Tree of Smoke

This book has a few things in common with 'War and Peace' by Tolstoy. Just like Napoleon in Moscow, American soldiers - tired of the war - had to leave Saigon. Just like Tolstoy who described Russian society, Denis Johnson gives a panoramic view of both South and North Vietnam. 'Tree of Smoke' takes several moments of the vietnam conflict with different characters mostly unrelated to each other (there are exceptions). This technique allows to get an overview and a kaleidoscopic image of Vietnam. Very few encounters with the Vietcong are described (so don't expect a run-of-the-mill war novel). The characters of this book work behind the scenes. They are Americans, Vietnamese, French, British, and Chinese. They rank from messenger boys to CIA officials and generals. There are three characters who are the common thread through this novel. William "Skip" Sands, CIA, engaged in Psychological Operations and the disaster that befalls him. There is also the story of the Houston Brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert and into the war where the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, this is a story like nothing else in American literature. This novel is a very rich and powerful portrait of Vietnam and the people who were trying to make the best of their lives.

It seems like most reviewers are approaching TOS as a historical Vietnam novel (which I don't think is mainly true) or as an anti-war novel (which I don't think is mainly true). The main theme of the book seems to be "what happened to America?" There's this sense that we peeked in WWII. Coming off of WWII America feels like it had a sense of self respect and holy destiny. Then, over the course of the Vietnam War, we see that bleed away. WWII America -- the America that carries a real sense of self respect -- is represented by the Colonel. The sort of gradual decay of America's sense of self respect is represented by Skip (the quiet American, to the ugly American, to the F-ing American). The Brothers Houston seem like they're basically the cogs of war. They don't look for a higher meaning. They don't attach themselves to any real belief system or mythology. They're not really bad or good people -- they're just kind of a mess. On some level, I don't think Vietnam undoes James. I don't think it's even particularly bad for him. He was a messy individual before the war, he's messy during the war, and he's messy after it. James and Bill are the reality of every war -- a bunch of poor, flawed, violent misfits thrown into the most chaotic violent situation imaginable. The difference between the Houston Brothers of Vietnam and the Houston Brothers of more popular wars is that America lacked a decent mythos in Vietnam. I think that DJ attributes the American loss of self respect to a kind of disregard for the importance of mythology. The old America of the Colonel really acknowledges the value of that mythology (the whole idea of the Colonel flying his plane with one wing shot off) and the effect that our mythology has on ourselves. The new America -- Skip and to some extent Jimmy Storm -- doesn't value mythology at all. At best the new America views mythology as some kind of trick to be used against a primitive and superstitious enemy. The new America doesn't worry so much about mythology, because it moves in with this dominant, tangible, superior force. The new America makes its decisions mathematically: "we have 100 James Houston's to every one of theirs, therefore we will win". I think DJ does a good job showing the failure of this mindset in the section on the Tet Offensive. The VC take absurdly disproportionate losses, but walk away with a victory in terms of mythology. Jimmy Storm's journey at the end seems to be where America is now: wandering around trying to figure out what went wrong and why we don't feel good about ourselves anymore. Ultimately, I think DJ sees our godlessness and our inability to believe in our own myths as our failure.

TREE OF SMOKE is yet another terrific Viet Nam novel, an anti-war novel, but it is more than that on its deepest level. It is written with great compassion about the condition of humanity. The opening paragraph, noting the senseless death of one man (who happens to be President Kennedy), is beautifully juxtaposed with the sniping death of the monkey, and the mutual anguish of it. For senseless killing kills and kills the killer too. It is a karma entrenched in human history, a cycle that we cannot shake. Not only are monkeys used literally and symbolically throughout the novel but the young American's Vietnamese counterpart, Trund, is nicknamed Monk, and double-meanings and allusions to Buddhism and Judeo-Christianity envelope the better angels of the novel's worldview. Just as Joseph Heller's CATCH-22 was about World War II but read as an anti-Viet Nam War novel, this is a Viet Nam novel that can be read as an anti-Iraq War novel. The 'tree of smoke' in the title represents many things, among them the mushroom cloud of weapons of mass destruction and the fear of them used as both an excuse and a weapon. Some critics have said that the 'tree of smoke' was imaginary, and I won't argue that (although President Nixon's secret plan to win the war was based upon this threat), but this is a novel, and its deeper meanings will resonate with readers in different ways. TREE OF SMOKE's size might intimidate some, and it is over 600 pages, but it is big and fast, easy to read, a comfortable book to open and hold. The story keeps moving, and the pages fly by deceptively fast. There is a strong field of nominees for this year's National Book Award, but this one has to be my pick for its beautiful writing and its sense of compassion. An unforgettable novel.

Other novels of the Vietnam War have been moving, tragic, heartrending and absurd --- as much so, perhaps, as the war (any war?) itself. But with the possible exception of CATCH-22, no other war novel I've read has been as trenchant as Denis Johnson's TREE OF SMOKE. Beginning with the emotional impact of the assassination of President Kennedy, Johnson presents each year from 1963 to 1970 in its own chapter, following the life of a young, bookish CIA operative named Skip Sands, who has followed his idolized uncle, the Colonel, into the service. Skip spends much of the book undercover and in the dark about his pending assignment from the Colonel, reading philosophy in a remote villa in Vietnam. His fervent belief in the rightness of his country's mission in Vietnam is allied with his admiration and love for his uncle, a hard-drinking lifelong agency operative. Contrasted with Skip's earnestness, the novel also chronicles the lives of James and Bill Houston, poor young men from Phoenix who enlist to get out of finishing high school and get away from their born-again single mother, whom they love but whom they consider pathetic. James is the younger of the two, and with him we see, hear and feel the war in Vietnam. "James slid himself along the bench to the end of the carrier and ventured to look out at the Vietnam War --- rain dripping from gigantic leaves, deformed vehicles, small people --- the truck gearing down, engine bawling, mud boiling under the big tires --- barefoot pedestrians stepping away from the road, brown faces passing, rut after rut after rut, the beer lurching in his stomach." James serves in a Recon unit, and the only action he sees in his first tour occurs in the Purple Bar and the hooches out back where the whores work. "God almighty, some part of him prayed, if this is war let peace never come." So he re-enlists, and his second tour, which begins with the Tet offensive, is a very different and ugly story. Ultimately, James's unit comes under the Colonel's directive, and the two main narrative threads briefly converge. Can there be a war without God? Says the Colonel, "In order to prosecute our own wars we raise them to the level of human sacrifice, don't we, and we constantly invoke our God. It's got to be about something bigger than dying, or we'd all turn deserter." The women in the novel are all religious in their way: Skip's Midwestern mother, unsure about the justice of the war; James's mom, absolutely certain that God is on the U.S. side and disdainful of war protesters; and Kathy, an aid worker trying to make sense of the Calvinist God who took her husband. The Biblical metaphor of the tree of smoke (Joel, Chapter 2, usually translated as "pillar of smoke") plays multiple roles: as a symbol of destruction and as a symbol of obfuscation. Most of the characters, despite their class and racial differences, struggle to make sense of the war, and their ponderings and utterances pierce the reader's heart in language

The tree of smoke is a crazy drug addled ride through the Vietnam war. It easily could have become a derivative of such Vietnam classics as Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" or Robert Stone's "Dog Soldiers." But the author is able to take similar elements from these and other books about this subject and turn out something different. The plot roams and rampages about, which will probably be disconcerting to some, but it is really just a metaphor for the craziness of war, and this war in particular. It's the story of the American experience in Vietnam and is particularly timely given the current situation in Iraq. The story follows Skip, a CIA operative, Young and eager to prove himself and defeat communism. Skip believes in the American dream of democracy for everyone and the essential goodness of America and America's interest in Vietnam. I do not like to give too much away in my reviews but suffice to say Skip Witnesses the brutalities of war and sees things that question is allegiances. He learns that not all is black and white. This is not the first book on the follies of war and surly will not be the last. Overall it deserves five stars even though the plot is unwieldily at times. The greatness of this book is how the author was able to bring the reader back to the hallucinogenic era of that bloody little war and display the fallout on his characters psyche. This is a must read! this was my favorite read of the summer! This was my first Denis Johnson novel, now I am going to order Jesus' Son: Stories by and Fiskadoro. I also recommend "Across the High Lonesome" for a great slice of life read.