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Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 5:47 pm
by BigT112
I am in the midst of reading Richard Hooker's book again, and I was wondering how many people read the book and what they thought of it. I thinks its pretty good to be honest, radically different from the TV show, but thats ok!

Re: Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 3:47 pm
by Chuck
I read it and thought it mirrored the original movie pretty well.

Re: Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 7:01 pm
by RJ
I read it once a long, long time ago. I do not really remember much about it, to be honest.

Re: Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:43 am
by Zelmo Zale
I just read the book a few months ago and thought it was pretty good. I thought it interesting how Trapper seemed to be the centerpiece of the 4077th and Hawkeye, although dominant in his own way, seemed more like the sidekick. Of course, these roles would get reversed on the TV show.

I also was surprised there was no "Major Frank Burns" in the book. There is a CAPTAIN Frank Burns who only appears on a page or two. The Frank Burns character in the movie and TV show is a combination of Captain Burns and a Major from the book whose name I cannot recall.

The Henry Blake character in the book is one-dimensional...all he really does is yell at Trapper and Hawkeye. McLean Stevenson played Blake close to the vest for the first few episode and slowly made the character his own. It wasn't until the beginning of Season 2 where Blake became more of a "clown", but he became much funnier and enjoyable to watch.

I wondered how Duke would have translated to the TV show. He was the third most important character in the book (maybe even #2) and would have been a fine addition to the TV show, but the cast was already getting too crowded. Season 1 had a lot of fringe players who just didn't work out (Spearchucker, Ugly John) or just weren't needed (Ho-Jon, Cutler, Leslie) and took away lines from more prominent characters.

Re: Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 4:04 pm
by Chuck
Apparently, M*A*S*H (Three Army Doctors) was the first in a series of M*A*S*H books by Richard Hooker. I liked the first one, so I might try to find the others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hooker_(author)

Re: Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2012 5:39 pm
by RJ
Chuck wrote:Apparently, M*A*S*H (Three Army Doctors) was the first in a series of M*A*S*H books by Richard Hooker. I liked the first one, so I might try to find the others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hooker_(author)
Be aware that Hooker actually only wrote two additional M*A*S*H novels (M*A*S*H Goes to Maine and M*A*S*H Mania). The rest were written by William E. Butterworth, although Hooker was credited as well.

Re: Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 12:38 pm
by theprofromdover
Read it years ago and absolutely loved it.

Re: Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 6:42 am
by davidrobinson
RJ wrote: Fri Oct 05, 2012 5:39 pm
Chuck wrote:Apparently, M*A*S*H (Three Army Doctors) was the first in a series of M*A*S*H books by Richard Hooker. I liked the first one, so I might try to find the others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hooker_(author)
Be aware that Hooker actually only wrote two additional M*A*S*H novels (M*A*S*H Goes to Maine and M*A*S*H Mania). The rest were written by William E. Butterworth, although Hooker was credited as well.

I though Hooker wrote 3, The first 2 and then the very last one. MASH, MASH MAINE and MASH MANIA

Re: Have You Ever Read The Book?

Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2017 8:04 pm
by RJ
That's correct. Technically, the original novel was written by Richard H. Hornberger with W.C. Heinz using the pen name Richard Hooker. I believe Hornberger wrote M*A*S*H Goes to Maine and M*A*S*H Mania on his own.