in my collection that trilogy's unfinished final book, WHISTLE, but still have not read it. Over the years I've also read THE PISTOL, SOME CAME RUNNING, and THE ICE CREAM HEADACHE AND OTHER STORIES.That said, I was excited to learn that a previously unpublished "first novel" was finally being made available. Originally titled THEY SHALL INHERIT THE LAUGHTER, the book has been edited and published as what are purportedly the best fragments of the original manuscript with an introduction, connecting comments and explanations by its editor, George Hendrick, who has re-titled this version TO THE END OF THE WAR, from a toast often raised by combat veterans of WWII. What emerges is an obviously autobiographical piece of fiction which expresses, perhaps more than anything else, a savage anger at an American "establishment" which created and condoned a caste system that impersonally uses and then casually casts off the members of its lowest class. This anger and a firm statement condemning this system is portrayed mainly in a military setting.Johnny Carter is the angry and bitter hero of TO THE END OF THE WAR. A war-wounded combat veteran of the Pacific Theater, Carter has spent months recuperating in hospitals, and is then reassigned to a stateside unit where he runs afoul of various authority figures for his flouting of regulations. He goes AWOL, then returns to the army where he is reduced in rank and humiliated in front of the raw recruits by being made a permanent latrine orderly, before he is finally transferred and gets his stripes back as a company clerk. While he is AWOL in his pastorally named hometown of Edymion, Illinois, he observes the hypocrisy and indifference to the war of the civilian populace, including his own family members. He indulges himself with drunken binges and whores, all the while trying to write out his frustrations in rawly expressed free verse poetry. The thing is, Johnny Carter is, I think, the germ of the idea that finally emerged as Robert E. Lee Prewitt, the fully realized hero of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. There are probably bits of Angelo Maggio in him too. But Jones never quite manages to pull all the characters and loose ends of this seminal story together in an effective manner, although there are flashes of absolute brilliance here and there, mostly in the brutally honest dialogue between the disenfranchised and embittered soldiers of his company. There is one particular passage, in the chapter/fragment called "Army Politics and Anti-Semitism" which seems to characterize what was probably the reason why this "book" was never published -"The things that had happened to him since he left Endymion seemed inextricably wound together. The people of Endymion, the pinch-faced Infantry captain, latrine orderly, Weidmann and his persecution, the new job as clerk, Al Garnnon and Isaac Rabinowitz. They all went together, each a panel in the same door, and for that door there was a hidden key, a special significance in all these facts that he could not quite grasp, even knowing it was there. If he could find that key and unlock that door, he would learn some general conclusion that fit them all and explained them and what he was seeking to learn."Like his angry hero, James Jones had not yet found the key that would clearly express all that he had been through. He would find it successfully just a few short years later in the writing of his masterpiece, FROM HERE TO ETERNITY. There are numerous examples here of awkward prose, tortured syntax and self-conscious expressions of Jones's emerging views, using half-formed ideas just learned from his ongoing education through reading. Style and ideas have not yet properly coalesced in this, his first fictional effort, and Maxwell Perkins was right in refusing to publish it. But Perkins was equally right in perceiving something promising in this, Jones's earliest writing - enough to give him an advance on something else Jones was working on. That 'something else' became FROM HERE TO ETERNITY.I'm grateful I got to read this book, even if it does not measure up to Jones's later work. It was like reading the "warm-up" to greater things - which is exactly what it was. Scholars of American Literature and fans of James Jones's work should appreciate this finally published book for what it is. Reading it has whetted my appetite for more Jones. Maybe it's time I finally finished reading his last work, WHISTLE.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      If you enjoy sorting, looking for the best apple in a basket or discarding overripe cranberries in a colander, this may be a worthy read. I found it frustrating to read and re-read portions of a meandering text, waiting and hoping for continuity. The writing is disjointed, sometimes awkward and tangled. And yet, there are moments of engagement, particularly in scenes with dialogue. Clearly, the writer was not at a mature, dependable level at that point in his career. Much has been written on this subject and readers can find better choices.
    • 3/5
      My first thought on starting this book is that although I've seen the film of Jones second book, From Here to Eternity, I haven't read it and now want to go out and do so, as well as his first book.This is a series of stories printed posthumously that would no doubt have been edited into a coherent whole had Jones been able to manage it. As such, one senses that it's not as good as it could be.Where it excels is in speaking of war, of the emotions which surround and invade the ordinary people involved and the clashes between soldiers and civilians as well as others such as veterans and new recruits; soldiers and officers. His words are at time raw, unpolished and angry. Some would still be considered politically incorrect now and it's not surprising they weren't welcomed at the time of writing. But Jones tells it like it is (or like one imagines it to be): raw, messy, a waste, full of death and stupidity, with the greater picture being irrelevant.Some of the phrases really do conjure up strong emotions still and much of what is said is true for any war. It's a powerful read which more than makes up for the occasional roughness although it could be tidied up a bit more.[As an aside which has nothing to do with the book itself I'm never going to review a DRM book on Adobe Digital Reader again due to their ridiculous rules for reading on multiple apps, i.e. only on one at a time and you have to transfer book off an on.I also don't appreciate only having the book on loan, as it expires after 2 monthsAlso the formatting in the book was occasionally off, and the preface to stories not demarcated in a separate font so not immediately clear where was the end of one story or the beginning of a comment.]
    • 3/5
      I have only recently started reading war accounts.This book covers the mental, emotional and practical after-effects of war, rather than the details of being *in* war. You may also be drawn to the book if you are interested in general histories of life in the 1940's.In many ways you can tell that this is James Jones' first attempt at writing. In places the writing is somewhat elementary. But on the next page there could be a masterful exchange of dialogue which evokes bitterness and sadness. Then the next page could be an insightful critique of war-time capitalism. It was easy to see how Mr. Jones would later become a renowned and respected writer.This book is pieced together from the best bits of a much larger book. No doubt I am better off for not having read the whole thing, but the chopped up pieces are disjointed, and while the editorial lead-ins helped keep me oriented, they also distracted from the world Jones was trying to evoke. Add to that the conversion errors committed when rendering this as an e-book.All in all, I think I found the book interesting from a historical and academic viewpoint, but remained aware that I was missing a larger experience.
    • 1/5
      I had never read James Jones nor seen From Here to Eternity. After reading this, I probably still won't. Well written? Probably, but it just did not interest me. Jones obviously had bad experiences in the military. I just really don't care about them. The early stories are rather depressing. Jones' character Johnny is just not a nice guy. The notes tell me that he patterned Johnny after himself. I don't think I would have enjoyed James Jones.On a mechanical note, this doesn't work as well as an e-book. There are editor's notes interspersed with Jones' stories. It isn't always terribly obvious where these start and can be a little jarring. I eventually was able to figure it out.

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    To the End of the War - James Jones

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