From Here to Eternity
Life in an Army infantry company in Hawaii in the months before Pearl Harbor.
The Verdict
Pearl Harbor arrives only in the last act; almost everything before it is peacetime, and that is the point. James Jones's breakthrough novel anatomises the prewar US Army in Hawaii — the boxing smokers, the stockade beatings, the bars and brothels, the bullying of a bugler who will not fight — until the Japanese planes turn all that small cruelty into history. It won the National Book Award and made Jones famous, and it remains a granite-hard portrait of institutional life and the men ground up inside it.
Who Should Read It
Read it if you want
- The peacetime army that Pearl Harbor shattered
- Character and institution over combat
- An award-winning landmark of postwar fiction
- Hawaii in the months before 7 December 1941
Look elsewhere if you want
- Battle action (the attack is brief, near the end)
- A short read — it runs over 800 pages
- A conventional war story
Why We Rated It 4.4
Historical Context
Published in 1951, From Here to Eternity is the first of Jones's army trilogy and draws on his prewar service in Hawaii. It won the 1952 National Book Award and was filmed in 1953, with the surf-embrace scene becoming one of cinema's most famous images.
Events Covered
Editions & Reading Notes
Read It Alongside
Where to Buy
ISBN: 978-0385333641
Read This Against
The same events seen from a different vantage point. The fullest understanding often lives in the space between accounts that don't agree.
Other Books About the Same Events
More by James Jones
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is From Here to Eternity about the attack on Pearl Harbor?
- Only at the end. Most of the novel depicts peacetime army life in Hawaii; the attack arrives in the final act and changes everything.
- Did it win major awards?
- Yes — the 1952 National Book Award for Fiction.