James jones author biography john

American author

James Ramon Jones (November 6, 1921 – May 9, 1977) was an American novelist renowned for his explorations of World War II and its aftermath. He won the 1952 National Book Award for his debut novel, From Here to Eternity, which was adapted for film a year later (and went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture) and made into a television series a generation later.

Life

James Ramon Jones was born and raised in Robinson, Illinois, the son of Ramon and Ada M. (née Blessing) Jones. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1939 at the age of 17 and served in the 25th Infantry Division, 27th Infantry Regiment before and during World War II, first in Hawaii at Schofield Barracks on Oahu, then in combat on Guadalcanal at the Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse, where he was wounded in his head. He returned to the US after an operation on his ankle, and was discharged in July 1944. He also worked as a journalist covering the Vietnam War.

It was in the Army that Jones decided he would be a writer, or as he put it, "I realized I had been a writer all my life without knowing it or without having written."

His wartime experiences inspired some of his most famous works, the so-called war trilogy. He witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which led to his first published novel, From Here to Eternity (1951). The Thin Red Line (1962) reflected his combat experiences on Guadalcanal and Whistle (posthumous, 1978) was based on his hospital stay in Memphis, Tennessee, recovering from surgery on an ankle he had reinjured on the island.

Jones was the father of two children including Kaylie Jones, an author best known for A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries, a thinly veiled memoir of the Joneses' life in Paris during the 1960s. (The son Jamie Jones was adopted in France.) Kaylie Jones's novel was made into a film starring Kris Kristofferson, Barbara He

• From Here to Eternity

• By: James Jones
• Narrated by: Elijah Alexander
• Length: 36 hrs and 50 mins
• Unabridged

Diamond Head, Hawaii, 1941.Pvt. Robert E. Lee Prewitt is a champion welterweight and a fine bugler....

• 5 out of 5 stars

• Genius on Every Level

• By aaron on 06-13-13

Born on 12 March 1892 in New Quay, Cardiganshire, the son of a saddler, Thomas Jones and Elizabeth, daughter of John Williams, Pendre, Llwyndafydd. He was educated at the Council School, New Quay and Aberaeron intermediate school (1906-10); he was a student teacher before entering the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth (1911-14). He graduated B.A. (Wales) with honours in Latin, and was awarded an M.A. degree for a thesis on The native Italian element in early Roman religion. He taught for nine years in English grammar schools - Stockton-on-Tees (1914-15); Whitchurch, Salop (1915-18); Ryleys School, Chester (1918-20); and Sir Thomas Rich's School, Gloucester (1920-23). Latin was removed from the curriculum at the school in Gloucester and he lost his post in consequence. Owing to a slight defect of his hearing, he left the teaching profession and returned to do further research in the Classics department at Aberystwyth. In 1926, he was appointed Assistant Keeper in the Department of Printed Books, National Library of Wales, promoted Deputy Keeper in 1928 and he was Head of the Department from 1950 until his death. He was recognized as a skilful bibliographer, a skill which he surely derived from his scholarship and discipline in the Classics. He married Elizabeth Mary, daughter of Isaac Davies, of New Quay, but there were no children.

He had a special aptitude for learning languages, and his thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek provided him with a firm foundation for learning other languages, such

“Things will catch up with him and he will probably commit suicide. . . . I hope he kills himself as soon as it does not damage your sales. . . . “

Not, all things considered, anything you’d want to use in a blurb, which is what Scribner’s had in mind when--with astonishing naivete--they sent an advance copy of their new hopeful’s novel to their old star. That was one of the few printable sections of Hemingway’s notorious 1951 letter to Charles Scribner.

“Hemingway understood courage,” James Jones remarked mildly in conversation with this reviewer, who knew him slightly in Paris, “but he didn’t understand people.” It seems, in retrospect, a generous view. But it also seems likely that Jones missed the mark almost as widely as Hemingway had. Even allowing for hysteria and wishful thinking, as a connoisseur of courage, Hemingway could not have been wronger about Jones.

Frank MacShane, the author of widely praised biographies of John O’Hara, Ford Madox Ford, and Raymond Chandler, has taken on a tougher customer in James Jones. Predictably, the cheap-shot marksmen have already entered the gallery: A feline reviewer in the New Republic bagged the novelist’s widow with his opening volley.

But nothing, after all, could be easier: James Jones’ defects are mostly on the surface. Is there a worse American writer who has written as good a book as “From Here to Eternity”?

MacShane does not confront this paradox until we are more than 200 pages into the biography. “Jones’ difficulties with language,” he says, “also contributed to his problem. Writing came hard to Jones. He would take an immensely long time with his paragraphs and had no facility with language. Writing letters, he often became embroiled in syntactical and grammatical errors. ‘Can you explain my stylistic flaws,’ he asked Burroughs Mitchell (his editor at Scribner’s) ‘which are frequ