Meditations in Green by Stephen Wright
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Book Summary Author: Stephen Wright Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 2003-08-12 ISBN: 0375712933 Number of pages: 352 Publisher: Vintage |
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Book Reviews of the Meditations in Green
Customer Review: "It was like learning your family dentist overcharged for extractions or drilled into healthy teeth"...
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes, the chilling disillusionment; the banker who didn't have your best interest at heart; the preacher man denouncing gays with his male escort service assignations on the calendar. The list is long. The Vietnam War still divides America, and will, longer than my lifetime. So much ink has already been expended: the scholars who handled the geo-politics, and the passing of wind of the political and military leadership; the numerous journalists who cranked out augmentations to their first script of history; and the soldiers themselves, some still wrapped in the medals and comradeship of their units, and the belief that we would have won, only IF... , and the other side, the soldiers who came, and truly saw what was before them, and could not forget; in a nation that had never learned and remembered in the first place.
Wright conveys so many of the essential truths of the Vietnam War experience for Americans in his surreal account... a stoner's version of the war, but one that saw far deeper than most. And sometimes uniquely so. The subject quote is from the section that alludes to the torture of Vietnamese by Americans... worse than even drilling into health teeth. The author goes on to say: "Now an actual field phone interrogation was about to take place not six feet from where he sat. He didn't know what to think. He just hoped he wasn't going to be asked to turn the crank. `Doesn't hurt as bad as it looks,' explained Captain Raleigh. `Think of the lives we're saving.'" Wright describes the rationalization that wasn't really public then, that would be re-cycled for the so-called War on Terror. We torture to save lives. The higher purpose. It lingers with me still, that night at LZ Tom, in northern Binh Dinh province, the screams of the woman, the denial, as Wright describes, this couldn't really be happening, and yet it was, but it was Vietnamese on Vietnamese, taught and supplied with our latest techniques. So, you do nothing. A failure.
There were other parallels as well: the general's telephone request to locate the "maddeningly elusive 5th NVA Regiment." Ours was the maddeningly elusive 18th NVA Regiment, and having been in a tank unit, found it impressive that Wright included the correct specs on the M48 tank (p 6).
And there were the truths that have been expressed in other books, but Wright can charm with his own pithy formulations: "Has anyone ever bothered adding up those numbers," said Simon. "We must have wiped out the entire population of North Vietnam at least twice over by now." Or, "...the VA wouldn't give me a Band-Aid if I slit my wrists in their lobby." Or, "American military uniforms should be woven with money, fives, tens, twenties, stitched into combat durable shirts and pants, all most civilians saw anyway: a fool wrapped in cash." Or on our intelligence efforts: "A wish became a guess, a guess an estimate, an estimate the reality."
And for a stoner's view, he knows his history more than most of the journalists who covered the war, discussing the disillusionment of a former pastry cook at Escoffier after he found out Wilson was only advocating self-determination primarily for the white people of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Wright also has seen Hearts and Minds - Criterion Collection and includes Dulles offer of a couple of nukes to help the French at Dien Bien Phu.
Comparisons with Catch-22 are appropriate, for each bring out the absurdity that is deeply embedded in the "logic of war," but Wright's vision is both darker, and more erudite. The American involvement in Vietnam was complex and multi-layered, and a view through a kaleidoscopic is as valid as any linear exposition. Wright's is such a vision, and should be considered in the very top ranks of books about the war.
As for prescience, Wright wins, hands down, for a book written in 1983. "Oh, there will definitely be a peace all right; the question is how long will it last. The smart boys are all learning Spanish." "I would have guessed Arabic." (p 309) (!) (Exclamation point added). A solid 5-star read, and in the top ten, of books, on "the `Nam."