Give me a free hour and I’ll make my way up to bed with a good book in hand and be content. Give Wonder Boy a free hour and he’ll dig into a game of Call of Duty. Typically these are very different activities. For the last two weeks I’ve been reading Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes. This hefty book holds a story more lifelike than what Call of Duty presents and is a challenging read in many aspects, but well-worth the struggles.

I am not familiar with war. I cringe at the idea of people fighting to their death over just about anything. I do understand that there are times war is justified and even necessary, but I do my best to remain distant from it. Marlantes takes his readers and plops them right down in the middle of the Vietnamese bush with fighting all around.

While the setting is described in exquisite detail, what Marlantes accomplishes best is creating characters that the reader gets invested in. Lieutenant Waino Mellas makes for a unique main character. He is an ivy league grad with liberal tendencies. When he enlists with the marines and goes to Vietnam, he finds himself surrounded by many men of color and most people of a lower socioeconomic status than himself. The reader accompanies him as he navigates, and at time stumbles, through the different social groups, race relations and mores of the military. And also when he enters into the heat of battle.

Although not something I think about often, I have an idea in my head of what war is like. This vision is likely influenced by what I see on the screen every time I walk by Wonder Boy playing Call of Duty. Matterhorn added a whole other dimension to what I think of war. I don’t think I ever adequately factored fear into the setting. And I know, Matterhorn is just a book. But Marlantes was a marine during the Vietnam war so I imagine that what he’s writing gives at least some insight into war.

Each battle scene in Matterhorn is terrible. Men die violent deaths. Men watch their friends die in front of them and then have to go collect their bodies so families back home have something to bury. Politicians at home make wartime decisions that sometimes result in strategic successes and usually mean the death of someone – be they Vietnamese or American.

I could go further but struggle to do so without seeming to make a political statement, which is not my point. The point I do want to make is that Matterhorn was an emotional read that I found powerful and insightful. I would recommend it to folks, and also think it would make a nice last-minute Father Day gift idea.

This post originally appeared on Kate’s Point of View. © Kate. All rights reserved.