What is Tim O’Brien's Best Vietnam War Novel/ Book?

My interest in Tim O’Brien’s work originates from my study of Cold War texts over the last six years in After the Bomb. O’Brien (b. 1946-) was drafted into the US infantry during the Vietnam War and served in the country during 1969-1970 and later published a memoir If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973) and a series of novels about his experiences and perceptions of the war.

The range and complexity of O’Brien’s artistry and shrewd insights into the Vietnam War certainly establishes him as one of the most important American writers of his time. As brilliant political journalism, it is difficult to surpass Michael Herr’s Dispatches (1972) or David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest (1976).

An evaluation of any book is always going to be subjective.  What I’m essentially looking for in a good bloody read is clarity, sophistication & unity. I also want to understand and be emotionally engaged in the conflict in a deeper way through the representation of the various characters and their experiences. I also want to be entertained, to keep me guessing what is to happen next. And most of all, I want to vicariously understand the complexities of war by someone who has been there.

#5 The Nuclear Age (1995)

This novel is broad in scope but disappointingly uneven. It is set in 1995 and tells the story of William Cowling who begins to dig a large hole in his backyard with the intent of building a bomb shelter for his family. The novel consists of a series of extended flashbacks, including his life on the margins in the late 1960s and 1970s as a draft dodger and war protestor. The perspectives on the Vietnam War are limited because of O’Brien’s grander vision to capture the vicissitudes of the Cold War between 1950-1985 as seen by an ordinary American.

See my full review: http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/after-bomb-best-cold-war-novels.html

#4 If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973)

This is an excellent memoir about Tim O’Brien’s experiences as a grunt during the Vietnam War. He was drafted into the US Army in 1968 and served for one year. The writing is intensely personal and is acutely observational with an overarching philosophical bent. O’Brien explores the nature of goodness, what constitutes a just war and the nature of courage & war. Comparatively, If I Die in Combat Zone is not as sophisticated as some of O’Brien’s later, more mature novels, but is a highly recommended starting point in any close study of the author’s body of work.

Read my full review here: http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/after-bomb-best-cold-war-novels.html

#3 Going After Cacciato (1978)

This is a sprawling, third person narrative, largely told through the lense of a young US infantryman, Paul Berlin. After a fellow soldier, Cacciato, leaves the platoon for a crazy dash for Paris, seven soldiers decide to pursue him through the mountains and beyond.

The structure of the novel alternates between the pursuit of Cacciato’s through several countries and flashbacks to Berlin’s initial recruitment and his various exploits in Nam.

The writing is highly experimental and often skids the boundary of credibility. The language is an odd mixture of graphic realism and surreal, often self reflexive post-modernistic bullshit. What makes this novel enduring is O’Brien’s skill in making profound statements about the nature & morality of war.

#2 In the Lake of the Woods (1994)

This is Tim O’Brien’s best crafted novel and is loosely shrouded in the form of a detective novel. The storyline is focussed around the disappearance of Kathy Wade, the wife of an aspiring  politician, John Wade, who has recently lost a senatorial race because of the last minute muck-raking into his dark past as an infantryman in Vietnam.

O’Brien’s investigations into what represents the truth echo his search for meaning in some of his earlier work. In this novel he brilliantly layers a swirl of evidence, fictional conjecture and ambiguity to call into question the nature of reality itself.

I think this is O’Brien’s best novel but its focus on the Vietnam War is limited. There are many flashbacks to John Wade’s dark past & these are graphic and memorable. O'Brien takes literary licence in  appropriating the massacre of civilians at My Lai in 1968 by C-Company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

It is important to note that O'Brien served in the division that was implicated in the My Lai Massacre. He does not appear to have been directly involved in the incident but obviously would have come across the gruesome details through word of mouth. 

#1 The Things They Carried (1990)

This novel gets the nods as O’Brien’s best Vietnam book because of its explicit and extraordinary insights into the war.  

This is an outstanding collection of short stories, partly-biographical accounts & notes which capture O’Brien’s process of writing about the Vietnam War twenty years after his tour of duty ended in 1970. The ‘novel’ blurs the distinction between fiction and memoir & between experience and the transitory, slippery nature of the truth. It graphically illustrates an American foot soldier’s experiences ‘in the boonies’ but it is also about the complex process of writing.

 Read my full review here: http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/highly-recommended-tim-obrien-things.html

Find this webpage devoted to Tim O’Brien’s books: http://www.illyria.com/tobhp.html

Janne Karlsson (Editor) LOVE’S AN INFECTION (2014) 24 pages

Janne Karlsson’s A5 fanzine-style chap LOVE’S AN INFECTION is a short collection of illustrated poems on the theme of Love & Hurt and features seventeen poems & eight poets from around the world. Over the last couple of years, the Swedish artist & editor has collaborated with several, mainly North American poets, who he has developed a huge respect and admiration for. When Karlsson gained access to a cheap printer earlier this year, he decided to take a shot at creating his own print poetry anthology and invited his network of poets to contribute. LOVE’S AN INFECTION is the result of this collaboration.

The poems are minimalistic & view love from a wide variety of perspectives. The poetry is experimental and remarkably fresh. There is nothing predictable or mundane here: Blood spouts in raw spasms across the page. Bruised wailing mouths pulse like a “heartbeat of fists.”

As implied by the title LOVE’S AN INFECTION, love is seen as a disease which makes people do & say crazy things. As shown in the poems, love can induce vomiting, self-loathing, evoke intense hatred and acerbate irreconcilable differences & misunderstandings between people.

(Reprinted with the publisher's permission) 

I recently asked Karlsson for BM (23 October 2014) the thoughts he had when he sat down to create an illustration for a poem. He candidly commented: “I don’t really think or prepare in any way. I read the poem and pretty much draw intuitively, trying to kind of turn the poem’s feelings into ink. There’s hardly ever anything going through my mind. If I began using my brain in my drawings, the result would surely suck. Suck hard…ha ha.”

(Reprinted with the publisher's permission)

Karlsson’s illustrations are character driven and express a raw, surreal existential anxiety which adeptly reflects the sick, fucked-up agony of modern living. His graphics? Think mad shit. Think raining blood, Zombie nudity, eyeless vomiting figures drenched in blood. Think even of cannibalistic metre-square blocks of ready-to-be-eaten breasts & vulvas. Weird but thought-provoking stuff!

Order the book for $3 US plus shipping from Sweden here: jan-karlsson@hotmail.com

Visit Janne Karlssons web page: http://www.svenskapache.se/

Chapbook Review: Lawrence Gladeview Praying For A Spare (Tree Killer Ink, 2014)- 12 pages.

Canada’s Tree Killer Ink’s latest venture is the release of its Punk Chapbook poetry series which consists of 15 chapbooks by some of North America’s best known small press writers: http://www.epicrites.org/tree-killer-ink.html. Each chap is focussed on a specific theme and each cover is illustrated by the zany but hugely talented Swedish artist Janne Karlsson.

Lawrence Gladeview’s collection Praying For A Spare is #12 in the series & is focussed on the theme of ten pin bowling. The twelve poems centre on a team of bowlers, known as ‘the wreckers’, who play Tuesday nights at Cosmic Bowling- a one-story 70s building with a “half-lit/ bubble plastic/ sign/ out front.” For Earl, Bill, Dana, Sandy and Larry bowling becomes a kind of religion where they can escape their petty family squabbles for a few hours, drink some beer and find mutual respect and companionship.

In the poem ‘Hey Larry’, for example, Roy asks Larry to attend mass with his family on Sunday. Larry tersely quips, “thanks roy// but i’m good// i already have/ a once a week/ obligation// & it gives me/ all the salvation/ I need.” In ‘It Was,’ Earl tells Larry matter-of-factly, “with my family/ fighting over/ the small stuff/ it’s great/ to come here/ & be in control.”

Gladeview admits in a recent interview with BM (21 October 2014) that he doesn’t bowl as much these days & is crap at it but realises the game’s important social function:

“I would say I’m more of an off and on, once-a-month bowler as opposed to a true “regular” alley cat.  When I was younger and in middle school, I joined bowling leagues in the summers with my neighbourhood pals.  Of course, we enjoyed the sporting aspect of bowling, but we also liked getting away from our parents, smoking cigarettes, and sneaking beers when we could.  Now that I’m older, bowling still serves as an outlet, but instead of breaking free from my parents, now it’s more about unplugging from work and society. Bowling alleys are places folks go to celebrate good times, cope during depressing weeks, and play like kids no matter their age or status. I’m not a particularly good bowler, but that’s not the point. Ask any of my buds and they’ll tell you I’m an exceptional bowler, being sure to point out my beer guzzling belly way before they mention my score.”

The poems are short & anecdotal. They stem from lived experience and are conversational, confessional, with Larry the big pin- reflecting & gently philosophising on the zen of bowling.

As the team laces up their bowling shoes they confide in one another, share their various illnesses & family issues and in the process they pull each other through the cluttered emotional debris of their lives. The Tuesday night outings provide the “bowling buds” a sense of consistency & transparency otherwise missing in their lives. As Larry says in ‘Earl’s Marriage’ after introducing to the reader his team, “ I can’t help/ but smile// about/ how this/ pack of alley cats/ is the one thing// that is/ dependable/ in our lives.”

Asked by BM how he arrived at selecting the unusual bowling theme for Praying For A Spare, Gladeview candidly surmises: “When Wolf Carstens, the editor of Epic Rites Press, asked me to participate in his Punk Chapbook Series that aimed to feature a tightly focused story told over twelve poems, I had no clue where to start. Tales of my move from Virginia to Colorado?  My college years, from freshman year, arrest to senior graduating triumph?  But then I realized I was thinking on too large a scale.  The most memorable characters in life don’t come from exotic situations, they come from everyday experiences that are made extraordinary by their uninhibited personality.  A few months back, my wife and I met friends at the local lanes for my birthday, some of which I hadn’t seen in awhile.  The stories we shared and the atmosphere that existed that night was very communal.  That following week, I was talking with Wolf about the chapbook series and Praying For A Spare began to set itself up; pin by pin, poem by poem.”

One of the best poems in the collection ‘Whether You Are’ expresses this idea of people on the edge, of falling into the abyss- in the communal space of ten-pin bowling:

Whether You Are

heartbroken

cheerful

struggling

or

well-off

no matter

if you’re

drunk

high

medicated

or

sober

some evenings

at the alley

you spend

your

entire night

trying

to keep

the weight

from

slipping

through

your fingers

& into

the

gutter.

(Reprinted with the permission of the poet).

Gladeview is currently editing and revising his next full-length collection tentatively titled The Stray Trails Of Life.  Aside from that, he’s got an upcoming trip to Las Vegas on the calendar, a handful of readings along the Front Range, and a Colorado winter creeping over the Rocky Mountains.

Buy the Punk Chapbook series here- 15 chaps for only $40 plus postage. Find out also how you can contribute to the next series of chapbooks: http://www.epicrites.org/tree-killer-ink.html

Spoken Word CD Review: Charles BUKOWSKI UNCENSORED: From The Run With The Hunted Session (2000)

This recording consists of two CDs which run for approximately 150 minutes in total. The first CD is easily the best and features Bukowski’s reading of twenty of his poems plus an extended reading from his last novel Pulp. The second CD is shorter and more patchy in content. Bukowski reads from his novel Ham On Rye and he is encouraged by co-producer John Runnette to discuss well-trodden topics such as his thoughts on John Fante, Ezra Pound and his experiences in France a decade or so before. CD 2 was not included in the original release in 1993 and did not appear until the “special, expanded edition” was issued in 2000.

The recording was made to complement Bukowski’s latest collection Run With the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader (May 1993). The poems and stories were selected by Bukowski’s long time editor John Martin, and interestingly, the writing is arranged in chronological order- not according to the date it was written, but according to the age Buk appears in each text. At the time, Bukowski was a very sick man and dying of myelogenous leukaemia. He offered to record his material for five hours but only lasted three.

The recording does not appear to have been edited- if so, very unobtrusively. The sound is raw and unembellished. Throughout, Bukowski clears his throat, coughs, curses, slurs & often mispronounces his words. He tells the interviewer at one stage, “I sometimes slur words. I’m not good at talking.” Bukowski is asked to reread his brilliant poem ‘the genius of the crowd’ three or four times because he mispronounces the word “absurdity” as “absurbity”. He is conscious the word is coming up in his reading of the poem but he still stuffs up. The effect is humorous but destroys the great emotional impact that the poem may have on the reader. Pissed-off, Bukowsi bluntly tells his audience, which consists of his wife Linda Bukowski and John Runnette, “Fuck you guys, I mispronounced the words- too bad!”

Probably the best feature of the tape is that you can flip through the book and follow Bukowski’s reading of the twenty poems. This creates an intimate vibe between you and the speaker. It helps to establish the illusion that you know Bukowski better. Interspersed between the poems, the un-miced interviewer, presumably Runnette, asks Buk a series of questions about the usual- Celine, Whitman, his writing process, why he left the post office, his relationship with his father and the like. Most of this ground has been thoroughly stomped on previously and if you want to seek out the best collection of interviews with Bukowski you can't surpass David Stephen Calonne's (Editor) Charles Bukowski: Sunlight Here I Am/ Interviews & Encounters 1963-1993: http://georgedanderson.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/charles-bukowski-sunlight-here-i-am.html

Many page references are mentioned during the reading, but unfortunately, they were probably just working notes and do not match the current 2003 ECCO version of the book.

Find more accurate links below:

CD 1 Item #	Poem	Page no. from ECCO collection
2	consummation of grief	117
4	the Soldier, his wife & the bum	171
6	the genius of the crowd	185
9	rain	192
10	a radio with guts	192
12	the poetry reading	272
14	short order	274
16	the strongest of the strange	295
18	the last days of the suicide kid	298
20	friendly advice to a lot of young men	334
22	the most	362
24	the mockingbird	387
26	the proud thin dying	399
28	helping the old	408
30	confession	418
32	fan letter	423
34	art	456
36	are you drinking?	466
38	Dinosauria, we	492
40	luck	495

I'm not sure why this CD is entitled UNCENSORED because Bukowski doesn't say anything outlandish or overly crude. Overall, he doesn't come across as the snarling, misanthropic pugilist whom we experience in many of his writings. He is genuinely funny, he chuckles at his own inadequacies and he offers great wit and insight into the human condition as he grimly faces his own certain & rapidly approaching death.