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Summary:
Amazon Significant Seven, September 2007: Denis Johnson is one of those few great hopes of American writing, fully capable of pulling out a ground-changing masterpiece, as he did in 1992 with the now-legendary collection, Jesus' Son. Tree of Smoke showed every sign of being his "big book": 600+ pages, years in the making, with a grand subject (the Vietnam War). And in the reading it lives up to every promise. It's crowded with the desperate people, always short of salvation, who are Johnson's specialty, but despite every temptation of the Vietnam dreamscape it is relentlessly sober in its attention to on-the-ground details and the gradations of psychology. Not one of its 614 pages lacks a sentence or an observation that could set you back on your heels. This is the book Johnson fans have been waiting for--along with everybody else, whether they knew it or not. --Tom Nissley
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Too much, too long, too little
Customer Rating:
Having written a novel about the Vietnam War and read every fictional account of the tragedy, I picked up Tree of Smoke with great anticipation. It had garnered praise from the reviewers and been nominated for awards. I was greatly disappointed, but somewhat entertained. There is no comparison with Tree of Smoke to The Things They Carried or a dozen other Vietnam War works. Tree of Smnoke is much too much in its length, bloated prose, and too little in the soul of those who fought this misguided war. Ron Lealos author of Don't Mean Nuthin'
Don't waste your precious time reading this and hoping it gets better
Customer Rating:
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.
A Three Star Novel
Customer Rating:
The writer Chaim Potok said once in an lecture I heard him give that a librarian had told him, when he, as a youngster, was checking out a book by Evelyn Waugh-- whom he thought was a woman-- that one should always give a book he didn't like 100 pages before quitting reading if the writer was a respected author. I thought of Mr. Potok's advice many times while reading TREE OF SMOKE-- all 614 pages-- although I soldiered on, hoping against hope that it would get better. Winner of the National Book Award for 2007 and praised by critics in most major publications save one that I was able to find, B. R. Myers' review in the ATLANTIC MONTHLY, TREE OF SMOKE is about Vietnam and covers a span of years from 1963, the year of President Kennedy's death, to 1970 and then skips to 1983. It has many characters including Skip Sands who works for the CIA, his bigger-than-life uncle, Colonel Francis Sands, two redneck brothers in arms, Billy and James Houston, an Adventist nurse named Kathy, several North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese characters as well as many bit players. Almost to a person the characters are not sympathetic. War is hell, the Vietnam War and all others. There is enough sex and cynicism to go around. Johnson, a recovering drug addict, sees the universe as pretty depraved. It is one of violence and betrayal. Kathy comes closest to the moral center in this novel although it very well may be outside this story. One character describes a situation as "Disneyland on acid."
Much of this far-too-long novel is tedious although occasionally brief passages stand out but they are too few and far between. Johnson's description of Skip Sands' grief and guilt, upon learning belatedly of the death of his mother, for example: "Then remorse crushed him physically, the blood pounded in his head, he struggled for breath-- he hadn't called, hadn't written, left her to ride to her death on a gurney all alone in helplessly polite apologetic midwestern confusion and fear."
Vince Passaro's review in NEWSDAY, where he heard in this novel "Whitman in his erotic excess," has to be the strangest comments any reviewer has made about TREE OF SMOKE. Occasionally I heard Hemingway, but certainly never Whitman, in the sex scenes between Skip and Kathy-- I hesitate to call them love scenes. Case in point: "It rained again, and then it was night. She couldn't return now to the missionaries in Bac Se. They slept together side by side, without sheets, she in one of his rough hand-washed T-shirts and he in boxer undershorts. Following breakfast the next morning she left for Baca Se on her black bicycle, and Skip never saw her again." This passage could have been straight out of A FAREWELL TO ARMS.
Johnson pretty much sums up his novel in a passage on page 192: "Deals struck in a half dozen languages, sinister rendezvous, false smiles, eyes measuring the chances. Psychos, wanderers, heroes. Lies, scars, masks, greedy schemes." Charles Bukowski would have liked this novel. Tolstoy would have not.
(You can go back and correct everything in a review except the rating. I meant to give this novel three stars.)
Is there an editor in the house?
Customer Rating:
Really? National Book Award? Really? Although Johnson has captivating scene followed by captivating scene, the book as a whole is bloated and over-written. I kept waiting for the corner to be turned and for there to be a tremendous payoff, but I finally ran out of steam and did something I rarely do. I gave up after 500 pages. With slightly more than 100 pages to go, I simply lost my will to care. Johnson is attempting to put together a mosaic. He goes about it in the right way -- he selects beautiful tiles, in this case, interesting scenes and brilliant dialogue. But in stepping back from this impressive tome, I'm not sure he has fully accomplished what he set out to do: to look at all the complicated and confusing aspects of the Vietnam War and put them into a cohesive narrative. It was a worthy effort, but in the end, arguably, a failed attempt.
Long, tedious, sad, angry and confusing. It was awful!
Customer Rating:
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.
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