Meditations in Green by Stephen Wright
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Book Reviews of Meditations in Green
Book 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."
Book Review: Imagine Catch-22 about Vietnam as written by an incredible prose stylist
Summary: 5 Stars
It's obvious, having read the two so close to each other, that Meditations in Green is heavily influenced and inspired by Catch-22, but it's also obvious that whatever its genesis, Meditations is a wholly unique work. Like Catch-22, Wright takes a massive array of characters and creates a book more about episodes than a cohesive narrative; while it's not as train-of-thought as Heller's work, it's still wandering from story to story, jumping from character to character. But while Catch-22 is laugh out loud funny, Meditations is filled with the sort of humor that always seems to arise from books about Vietnam - that dark, brooding humor than only results in uncomfortable silence from those of us who weren't there. There's also unimaginable horrors here, as well as copious drug use; in other words, it's definitely Catch-22 filtered through the Vietnam experience. But the feel of the book is wholly different. There are no innocents in Wright's world, only less damaged people, and no one comes out unscathed. "It meant there were cliffs where he once assumed there were fences," Wright writes about a character who discovers unpleasant truths about the war, and that feeling of trying to cope with and comprehend the horrors of Vietnam permeate the book. But what will always set apart Wright's work, especially Meditations, is the masterful writing. Wright brings a wholly new dialogue and language to the book, crafting images of the jungle as massive, abandoned hotels, or creating a nightmarish firework display and a torn, leaking sky out of a midnight gun battle as observed by stoned soldiers. The combination all adds up to a book unlike anything you have ever read, creating an experience that lingers in a visceral, vibrant way long after the book is done. There's no through message here, no central metaphor, no ability to laugh at the war; there are only survival techniques - be they drugs, insanity, routine - and horrors. What Wright creates is one of the finest, most literate, and most sadly neglected books about Vietnam ever written. An unknown masterpiece.Book Review: Simply Amazing
Summary: 5 Stars
Each section of the book is broken into three parts. The first is a brief discussion of life as it might be observed by a plant. The second deals with the (current) daily life of the main protagonist, Griffin. The last part flashes back to his experiences in Viet Nam. All three parts build off of and foreshadow each other.
This is simply one of the best books in the English language. I have read it repeatedly and am still finding new things and making new connections. I can't recommend this highly enough.
Book Review: To the molecular level
Summary: 5 Stars
The premis of Meditations in Green is just the start of this journey into a book that rates the highest praise in the pantheon of Vietnam War literature. Some of the scenes created are so vivid, the sweat began to drip from my brow and I thought I was bleeding. It is that good. And that sad. The contrast of the steamy jungle battlefield and the blandness of the world back home is powerful. A truly great book.
Ron Lealos author of Don't Mean Nuthin'
Book Review: Quite the ride....
Summary: 4 Stars
Phew - where do you start a review of a book like this?
I started reading this one and I found myself struggling. Too much coloring in and conscious stream had me rolling my eyes and rereading too many lines. About 50 or so pages in it started to turn for me. After that, I was devouring it.
Not having read Catch-22 (yet) I can't make the analogies some reviewers have. Here's my take, Meditations in Green is a cerebral novel of one man's (Private Griffin) journey through Vietnam interlaced with his life after Vietnam.
The book is by chapters and each chapter is loosely broken into 3 parts: 1. The musings of a plant. 2. Life after Vietnam. 3. Life in Vietnam as a soldier. All the players in the book are so well developed that you feel you know them. The writing style is, like the players, laid back but crisp some how. Very descriptive text allows you to somehow "Feel" the story as opposed to just view it. The conversations are real and flow with a banter that is common to all of us. Wright has 100% nailed the whole absurdity and incomprehensible BS that follows the military around and on which the military tends to thrive.
Griffin's character is one of intelligence and given to inward analysis along with viewing the world through a skeptical lens. His conversations with his buddies, and anyone in general, drip with sarcasm and a wit that makes you smile. You imagine him as always having that academically bored look all over his face and a sigh with every breath exhaled. Despite seeming older than his years, you feel a kind of naivete from him as he stumbles and resets his way through Vietnam and it's many follies.
He tells us stories of his acquaintances in Vietnam who either met untimely death, got sent home, went mad or just accompanied him through his tour. The skepticism he displays and reluctant respect he pays his superiors is spot on and reminded me so much of my time in uniform.
One exchange I particularly enjoyed went something like this (paraphrasing):
After a US plane crashed on take off and both occupants were killed. Two soldiers stood talking about one of the dead.
"Damn, he only got here last week"
"That would make a great epitaph: He only got here last week"
That kind of tired, unmoved and unimpressed sarcasm resonates through the book and, I have to admit, I enjoyed it....... a lot.
I'll try more of Stephen Wright's work as it's refreshing in a worn out and tired sort of way that pulls no punches and doesn't even start to attempt to be clever. We won't be remembering Wright as a "Shakespeare" or "Jane Austen" but, for those who read his work, he will hold a place in their top 10 I'm sure.