Posts Tagged ‘John Powers’
The Thousand Yard Stare Fictionalized
The gentleman who referred to Broken Under Interrogation as the MOST depressing book he has ever read changed his mind on Amazon.com review and posted the following review:
After more thought, this book should be given three stars, but Amazon won’t let me change my rating.
Let’s start by saying it’s not impossible to actually take a very depressing subject on its face and provide social comment, satire, truths, or philosophy while never losing sight of the depressing reality. “Hogan’s Heroes” was an entertaining comedy about life in a German WWII POW camp. “Catch 22″ and “MASH” both found irony and humor among the destruction and meaninglessness of war, and used them to illustrate “greater truths” about humanity. Vonnegut was in my opinion the master of balancing the personal futility and ugliness of war with irony and humor to allow “the rest of us” to avoid looking the other way.
This plot has its roots in the Iraq Wars and the military, but focuses on all the shattered dreams, broken promises and disturbing trends of American cultural life to create one of the most depressing books I’ve ever read. Once is constantly hammered with the devastating consequences of this needless war to the personal lives of veterans and to the lives of all whom they touch.
There is no joy. There is no hope. There is no humor. There is no point. There is only the abyss and the apocalypse, dripped drop by acidic drop into your face until you want desperately to look away–to pretend it doesn’t exist.
The narrative, considering the subject, is emotionally flat and brings home the legendary “thousand yard stare”, because none of these people have anything worthwhile to live for except the glimmer of surviving another day. Having no military experience myself, only reading of Paul Fussell’s works prepared me for this. There is no glory, there is no lasting success, there is no justification.
So, why should you read this book? If you want to see the “personal” costs of these policies that created and exploited this war, this book hits you full in the face with it. If you want to see the policy consequences to the people least able to bear them, this book works. It doesn’t demonize enemies or glorify Americans, and it is relentless. It may actually change for its readers, the cavalier attitude with which we order our young men and women into harm’s way with no genuine regard for long term costs or consequences. Be brave. Read the book.
Jeffrey M. Hopkins says: I am trying really hard to find the irony and humor in my experience. Perhaps twenty years from now, when the aesthetic distance has been achieved and the outcome of our experiment in the deserts of Iraq have been realized, I can write another book. For now I think that Broken Under Interrogation gets the point across. I’m glad this gentleman reconsidered his review. When you get into John Powers’ mind, you realize this is PTSD put to paper. The numbness, the isolation, the longing for conflict, the horror……the horror.
