Dog Soldiers: A National Book Award Winner

Being a historian specializing in America involvement in Vietnam, I tried to take a break in reading nonfiction by delving into Robert Stone's "Dog Soldiers". Seeing Denzil Washington in the recent movie hit "American Gangster" piqued my curiosity in this novel.  American Gangster: And Other Tales of New York  Besides, I needed a break from constantly reading nonfiction. Reading a novel allows the reader to absorb without constant attention to detail and historical connection.  The Way It Wasn't: Great Science Fiction Stories of Alternate History  It is also proven to bring up one's reading speed. Thinking topics such as the Vietnam War, the heroin trade that existed during the Vietnam Conflict and CIA complicity in the trade, I was expecting an exciting yarn. Regrettably, I was disappointed. I found the characters, in particular "John Converse and his wife, Marge", to be burnt-out losers.You can read other reviews to get an idea of what the plot is about, so without being a "plot-spoiler", I felt that with all the drugged-out corruptness, the infidelity of the protagonist's wife, the illogical decisions made by people bent on profiting by the sale of heroin, this book was a waste of time to read. In trying to get any connection to reality, there was the part early in the story where "Converse", the protagonist, justifies smuggling a couple of kilos from Vietnam into the U.S. by what follows.  Things That Make No Sense  Stone wrote:"The last moral objection (to smuggling heroin) that Converse experienced in the traditional manner had been his reaction to the Great Elephant Zap of the previous year.  The Land of a Million Elephants  That winter, the Military Advisory Command, Vietnam, had decided that elephants were enemy agents because the NVA used them to carry things, and there ensued a scene worthy of the Ramayana. Many-armed, hundred-headed MACV had sent forth steel-bodied flying insects (helicopter gun ships) to destroy his enemies, the elephants.All over the country, whooping sweating gunners descended from the cloud cover to stampede the herds and mow them down with 7.62 millimeter machine guns. The Great Elephant Zap had been too much and had disgusted everyone. Even the chopper crews who remembered the day as one of insane exhilaration had been somewhat appalled. There was a feeling that there were limits.  The Politics of Heroin in South East Asia  And as for dope, Converse thought, and addicts-if the world is going to contain elephants pursued by flying men, people are just naturally going to want to get high. So there, Converse thought, that's the way it's done. He had confronted a moral objection and overridden it". Obviously, this twisted analogy to justify selling heroin made as little sense to me as the end of the story (what happens to the heroin and the people smuggling it).  The Elephant and the Tiger: The Full Story of the Vietnam War  For me, I need a story that has a semblance of logic, reality and historical connectedness, an attribute I felt "Dog Soldiers" lacked.Sorry to any of you that really liked this book, as I know I am going to catch some slack for this critique. Opinions about books are like songs, everybody has their own opinion, and there is no right or wrong answer.  Cherries : A Vietnam War Novel  Personally, I seek in a novel some type of subjective historical tie in that I can use as a framework to relate to. Many veterans of the Vietnam War have written about their tours, using a fictional backdrop to explain their experience.  Internal Conflicts  This assists them in translating their adventure from almost 40 years ago into a fluid, dynamic story, with fictional usage of a storyline to fill in their gaps of memory. A few examples of this are John Podlaski's "Cherries," where through fiction he was able to explain what it felt to be an 18 year old, fresh out of high school, transported 8,429 miles away to rice paddies, jungles and mountain tops.  All For Nothing  Once in Vietnam, he described what it was like to be shot at by an enemy he knew nothing about nor had any reason to hate. Flint Whitlock's "Internal Conflicts" actually describes the author's experience in life, using the storyline to vicariously represent his ordeal. Another excellent example, albeit lengthy, is Clair Raney's "All For Nothing." Both books are winners, true "page turners" hard to put down until finished. Regardless, it is simply my opinion.

This is a crime story about drug dealers during the Vietnam war, and about their various mental, emotional, money, and health problems. What exotic people they were!This is also a novel from and about forgotten times and it deals with forgotten segments of the US society. What a strange country it was!Glimpses of Vietnam and Cambodia come into it; what a sick war it was!It is pretentiously literary: the main hero Converse travels to Vietnam with Saint-Exupery in his baggage. His courier Hicks reads Nietzsche on his carrier and thinks of Hemingway when he remembers fishing. The missionary lady in the park reads Cronin, appropriately; she identifies a half sentence, spoken by Converse, containing the words `God' and `whirlwind', as Job 37. The guru's son reads Stevenson. The psychotic killer recites Heine (that's odd). The soon-to-die medic reads Hesse.The novel's epigraph is a quote from Conrad. I assume the flabby devil is meant to be Kurtz, and that probably means that Converse is a version of Kurtz.The novel won the NBA in 1975. The publisher of my pocket book seems to feel a need to justify that award by printing praises from various reviewers who saw reason to compare the book to all kinds of stars, such as: a) Conrad, b) Hemingway, c) Traven, d) Chandler, e) Faulkner.And now, let me tell you, despite all this the novel is not at all bad. I did actually find interest and pleasure in reading it. I do think the author was his own man. None of the comparisons makes sense or is needed. If I may come up with my own comparison, this style strikes me more like what I would imagine Kerouac to have written had he known how to write fiction and had he asked Graham Greene to improve on the manuscript.The main character Converse is anguish personified. He has reason to be afraid, though he is luckily often almost too tired to be afraid. He gets involved in this drug dealing thing while in Vietnam, as a less than second rate journalist, because, as he lucidly self-diagnoses later: Being there f(oul)s up your perspective. Asked again in another situation, he says: in the absence of anything else... This man is no Kurtz, he is just a weak lost soul. Kurtz was lost too, but he put up a much harder fight and moved a larger wheel. Maybe the whole crowd of heroin dealers are Kurtzes? That is more like it! A worthwhile paradigm!The Californian publisher that Converse works for, his father in law, is in the business of newspapers with headlines like this timeless beauty: Mad hermit rapes coed campers. (Seriously, should I sue for defamation?)The book was made into a movie (Who'll stop the Rain?) and the focus moved from Converse to his courier Hicks, played by Nick Nolte. Nolte is something of a blue collar Buddhist, an amateur student of Japanology, a veritable samurai after service as a marine on Okinawa and a Vietnam tour. His interim conclusion halfway through the ride: Zen is for old men! (I knew I have to wait before I understand it!)Quite possibly nobody will understand this novel in 50 years, or it will require deep historical and cultural education. For us contemporaries it is a good visit. (Ignore the 1 star reviews, they are from a bunch of funny HS students and not meant literally.)

Good novel

La verdad me ha decepcionado un poco, novela para pasar el rato sin más, me esperaba una trama un poco mejor

Buena edición en tapa blanda. Entrega en perfectas condiciones.