MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors by Richard HookerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I watched M*A*S*H reruns most every day after school growing up. Hawkeye was always my favorite and probably helped to shape my personality in some unfortunate ways. It took a lot longer before I watched the movie, which was OK but I was so used to the TV show that it wasn't that great to me. I didn't even realize there was a book--let alone 15--until a frenemy read it and wrote a review.
The book is a lot more like the movie, both of which had the luxury of not being bound by early 1970s TV standards so it could be more foul-mouthed and have more adult situations and things like that. It is of course interesting to note the differences from the TV series in the different names and personalities of the characters. A lot of the characters like Hawkeye, "Trapper" John, Colonel Blake, Radar O'Reilly, Frank Burns, "Hot Lips" Houlihan, and Father Mulcahy show up but are different than on the show or in the case of Burns and Houlihan not nearly as major players. Other characters like Klinger, BJ Hunnicut, Colonel Potter, or Major Winchester do not appear; the latter three probably because they were all replacements for departed characters.
But at the core it is still the same thing, alternating between hijinks and the horrors of war. The writing style is brusque and impersonal but not bad. Overall, especially if you're a fan of the movie or TV show, it's a good read.
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(Fun Fact: Here's the series page on Goodreads. From someone's review, only Books 1, 2, & 15 were written by the original author while the rest were ghostwritten to exploit the success of the TV show. There's kind of a Police Academy or I guess those "Road" movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby they parodied on Family Guy vibe as they're all "MASH Goes To..." I don't think I'll be checking any of those out. None except this first book are on Kindle so I'd have to buy them used in paperback or something. Like the Wingman books, it'd probably be best then to look for a complete set on eBay if I cared--which I don't.)
1 comment:
I used to be a fan of MASH, and also watched it after school. I liked the more serious parts of it, rather than the practical jokes they played on each other. Although, the comic relief was often good. Also, one of my friends had a crush on Hawkeye.
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