Headline, July14, 2013

'''WAR - AND - PIECES'''

EXIT A :

It's in General Kindwall   -depressed, repressed, disappointed, confused- that Anthony Swofford's insight into the frustrations and motivations of fighting man is most evident. But this is not a book about men at war, at least not a man at war with a foreign enemy.

It's about men at war with themselves and with the women and vice versa. And it's about the children of the armed-forces personnel, and the effect on them of growing up in the military.

A twisted love story set in Japan, Vietnam and California, this debut novel by the author of the Outstanding Gulf War I memoir  -JARHEAD-  is an involving  and affecting account of people trapped in Institutions   -prison, the military, academia, marriage  -and subject to destructive forces and impulses seemingly beyond their control.

We first meet the central characters, Severin Boxx and Virginia Kindwall, both 17, on US Air Force Base in Tokyo in 1989. Severin is a straight-arrow football star, son of a remote airman and his wife, but Virginia   -beautiful, motherless, half-Japanese  -is more wayward. He loves her fervently, but from afar. When they connect, they inadvertently wound themselves, and each other.

Virginia's father, a brilliantly realised Vie, as well as Severin's team coach. But Severin is maddeningly passive protagonist. When force to action  -trying to save his girlfriend, his marriage, himself   -he makes a hash of things, sometimes with devastating consequences. 

Virginia is more self possessed, more admirable perhaps, but she, too, brings harm on herself and those close to her. When we leave them, 16 years on, it's with cautious optimism but also regret. A sort of redemption has been achieved but the future, as ever, is uncertain.

Jarhead fans hoping and hopping  for guns and ammo and macho jargon may find this an unexpectedly domestic war story, but many of the qualities that made that first book so effective survive intact. 

Swofford's writing is bald and direct-  if you were being trite, you might almost say his prose style has a military bent   -but he is wise and empathetic and perspicacious : the characters are complete and very believable.

As in Jarhead he is able to conjure a wonderful sense of the place. Tokyo is gloriously evoked, but so, too is the equally stifling campus at Berkeley. This is a very accomplished first novel.

With respectful dedication to All the Students and Professors of the World.

See ya all on !WOW! : The World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless : Facing the world Squarely.

Good Night & God Bless!

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless