Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles, by Anthony Swofford. NY: Pocket Books, 2005. $7.99, 367 pp. ISBN 1-4165-1340-7

Okay, so you passed on Jarhead when it first came out in 2003. Now that the movie version is about to be released, you've decided that perhaps it would be a good idea to read the book first. At the local book shop, you pick up a paperback copy and examine it. The first five pages are filled with quotations from earlier book reviews, and they promise nothing less than an instant classic. The AP calls it "a powerful work of literature." Newsday rates it a "masterpiece" and "a sublime work of art." The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Daily Telegraph (London), and the Denver Post use words like "classic" and "masterpiece" to describe it. With visions of Eugene B. Sledge dancing in your head, you plunk down your $7.99 and hurry home.

It doesn't take you long to realize that something is amiss. The book critics used words and phrases like "brutally honest," "uncompromising," "especially relevant," "profound," and "candid." The picture of the author that emerges, however, is of a malingerer, a thief, and a serial drunk. Arriving at Camp Pendleton for boot camp, Swofford spends the first few days in the base hospital "faking stomach flu." Then, in an attempt to get kicked out of basic training, he admits to earlier drug use. The Marines who claim to be looking "for a few good men," should have cut their losses then and there.

But, they don't and soon enough Swofford is a twenty-year-old lance corporal assigned to a scout-sniper platoon in the legendary First Marine Division. He's gone from bad to worse, however. "I spent most of my monthly pay in the bars," he admits. "I'd steal a case or two of MREs ... each week," he confesses, "and I'd sell the meals for $80 per case." Finally, he sinks to a new low when he steals gear from his fellow Marines and sells it at a local army/navy store.

You already know that this man is not to be trusted when he confirms it once and for all. "Thus what follows," he says of his memoir, "is neither true nor false but what I know." Wait a minute, you think, this guy doesn't know fact from fiction but he wants me to take him seriously. The best that can be said at this point is that you've learned a valuable lesson: Don't trust book critics. (Just out of curiosity, you decide to check on a couple of the critics. How about Laura Miller of Salon.com? A senior writer at Salon, you figure that she never served in the military and probably never set foot in a combat zone. But, that's okay. You remember Lou Grant's retort: "You don't have to be a whale to write Moby Dick." What worries you, however, is that Ms. Miller doesn't seem to know fact from fiction either. In discussing war memoirs, she mentions "Band of Brothers," Catch-22, and The Things They Carried. Of course, none is a memoir. So much for her credibility.)

Thoroughly discouraged, you soldier on. After all, you dropped $7.99 on this book. Soon enough, Saddam invades Kuwait and the First Marine Division is deployed to the Desert. Before going, Swofford and his buddies rent a bunch of Vietnam-era war films and "get off on ... the raping and killing and pillaging." Which leads our intrepid Marine to an epiphany: "It occurs to me that we will never be young again." Maybe it's that sort of stuff that impressed the reviewers who called this book "profound."

Swofford does not find the Desert to his liking. In a 7-line, run-on rant, he whines that "here I sit, miserable, oh misery oh stinking hell of all miseries." You wonder if this qualifies as "sublime." It gets bad enough that his platoon mates implore him to "Stop bringing everyone down with your negativity."

It's not all misery and negativity, however. Swofford likes to read -- the usual enlisted Marine fare: Camus, Chekhov, and Homer. One can't read all the time though and Swoffie -- as his mates refer to him -- takes time out for the occasional bout of Marine camaraderie. There's the time, for example, when he places his "locked and loaded M16 against Dettmann's left temple" and threatens to kill him. This little game continues until "Snot runs from his nose" and "he's sobbing violently." You think, yeah, Camus makes me crazy too. You can't remember any of those reviewers saying anything about sadism though. Perhaps this is an example of what they saw as "powerful art."

The ground war -- all ninety-six hours -- largely passes Swofford and his platoon mates by. They trail along behind the lead elements and are shelled by an unseen enemy and fired on by their own tanks. None fires a shot in anger. Nevertheless, our boy arrives at some "profound" and "uncompromising" truths -- the most "relevant" one being that "The warrior always fights for a sorry cause." Always? Really? Does that include things like freedom and self-defense? Moreover, he is convinced that his experiences in the Desert bestowed upon him a certain moral authority. "I have gone to war," he reminds you, "I can sit on my porch and complain all day. And you must listen." This conceit is finally too much. You close the book. You've heard enough. Maybe, you decide, the movie's not such a good idea.

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"Jarhead" opens in theaters nationwide on Friday, Nov. 4. Despite our misgivings, Military.com will be there. Our review will appear on Monday, Nov. 7. Perhaps this will be one of those rare times when the movie is better than the book.