M*A*S*H

So after reading in a NY Times article about this year's Super Bowl the random add-in that the most-watched single airing on television to date is still the M*A*S*H TV finale, poking around in Wikipedia about the franchise, I discovered that there was a book that the movie (and subsequent TV show) were originally based on.  After digging around the local library systems' catalog and not finding it, I put in an ILL request at work.

The novel is sort of a memoir in that experiences and incidents the author either had personally or heard of from people with similar experiences have been composited, embellished, added to, and given to fictional characters (which is basically explained in the forward to the book).  I haven't actually seen the movie contiguously, so I'm not entirely sure how the book compares to it, but the chapters are episodic, so it readily reminds one of the TV show in those terms.  Unlike the TV show, there are three central doctors - in addition to Hawkeye Pierce and Trapper John McIntyre, there's Duke Forrest, who arrives at the 4077th with Hawkeye.

The surgical bits are explained fairly clearly, in such terms that one need not be familiar with surgery, so you get a feel for what they were doing and the conditions they were working in.  In addition, the doctors' non-work hijinks are elaborated entertainingly.  The Regular Army/draftee conflicts, the "meatball" vs. civilian surgical procedures, and the overall stresses of the war are all brought up without either the serious or the comic bits overwhelming the other.

Hooker, Richard.  M*A*S*H, a Novel About Three Army Doctors.  New York: Morrow, 1968.