Remembering Limited War: Reflections of the Korean War in Selected American Novels

摘要

The novel is a time-honored and effective way of remembering war insofar as it records the human implications of politics, strategy, and policy as ultimately reflected in the soldier's quotidian existence. In this respect the Korean War is no exception. National and military strategy and policy made Korea a 'limited war' rather different in its aims and prosecution from the wars that preceded it, and that conflict remains a distinct American wartime experience. Despite its reputation as the 'forgotten war', Korea inspired a significant response in the popular culture, novels included; and many of those novels reflect the ways in which Korea was indeed a rather different war. Imaginative responses to the war comment on the way it was more or less ignored by an apathetic home front, characterized by limitations ranging from the means of waging it to the length of the serviceman's participation, and distinguished from wars before it or since by the participation of recalled reservists only a few years removed from an even greater conflict. Although in terms of quality Korean War fiction is generally undistinguished, it is nonetheless valuable for its reflection of a particular and important moment in the history of American warfare.