First Blood, a first read 40 years too late in reading for many. The author starts the story with introducing a name, Rambo and having the reader build an image of this character in mind, he successfully paints the portrait partly introducing Rambo, the long hair, the rough looking image, his sleeping carry sack on the road drifting wondering and then loads us with confrontation a police officer that seems to have issues with his hair, his wondering, his smarts and his look of a man that can take care of himself. Imagine you never saw Stallone and the movie and so far we are slowly introduced to Rambo and who he is.We start to learn some more of Rambo when he reaches a situation involving water in an uncompromising situation and then the memories with water and a hole involving bamboo come flooding back and we now start to build a better understanding of the darkness, the shadows that haunt him. I love the way he slowly introduces us to a scene of confrontation and slowly reels us to learn the ways that John behaves. You feel for John he is being treated unfairly almost a victim of discrimination in the beginning as a kind racial issue in a way, as if he was someone from another country, a people that the officer hated, maybe a person he once fought against, the officer seems to not like his looks, but he will learn that deep down what he doesn't like is maybe that could be another version of him walking around somebody he may have been or could have been and gone loose in the wilderness taking heads out killing and fighting a war in his own backyard. He could be scared of his own image in this man and wanted to rip and drive him to the ground and that was the biggest upset, Rambo was no vagrant to be meddled with. This was no enemy, a man like himself both fought in wars, he is all American Rambo, he should have been left alone to his own devices but alas our dear author David Morrell chooses to use this bullying officer to bring out his worst but most skilled ability to kill he shows us an unforgettable Rambo, a name, a character who would did take the world by storm and be engraved in every book reader and moviegoers mind across the world.Rambo a veteran back from a brutal war that took probably the best of himself away in another hemisphere and now the person left behind having to assimilate back to society with vivid memories, terrible nightmares, for only a brief experience can bring back all the pain, all traumatic experiences, bring about fear, a rash behavior, unflinching and with no prisoners. Sheer Craftsmanship in telling this very human tale of the evil that men do and see coming home to roost, told in a way that only David could have told it. Getting you off to a good start is the key of great storytelling, introducing parts and a name of the character stuff of great stories, you only have to read Lolita or Moby Dick or Metamorphosis to see great examples of first sentences, then after aperture he has you fully encompassed and captivated to the very end of this train ride going of the rails destined for a explosive climax. Excerpts "Sure you'll fight. Sure. What a laugh. Take a look at yourself. Already you know what this place reminds you of. Two days in that cramped cell and you'll be pissing down your pant-legs. 'You've got to understand I can't stay in there.' He could not stop himself. 'The wet. I can't stand being closed in where it's wet.' The hole, he was thinking, his scalp alive. The bamboo grate over the top. Water seeping through the dirt, the walls crumbling, the inches of slimy muck he had to try sleeping on. Tell him, for God's sake. Screw, you mean beg him." " 'Green beret?' Lester said. The voice was starting to repeat, broke up, never came back again. It started to rain, light drops speckling the dust and dirt, spotting Teasle's pants and soaking in, pelting cool on his bare back. The black clouds shadowed over. Lighting crackled and lit up the cliff like a spotlight, and as fast as the spotlight came on, it went off and the shadows returned, bringing with them shock waves of exploding thunder. 'Medal of Honor?' Lester said to Teasle. 'Is that what you brought us after? A war hero? A f*****g Green Beret?' " Below is what i asked this author in an interview I hosted, I asked a few questions on this book and the movie adaptation, to read the rest of the interview on writing and his new Victorian London mystery Murder as a Fine Art visit it on my webpage> http://more2read.com/review/interview-with-david-morrell/ (Courtesy of Carolco Pictures)Lou Pendergrast:What inspired you to write First Blood? David Morrell:I was a graduate student at Penn State in the late 1960s. I taught composition classes there, and many of my students were Vietnam veterans. They told me about their difficulty adjusting to peace time—sweats, nightmares, reaction to loud noises, difficulties relying to people. We now call this post-traumatic stress disorder. Back then it was called battle fatigue. I decided to write First Blood, about a returned veteran who was trying to adjust to the disturbing knowledge that he was skilled at killing. At the time, the United States was ravaged by hundreds of riots, many of which were against the Vietnam War. It was as if a different kind of war was happening at home. Basically, First Blood became an antiwar allegory about a version of the Vietnam war occurring in the U.S. Lou Pendergrast:What did the movie adaptation of your novel First Blood do for you creation of Rambo?David Morrell:The character in my novel is extremely angry and bitter. The character in the film adaptation is portrayed as a victim. The plot is mostly the same, but the interpretation is different. On some Blu-Ray DVDs of First Blood, I provided a full-length audio commentary about the differences between the novel and the film. Lou Pendergrast:What was the popularity of your book like after the movie adaptation of your book was out? David Morrell:The novel was published 41 years ago, and it’s never been out of print. The Rambo films brought attention to the novel, of course, but even before the release of the first film in 1982, First Blood was taught in high schools and colleges across the United States.
First BloodBy David MorellA Retroview by Eric AllenI led a rather sheltered childhood, and I did not get to see my first R rated move until I was well into my teens. Looking back, I find that I am actually rather grateful that I did not have such influences as prolific cursing and blood and gore on my formative years. I believe that it allows me to more appreciate the gravity of them now. It did not keep me from chafing under the strictures placed upon me by my parents when I was young, though. Back in the day, I heard of this movie called Rambo, but that's not really what the movie was called, it was just what everyone called it because that's what the sequels were called. It sounded awesome, a movie about a Vietnam vet coming home and starting a war with police. It had everything a growing boy wanted to see in a movie. BUT, my mom would not allow. So I went to the library and looked for the book, but couldn't find a book called Rambo, so I asked the librarian who smirked at me and led me to a shelf. She handed me a book called First Blood and said that the movie was based on it. I was somewhat intrigued. A book that was a book BEFORE it was a movie? Did things like that actually happen? This book must be especially awesome, because think of all the things that wouldn't be able to fit in a movie. Much to my dismay, when I began to talk about it with my friends, the book is so different from the movie that the movie might as well not have been based on it at all. The book dealt heavily with questions of morality, and made the two main characters BOTH seem like the good guy AND the bad guy. If anything, the cop came off as being more sympathetic in the book, rather than Rambo. My friends were SHOCKED to hear how the book ended, as it would have prevented any sequels from happening. They were also shocked to hear how much BLOODIER the book was from the movie, and they all checked it out of the library to read for that purpose. In the book Rambo is a killing machine that just wastes everyone in his path, in the movie I think he indirectly kills a single person.I've recently gone back and reread this book, and here are my thoughts on it.First Blood begins with Rambo, a Vietnam Vet, former Green Beret, and recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. His time spent in a work camp as a PoW have left him with deep mental and physical scars. Because of these he has been unable to keep a job, and has let his hair and beard grow out because he can no longer bare to have someone cut his hair, or even to shave himself because of what it brings back to him from the war. This is a day and age when unshaven men with long hair were thought to be extremely undesireable. Though he served his country to his fullest, and sacrificed so much, he is mocked, scorned, and treated like trash by the people who see him, and tossed out of town after town by law enforcement as he wanders afoot across the USA, desperately seeking a meaning to his own life.When yet another cop, Teasle by name, throws him out of town, he decides to fight back by returning to town several times until Teasle finally arrests him. When he is forced into a haircut, Rambo flashes back to his time being tortured in the war and runs for it, killing about a dozen cops in the process. The national guard is called in, and Rambo is cornered. Though he wants nothing more than to escape from the law to Mexico, he is herded back toward the town where an explosive and bloody confrontation between him and the police takes place.The Good? There is a lot of subtle political commentary, and criticism of the way America viewed its sons coming home from Vietnam in this book. It is really thought provoking, and very well incorporated into the story. At the time that this book was written, it asked a lot of questions and brought up a lot of points that many people wanted to ignore. The way that this book is written, alternating chapters from the points of view of Teasle and Rambo makes BOTH of the characters sympatheic. You see both sides of the story, and you can see where each of the characters is doing right by himself and wrong by the other. There really is no good guy or bad guy in this book, but if I actually had to choose between them which is the good and which is the bad, I'd probably pick Rambo as the bad.Where the movie focused on the action, the book focused on the internal struggle of the two men, the generation gap between them, and how each generation was hailed coming home from war. As a preteen I found this to be especially interesting, because I'd never really read anything like it before. Looking back I can see why the librarian smirked at me when I asked for this book. Rereading the book now that I've seen the movie, I thought the book was even better. It had a very clear and important message to impart and the movie, I feel, completely missed the point.The Bad? This book is not exceptionally well written. It was David Morell's first, and as a first novel it's not bad, but there is huge room for improvement in his prose and style. He uses a few key phrases over much, and repeats the same word noticeably in close proximity quite a bit. Morell does not display much of a vocabulary in this novel. His descriptive skills are not exceptionally good here either. I am happy to say that he does improve as a writer greatly in his later novels, which only leads me to wonder how much better this one would have been had he written a couple of his others first for practice.All in all, this book was pretty entertaining, though not for the same reasons the movie was. It asks a lot of deep questions, and points out a lot of problems with the thinking of most Americans in the 70s. It shaped a lot of my opinions in my formative years on war and those who return from it. It's a provocative novel that focuses much less on the action of the story than the movie does, and more on the characters, their emotions, their motives, and their struggle against each other, both physically and mentally. I give it three stars because while it was entertaining and really got me thinking, it wasn't exceptionally well written. Check out my other reviews.
What do You think about First Blood (2000)?
I hesitated to read this for very long because the movie means so much to me. I first saw the movie when I was probably way to young to have seen it (Thanks Dad!) and it's always been a favorite. The book differs greatly from the film. First of all the book takes place in Kentucky instead of the Northwest. The bodycount is significantly higher in the book, which I feel is an interesting component, and is often the opposite of how these things go. The book also contains less dialogue than the film, specifically the dialogue between Trautman and Rambo which is one of the most important parts of the film and is really well-done (albeit nearly unintelligable without the aid of closed captioning). And the ending? Completely different.This is one of those rare occasions where the movie is better than the book. It's poorly,and seemingly hastily written, and the use of internal dialogue is extremely tacky. I see-sawed between a review of 2 or 3 stars and landed on 3 out of some type of loyalty.
—Jeffrey Bumiller
First Blood, an outstanding film and probably the first video rental I watched (at 11 years old). I never gave much thought into reading the book. Watching the movie made a huge impression on me, as it did with many teenage boys at the time, and I confess I have flashbacks to the movie as I read it. As I turned the pages the nostalgia for my teenage years and my association to Rambo returned, I saw Stallone’s chiseled physique awash with mud and blood, a highly trained killing machine alone, a survival expert living on the edge of society. Separating this book from the Rambo phenomena is impossible for me, but it is a wonderful journey in finding out where that huge 80s Icon of western pop culture came from. How could I not love it
—Paul Tracey
John Rambo is a cultural icon for me like a lot of you out here. You cannot be growing up in the 80's without having Rambo's name mentioned atleast once in your vicinity. Out here in my place, this guy was treated the ultimate warrior when I was a kid. Childhood memories remind me of teenaged guys in the neighborhood with hazy eyes talking to each other about the non-stop action from First Blood . It is then extremely ironic that I came to know that the movie's name was not Rambo perhaps only after coming to IMDB. The book however was an extremely exhilarating read and to me was more of a thrill than the movie itself !The story is now so well known that there needn't be a detailed sketch of it out here. The stage setting of the story was a lot interesting. A disillusioned soldier being harassed by a small town cop was a scenario that sounded so outrageous. You almost feel like shouting at the cop : No, don't piss him off you idiot ! But William Teasle does piss John Rambo off and it all goes straight to hell. Beyond the stage setting part, it is a chase story and an elaborate manhunt. As a reader, I rarely feel such intense excitement in this book. I was reading Margaret Atwood and picked this up as a diversion. What happened in the end was me devoring this tale late into the night and finishing it in two sittings. Needless to say it is very very engrossing and entertainment of the first rate. When the story gets over, you know that you have eaten junk food ! That is you find it to be extremely tasty but ultimately pointless. The novel is in a good way similar to that for you do not gain anything here but those exciting moments and nothing beyond that. It should also be said that the tale is intensely bloody. Once the violence begins, bodies start dropping like rain all over the place. This suits the general mood of the tale but once you finish the tale, you cannot but be astounded by the scale of massacres in the tale.It is a dynamite for a one time read and recommended just for that adrenaline factor.
—Arun Divakar
