"Only the truth has real value, but the truth about war is that it contains nearly unbearable levels of repetition, boredom, and meaninglessness."
The above quote is taken from Sebastian Junger's review of Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes, a Vietnam War novel 30 years in the making. I think it applies beautifully to Johnson's Tree of Smoke, a novel also about the Vietnam War, though I imagine it differs largely from Marlante's vision.
Tree of Smoke has been called both a "masterpiece" and "terrible". About half way through the novel, I pretty much thought both those things to be true, that it was at once an incredibly enjoyable reading experience but also kind of exhausting. But not necessarily in a bad way. It's almost as if Johnson was trying to mimic the experience of war in Vietnam, or maybe war in general, that the purpose is not always clear, the "mission" is shrouded in politics and rumor, everything is connected, nothing is connected, waiting, waiting, brief violence, death, waiting, and then the war just fades, not really won, not really lost.
The book is principally concerned with one William "Skip" Sands, a spy in training for the CIA, working on a Psy Ops mission for his uncle, The Colonel, a veteran of the CIA and somewhat of a mythical figure throughout the novel. That is the main thrust of the novel, with other plot lines juxtaposed with Skip, that of two brothers, infantryman who ebb and flow out of Vietnam and provide a more "traditional" viewpoint of the war. Kathy Jones, a relief aid nurse working in South East Asia who briefly becomes romantically involved with Skip Sands, is the only female narrative, so ya know, do whatever you want with that piece of information. And I don't really want to talk about the Middle Aged White Male Writes His Big Book.
I lean towards calling this a masterpiece, or at least Denis Johnson's masterpiece, which is a unique thing. And Johnson's masterpiece is not going to align with a lot of people's idea of masterpiece. It is flawed...though again, I'm not sure if that's a bad thing. When critics, or readers, say masterpiece I think they often want perfection. And this novel is not perfect. It is Johnson's idea of perfection, which is not a shining gem of a book, but more of a smooth stone on a river bed. I don't know if that makes sense or is just a bullshit image, but it feels right.
Even if I found the plot confusing and meandering at times, or even downright boring, I still found myself transfixed by the prose and dialogue alone. It's poetic stuff, really. I've said this before, how I'm more attracted to style and execution and voice rather than plot, or even character development. I'm not quite sure why and in the end, it might make me a bad writer, in the traditional sense, and certainly that is a chief complaint about this novel, that the plot and characters are lackluster. I didn't find it as big of a problem.
Here are some notes I took while reading the book that really won't make any sense, unless of course you've read the book and maybe not even then: One God many administrations, palm trees of smoke, mushroom cloud? dreaded possibility in the mind of Uncle Ho, the Enemy King, war is always just off stage, doesn't seem to even exist in this novel, reoccurring images of the Bible, Judas, Calvinism, Catholicism, betrayal, distrust, "the land is their myth," "the gods move slow, but they never stop moving."
"What do we really know about anyone in this hall of mirrors?" pg. 337
"The war itself- folly on folly." pg. 346
"Aren't we all fat and sweaty and confused?" pg. 409
"No. The Americans can't win. They're not fighting for their homeland." pg. 175
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