Talk:The Thin Red Line (novel)

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how are we supposed to reconcile the CLAIM that "The novel depicts, but is CAREFUL NOT TO JUDGE, acts most readers would consider repellant" with the statement that "the characters who seem to possess those traits that would normally be equated with soldierly virtue are shown to be brutal and inhumane" ??????

clearly an implied judgment runs throughout the book, along the lines of whether the events within it are good or bad. it would seem as though only an apologist for mass butchery could say that this book doesn't actually carry any clear judgment of the ravages it depicts.

This article needs to be cleaned up. The english is not to good.

To me this is simply a shoddy book report someone did for and English class or something. It is someone's opinion essentially. Needs to be more than cleaned up. I'll try to look for a more objective description and format it like other books. --Tainter 03:15, 8 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not only is the English not too good, but this "article" is simply the not too well-formed criticism of the book. Better to delete than simply clean up. This work was important enough to bring MAllick out of essentially a quarter century of retirment from cinema, and this is the best Wiki can do?Reimelt 01:16, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Come on guys, there's nothing wrong with the English! Maybe more information and a restructure to make it similar to other books entries would be appropriate though. WRT Mallick, I don't think the article needs to focus on his movie; I get the impression Mallick just used the book as a convenient scenario to hang his ideas from. The film is a classic, but its only resemblance to the book is in some of the characters' names and in the setting.

• maybe mention that the book is on a lot of Top 100 (even Top 10!) lists for 20th century fiction?

Hopefully this is now a bit more readable - I don't, however, know enough about the novel to add more content. Septemberfourth476 (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This section needs a lot of work (the whole article does, actually). It should be used to present summary reviews of the novel, evidence of its literary and/or historical impact (not Wikipedia editor's lit crit review), etc. Sources should be included to published reviews; for instance, the quote from Christian Science Monitor comparing TTRL to Red Badge of Courage is all over the web. But it would be more useful to provide the actual original source. Alcarillo 18:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone confirm, did the midwestern proverb of the thin red line between sanity and insanity actually exist? I believe James Jones invented it, as it sounds too abstract, literal and conceptual to be a folksy, commonly used old saying.--Ukas (talk) 10:47, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Thin Red Line is an expression used to refer to The British Army, as the British always used to wear red. As it says in the article, Jones took it from a Kipling poem. So, I've always thought it rather bizarre that it's used to refer to the Americans in this book & film.VenomousConcept (talk) 10:05, 24 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]