Goodbye, Darkness

A Memoir of the Pacific War

By: William Manchester

Narrated by: Barrett Whitener

Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

In this intensely powerful memoir, America's pre-eminent biographer-historian, who has written so brilliantly about World War II in his acclaimed lives of General Douglas MacArthur ( American Caesar) and Winston Churchill ( The Last Lion), looks back at his own early life.

This memoir offers an unrivaled firsthand account of World War II in the Pacific - what it looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and most of all, what it felt like to one who underwent all but the ultimate of its experiences.

©1979, 1980 William Manchester (P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Critic Reviews

"It belongs with the best war memoirs ever written." (Los Angeles Times)
"A strong and honest account." (The New York Times Book Review)
"When Manchester speaks of the awesome heroism and hideous suffering of the Marines he lived with and fought with, he is reverent before the mystery of individual courage and gallantry." (Baltimore Sun)

The best war memoir ever

Manchester fought as a marine in the Pacific in WWII, and he returned there to visit and to drive out the demons of black memory in 1978. His memoir of the trip and of the gruesome horrific events of the 1940's island warfare is the best war memoir I have read in 50 years of reading. The oral presentation in this audiobook is equally well done. The listener begins to think that the speaker himself experienced what Manchester wrote about. Surperlative, simply superlative.

Essential

What did you like best about this story?

William Manchester sounds to be the source of much of today's ambivalent confusion about war, and is writing a fact filled, yet soppy emotional memoir / history of compelling stuff. Writing in 1978 or thereabouts, he illustrates perfectly a Me Generation dream sequence which is absent the conviction of necessity. Manchester writes as if, and clearly you can hear it in his articulation, the war was a great revelation to him and thus to everyone. In this regard he displays a kind of shocked naiveté, as if the two World Wars were something just invented for his father and himself, custom-made to drive him to madness. So he deals with repressed memories, and the shock of being amidst the random chaos and violence, and the amazement of how empty such places were after the war.

Manchester plays the role of the callow youth experiencing war, trying to deal with cowardice and bravado, and how neither of these simple expressions of manhood seem to have much to do with who dies and who survives the brutalities of the Pacific theater. A sergeant trying to lead men, who develops through sheer luck, an ability to survive the horrors of jungle warfare on extremely remote inhospitable islands.

The book serves as my first look into the complexities and the battles of the Pacific. Ask me yesterday and I might have said, Iwo Jima, Midway and Pearl, but now my understanding has been extended a great deal. Recognizing how close the Japanese came to Australia was a great revelation of the book, as well as the parallel drives northward of McArthur and Nimitz. The change in tactics by the Japanese and their all-consuming drive for victory as Dai Nippon has given me a new appreciation for why they were so hated by the Chinese. The devotion of many Pacific island natives to the Americans was something you never hear about, nor the primitive manner in which they lived and how Dai Nippon forced them into labor. The Solomons, the Marianas.

It may be because he also wrote extensively about McArthur and Churchill that his own experience as recounted in this book seems to define so well many of the anti-war sentiments of the a man who clearly absorbed the import of the counterculture in American life. He ends the book describing the traditional values of the America he grew up in as if they were long gone and never to return. He so concludes that he fought for the equivalent of an instinct for his fellow soldiers, all of whom possessed a logic in defense of things that no longer exist in the modern world, which only goes to demonstrate how mashed up in the illusory narrative he became, all the while railing against its ignorance through the book. It is this tension between the personal in the context of

Manchester is nothing if not an intelligent and articulate master of languages and betrays the kind of respect for it that makes all of his descriptions of dialect and war era terminology quite a treasure. Terms erased by polite and cowardly conventions spell truths that defy historical revisionism stand out everywhere in Manchester's writing. In reading this book you are submerged in a way of speaking American English that has all dried up into today's yuppy-speak. It's useful just to read the book aloud to experience something genuine. Manchester thus is at war with Hollywood and American ahistorical ignorance as well as with his former self.

This book is an absolute necessity.

At least one in a hundred

Of the more than 100 books I have listened to at Audible, months later, this one sticks out in my mind. I have read all of Manchester's books. He is a fine historian but this autobiographical telling of one Marine's experience in the Pacific war is exciting, insightful and above all honest. It is not a romanticized view of war. This is an extraordinary piece of writing with a lot to be learned from it about the experience of courage, fear, and friendship.

Goodbye, dullness

There are many good memoirs of war, and many great memoirs of the Pacific War. This is not one of them. The reminsiscence of Manchester's war in Okinawa, at the end of the book, would be worth reading if there were no other accounts of this tragic battle But, despite the title, this book is largely concerned with two topics that go beyond his reminiscences of the Pacific War. The greater part of the book are not his reminiscences of battles he fought in, but popular histories of battles he has only read about. This part is filled with pedantic quotes in several languages that appear intended to impress us with Manchester's learning. The other main topic are dubious anecdotes about Manchester's personal life in and around the time of the war. Many are either of suspicious authenticity or are completely tactless. I strongly doubt his account for why he was thrown out of officer candidate's school. In one anecdote he tells us how honourable his comrades were, to the point that a man who described having "made it" with a sweet heart was shunned by Manchester's squad; in another anecdote he his boasting of the size of his Johnson, and his anatomical description of making out with a girl in a movie theatre, makes one cringe.

If you are inclined to give Manchester a chance, by and read the book. The narrator of this book has two very different, but equally grating styles. The main style is a forced flat delivery like someone reading announcements on a public address system in a 1930s movie. When Manchester quotes someone else, the narrator adopts a cartoon voice that is seldom appropriate for the person quoted.

I supposed die-hard students of the Pacific War will read this anyway, but if they are real students they will not learn anything except Bill Manchester's self-regard.

Moving and haunting

I'm a relative novice to the history of the pacific war in WWII and I purchased this book for 2 reasons: I wanted a basic overview from a soldier's point of view and I've read one of Mr. Manchester's other books and liked it. It's excellent on many fronts and several scenes and images will stick with me forever. From a historical perspective, it's probably a bit light. The overview of the war is in broad strokes but it works for this book. He frequently and fluidly moves from broad historical overview to his specific experiences although I did occasionally lose track of his specific experiences and those he was recounting from his fellow marines. The audiobook reader is overall good.

Powerful and Honest

Would you listen to Goodbye, Darkness again? Why?

Yes. Mr. Manchester shares his own experience, and accurately reveals the the history of several Pacific campaigns. He does so with literary skills few before him have. I have read many books on the Pacific campaign, and rarely was the veteran also a renowned author. Mr. Manchester's command of the language makes the history even more powerful. Although no author can give full life to any battle, Mr. Manchester comes as close as any I have read. In addition, his description of death is unabashed and brutal, but accurate.

What did you like best about this story?

The history and his literary skills. It draws you in and grips you.

Which character – as performed by Barrett Whitener – was your favorite?

The author's own experiences

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

yes

Any additional comments?

Some audible critics found it venturing too afar from the battlefield. In other words, delving too deeply into the author's own experiences before and after the war. Guilty as charged. If someone wants only the battle, only the simple facts, then I doubt they have any experience as a soldier, or want the whole story. War and soldering by definition is such a human experience, or inhumane experience, that to divorce the two is impossible. If the story can be told with honesty, with honest reflection and self-reflection, not to mention incredible literary skills, so much better for the reader. I'm sorry I had not read this years before.

A Stunner

William Manchester is a brilliant writer who just happened to have been there in the thick of it, the war in the Pacific. I usually have a hard time understanding descriptions of battles, but this is clear, devastating writing which puts you right there.

Manchester is a great writer.

The author is almost always worth reading or listening to. This book is no exception. He really is passionate here as it is biographical.

Goodbye, Darkness

I have listened to many audiotapes over the past couple of years and this was definitly the worst. There was some interesting and worthwhile information about the war. Most of the story was disconnected ramblings about himself, which was annoying and of little interest. This was especially disappointing since it cost two credits.

Bleh

If you're looking for a story of his pre-war life and a historical look at the war, then you'll like this book. There is *very* little of his actual combat experience and. I can read about what the overall picture of the Pacific war was like from historians but can only get an eyes on the ground view from very few people. I was hoping to learn about his war experience but, sadly, it was not written about.

Honest, humane and intelligent personal history

Like most Englishmen born in the 1940s I know more about the European and African theatres of war than the Pacific theatre. I bought this book purely on the author's reputation and also because two months ago I bought his biography of H L Mencken and thoroughly enjoyed it.

The middle aged author revisits the places he fought over as a soldier in 1942 - 1945 and mixes gripping reminiscence with wry [and occasionally cynical] afterthoughts. On the textures of war - spilt blood, torn flesh, terror, anger at waste and stupidity - he is unflinchingly excellent, and for this reason some of the battle sequences are not for the faint hearted. Mr Manchester looks back at his youthful self with a kind of appalled fascination, but manages, without any sentimental heroics, to convey the power and comradeship of being part of a brotherhood under arms. He is also good on the social and cultural losses occasioned by victory.

All of which makes this book sound solemn, even dry - far from it. Mr Manchester writes in a graceful, muscular prose which knits up into a powerful and utterly absorbing narrative, parts of which made me laugh out loud, and other parts of which made me cry. I have no idea how authentic a view of the Pacific war this is from an historical point of view: but as personal history written by a combatant [Mr Manchester was a US Marines Serjeant] it is utterly convincing. War requires intelligent, humane and kind people to perform atrocious acts, and Mr Manchester conveys the tensions this situation set up in him very well indeed. This return journey seems to have been in part an exorcism - and one is left with the impression that while Mr Manchester may have been able to forgive himself for some of the things he had to do, he is never likely to forget them. A memorable and beautifully crafted book which it is a pleasure to recommend.

Shame about the narration

Interesting book read by a robot. Shame as it would have been much better read by someone with feeling