Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson
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Book Reviews of Tree of Smoke: A Novel
Book Review: Don't waste your precious time reading this and hoping it gets better
Summary: 1 Stars
I've read hundreds of novels and I have never been moved to write a review one way or the other, but purchasing and attempting to read "Tree of Smoke" changed that. Of all of the books I've read I can't think of any one of them that I put down and couldn't finish - but that's exactly what I did with this book. I can appreciate that Mr. Johnson's writing is unique and sometimes very good - but a novel is supposed to be more than stringing together well crafted sentences and seemingly unrelated thoughts and situations. A novel should flow, not confuse the reader, and should contain interesting characters and storylines that the reader is still thinking about hours after he/she stops reading. I bought this book because I have always enjoyed historical fiction involving past American wars and I was also swayed somewhat by the high praise heaped upon the book and its author by friends and acquaintances. But after reading about 200 pages I began to realize that I wholeheartedly disagreed with these people and couldnt for the life of me figure out what they saw in this book. Perhaps because Mr. Johnson wrote books in the past that were considered "literature" as opposed to just run of the mill novels - its possible some critics are hesitant to bash subsequent works by the author because they want to appear as if they "get it" - even when the book is terrible (sort of an emporer has no clothes situation.) Nobody wants to be the one who says they don't like it for fear they will appear to be too daft to appreciate it. Well, I may be way off on this one but I am willing to state that I do not think this is a good book regardless of the author's past accomplishments and I would not recommend it.Book Review: Long, tedious, sad, angry and confusing. It was awful!
Summary: 1 Stars
I can't resist novels about Vietnam. And this 1997 book had absolutely rave reviews. It even won the National Book Award. Reviewers called it a masterpiece. I just HAD to read it. Now, 702 pages later, I'm sorry I did. This book was just plain awful. And the only satisfaction I got out of slogging through this long and tedious read is to be able to review it and say, "well - I tried".
The book starts in 1963 and spans about 20 years. During this time we see various characters go through their sad lives. There's Skip who is a CIA agent. There's his uncle who's a colonel, a war hero who's something like the part Marlon Brando played in Apocalypse Now. There are two Vietnamese men, one from the north and one from the south, who become part of the covert operations. There are two young brothers in the American army who just can't make it in the outside world. There's a Canadian nurse who provides a bit of romance for Skip. There are other characters too, all of them sad and angry. That's actually the theme of the book - sad and angry.
The most characteristic thing about the book though is that it is confusing. I found it impossible to follow the plot. And all the characters seemed to blend together and I kept mixing up who was who. There are no bad guys and no good guys either. Everyone here is a loser. Reading this book is a downer. I hated it.
Despite the rave reviews of the critics I cannot recommend this book at all. If you attempt to read it, don't say I didn't warn you.
Book Review: Very, very dull
Summary: 1 Stars
When the most helpful positive review for a novel includes the word "ponderous" in its title, it should give you pause. Ponderous is a good word for this novel. Dull is another. It's not that nothing happens. It's that people stand around thinking disjointed existential thoughts for 30 pages, then something happens in a single paragraph (say, someone gets killed),and then we get another 30 pages of disjointed existential thoughts about the one paragraph worth of action.
I didn't particularly care for the author's style, which is sort of dispassionate and deceptively lean. I say "deceptively," not because the writing actually contains deep reserves of hidden meaning, but because the book is over 600 pages long, which definitely does not qualify as "lean" to my way of thinking. It is over 250 pages before much of anything seems to happen, and the book has a rather lengthy epilogue (over 70 pages), where again not much of anything happens, so that' really over half the book if you think about it. Even if Denis Johnson's prose were the greatest joy this side of Heaven, that's a lot of joyous prose to slog through.
Book Review: Like the Vietnam War, Tree of Smoke Has No Discernible Purpose
Summary: 1 Stars
I was a field radioman with the Marines in Vietnam in 67-68 and have authored two novels about the country myself, so when I read that Tree of Smoke was one of the best novels about Vietnam I bought it immediately. After the first 50 pages I was lost. The characters were poorly drawn and there did not seem to be any plot. I kept plugging away through the novel just as I once hacked through dense jungle, hoping to discover the author's point. It never got better, but I made it all the way through anyway, not wanting to waste the purchase price.
Tree of Smoke is so awful a story that I cannot list everything that is wrong with it, and B.R. Myers of The Atlantic Monthly has already done so. The main objections I have are these: (1) I did not become attached to the characters, so I did not care what happened to them, (2) there was no real plot, and (3) it was even more depressing than actually experiencing the Vietnam War in the jungles and rice paddies. If people and life were as disgusting as Denis Johnson portrays them, there would be no point to living.
Book Review: TIRESOME
Summary: 1 Stars
About a third of the way through this book, when I realized that it was just well-strung prose without an interesting or creative narrative, I wanted to put it down -- but I didn't. I kept reading this waste of paper and ink suffering through to the tiresome and predictable end. It's been months now since I finished it, and just seeing it on my bookshelf makes me mad. If you are a fan of pretty writing, this book gives you plenty of it, but like so much current "prize" literature, the pretty writing is only a mask hiding a sad inability to actually make a story. No real art here -- just pretend (and pretense). Contrary to what's advertised in other reviews, this isn't an exciting acid trip through the Vietnam War or a spooky revealing view of CIA. It's somebody's half-bright wandering gibberish marketed to fool jamokes like me into paying $19.95. I haven't read a "serious" book this bad since "A Man in Full". You want to read art about war, try "The Naked And The Dead".