The Bamboo Bed

by William Eastlake

Book Overview

-- Dying in a bamboo bed, Captain Clancy hallucinates several philosophical conversations with a snake and a tiger. Meanwhile, Captain Knightbridge and Nurse Jane of the Search & Rescue Unit have sex in their helicopter -- the Bamboo Bed -- at 10,000 feet, setting a wartime record. Down below, two hippy kids wander the forest trying to end the Vietnam war with a dream and a guitar. In the tradition of Catch-22 and Dr. Strangelove, The Bamboo Bed treats...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826311709
• ISBN13: 9780826311702
• Release Date: September 2009
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 350 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.

Customer Reviews

The mother of Vietnam war fiction

The Bamboo Bed was published in 1969. Eastlakes vision of the Vietnam war is dominated by its absurdity. These two facts intertwine to support my summary that the book is the mother of all Vietnam war fiction. Eastlake, a WWII vet, went to Vietnam and published some dispatches from there for The Nation magazine. His vision of the war as an absurdity long ago became a cliche in fiction and movies, but in 69 it was a revelation. That alone hardly makes the book great, or even worth reading. What makes it so is wonderful prose and wonderful characters. I love most of Eastlake's work but I am aware that his (what I call) over the top style is unbearable to some or at least disqualifies his work from being mentioned in the same phrase as literature. I of course disagree. The Bamboo Bed is a landmark of modern American fiction.

A Forgotten Great Writer

An incredible writer, so far ahead of most contemporary novelists, and yet he lies forgotten. This book will last beyond literature.