Review of M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker, Cassell (1968)

As a teenager I was a fan of the M*A*S*H TV series and the original 1970 Robert Altman movie and I first read the novel in 1989. I was a first year undergraduate and someone I was sharing a student house with had been collecting all the books in the series (of which there are 15). I also made my way through most of them (I seem to remember he was missing 4 of them). I picked up the first in series in Enniskillen a couple of weeks ago for the princely sum of 99p for a brand new copy. Rarely has so little money delivered such value – a few hours of highly enjoyable reading and several belly laughs.

Loosely based on Richard Hooker’s own experiences with the M*A*S*H 8055th (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital) in Korean War during the early 1950s, the novel details the tour of duty of Captains Hawkeye Pierce and Duke Forrest, two young surgeons drafted to perform ‘meatball surgery’ on the unfortunate soldiers wounded on the frontline, and how they raise hell and havoc to blow off steam, trying to remain sane after hours and days at the operating table and the periods of boredom in between. Along for the journey are fellow swamp (tent) residents, Trapper John (chief surgeon) and Spearchucker Jones (neurologist), and a gang of colourful characters all in the same boat including Radar O’Reilly (clerk), Hot Lips Houlihan (chief nurse), the Painless Pole (dentist), Knocko McCarthy (nurse), Ugly John (anaesthetist), Father ‘Dago Red’ Mulcahy (chaplain), Mother Devine (cook), Frank Burns (surgeon) and Henry Blake (chief officer).

‘Talk to me anyhow, Captain. Just talk about anything that comes into your head.’
‘Death is an elephant, torch-eyed and horrible, foam-flanked and terrible,’ Hawkeye commented.
Major Haskell lit a cigarette.
‘You nervous or something?’ asked Hawkeye.
‘Not at all,’ the Major replied nervously.
‘Hey, Dad, I’ll give you a nice buy on an elephant. Velly clean. Penicillim. Finest kind.’
‘Captain Pierce, what are you up to? Frankly I can’t decide if you’re crazy or just some kind of a screwball.’
‘Well, why don’t you mull it over for a while. You got anything to trade in.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you want a clean deal on an elephant, or you got some kind of used up elephant you wanta stick me with in return for my best elephant?’

Blending pathos with dark humour, and getting the balance just right, Hooker effectively uses a series of interlinked short stories to unfold the plot. The characterization is superb, as well as the set pieces, and the dialogue is first class. I felt myself smiling often and laughing out loud on a good number of occasions. Unlike the television series, the book lacks an overt political message; it is a book about how people survive and get by in a terrible situation not of their choosing, implicitly an anti-war novel, but not explicitly so. In that sense it lacks the bite of other darkly humorous and satirical books about war such as Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 and does little to explore the morality of war or the industries that surround them such as prostitution and black marketeering. Clearly that wasn't Hooker's aim and so the criticism is moot, but for me it would have transformed a very good book into a minor masterpiece.

The other books follow Hawkeye and Trapper John on their return to the United States and has them jetting all over the world on various escapades. The original book was the high point that spawned a media franchise.