Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Tree of Smoke: A Novel
Book Review: Long Flabby and Incoherent
Summary: 1 Stars
I bought this based on reviews but I just dont agree with those who liked the book. Its not a good VN book (Im a vet and have read them all) or a good CIA book (Ive read those too). If the point is to say that the war was a confused, pointless waste thats fine but the same can be said about the book.Book Review: Maybe you had to be there??
Summary: 1 Stars
Woo Hoo! I finished this ridiculous book!!
After about 120 pages, I started to enjoy the fluid wording but the characters were not interesting, the plot was slow, the character transitions were untimely and I began to lose interest. Persistently I trudged ahead believing something would jump out and hook me...it didn't happen.
Towards the end, the book just became plain weird. When I finished, I closed the book and concluded this is one of the worst books I have ever read. I am still perplexed; Did I miss some hidden meaning?
Perhaps the drugs mentioned in this book should be a prerequisite to your reading sessions.
I just didn't get it...
Book Review: Mission Never Accomplished
Summary: 5 Stars
While reading "Tree of Smoke" I felt like I was staring at seared bark, my nostrils overwhelmed by the charred remains of the trunk I was clinging to with monumental focus and resolve. The novel was filled with intense and energetic prose but I didn't know what was going on and I didn't feel moved or much of anything other than admiration for the style, skill and detail. Then I came to the last fifty pages and without it being at all obvious or sappy the book came together and suddenly I was at the top of tree seeing and feeling everything.
To call this a Vietnam novel is like calling Moby Dick a whaling novel. Clearly its heart and soul rests in that country but the characters and locales sprawl out to the Philippines and the United States. There is very little war but what there is hits explosively and critically as the Tet offensive certainly did. Was it the end of American innocence? Maybe but no where does the novel suggest it was end of American stupidity abroad. There are a few Bush 43 era phrases that remind us of how little we've learned.
The characters are the weakest aspect to a novel that hurls forward on a level that makes them secondary to the dark hole at the center of this world. Colonel Sands, the nearest thing to the plot's mastermind, is a larger than life figure, a rogue spy who will do anything to win against the communists. His nephew Skip Sands feels like the moral center of the novel although his morality is squishy at the beginning and goes downhill. Then there is the lone female character,Katharine Johnson, a cross between Katharine Hepburn in the "African Queen" and the town slut. Other characters such as the Houston brothers and Jimmy Storm are madmen whose lives only make sense in a crazy war and then just barely. There are few key Asian characters including a double agent and the Filipino Rex Harrison but I didn't find them persuasive.
So what its all about Alfie? Why the hype about this being the great American novel? Its because the book takes the reader on a demanding, thrilling, crazy ride and its truths explodes deep inside as if the reader's psyche was one of those Vietcong tunnels that crop up memorably but mysteriously throughout the book. These truths kept on exploding even I closed the covers and turned out the lights.
Book Review: Not a good book
Summary: 1 Stars
ok - i have not bought a hardcopy book at retail price in a long time and i read one of these raving reviews and thought, wow - this book sound pretty good. who are these people writing these reviews? i think they work for the publisher b/c this is one of the worst written and meaningless books i've read in a very long time. Total incomplete character development and only moderately interesting at best. Don't waste your money on this one - you'll be lucky if you can finish it.Book Review: Not for me
Summary: 2 Stars
On average, I read about 2 books month. This book took me 2 months to read because I just had to force myself to pick this book up and read it. If you are going to read it, read it in long sessions as it jumps around a lot and switches characters frequently. If you read it in long sessions, you will get more out of it. I hate the writing style and the fact that there were no chapters, made this for a confusing read at times. Maybe it is just me, but this just wasn't a very well written book. I don't recommend this book and wish that I hadn't paid 30 dollars for the wasted time I spent trying to read it.