I ain’t no literary historian, but I’m guessing we have the boomers to blame for the disappointment memoir. Let’s see, if your lollypop-eyed expectations include changing the world into a love playground filled with Maslowian self-fulfillment, you might end up with failed hopes. Who could have imagined that? Now, we get seemingly endless middle-age where-did-it-all-go-wrong confessions, and if my eyes rolled any harder, they’d be in my ass.
Tim O’Brien, a man who delivered one masterpiece (The Things They Carried) and two other first-rate novels (Going After Cacciato and In the Lake by the Woods), has written his Big Chill book, and I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. July, July recounts a 30th reunion (what else? - it even includes a memorial service for fallen compadres) that focuses on ten classmates and how badly they perceive they’ve screwed up their lives. O’Brien alternates chapters from the reunion with those that tell the ten individual stories, so we can see the dashed hopes, the crumbling marriages, the dark secrets, etc. Marriage gets hit particularly hard, as even so-called perfect husbands get cheated on and verbally abused for failing to sustain perfect and abiding passion. Commitment isn’t easy for these folks- nobody told them it requires sacrifice- and boredom. There doesn’t appear to be any middle ground for these people between cynicism and despair. They are either defeated by their perceived failures or else the shell has hardened to allow only the jaded quip to exit those pouty mouths. That raises another problem- what comes out of those mouths rarely sounds like what comes out of the mouths of people I’ve encountered outside the printed page. The comebacks are too fast and too glib. We get no ordinary conversation about nothing, the kind you would expect to dominate a reunion in which people are getting to know one another again until the booze kicks in. It’s as if everyone is trying to one-up each other in the world-weariness competition by delivering only the sardonic jibe. So much of the conversation calls attention to itself by its spunk or its folksiness or its homespun “wisdom.” People just don’t talk like that, especially when they’re plastered or frying on acid, as two characters are near the end. And still they have a quip-off, no matter how many ellipses O’Brien employs to indicate normal, stuttering human speech.
I’m being harsh, because there is some psychological insight and some fine writing, but I simply don’t recognize these people. If they are genuine representatives of this generation, you just want to slap ‘em or shake your head. If not, well, O’Brien ain’t going for fantasy. It’s amazing with this guy, because he’s masterful when writing about Vietman, but he has produced two of the worst novels I’ve read (Tomcat in Love, The Nuclear Age), when he steps outside that arena. July, July is much better than those two, but it’s a long way from The Things They Carried. Comparing novels from a writer is never fair, so let’s just hope he either hangs out with more folks who didn’t believe in revolution in 1968, or else he lets folks talk like folks in the next one. Of course, there's always Vietnam...
Tim O’Brien, a man who delivered one masterpiece (The Things They Carried) and two other first-rate novels (Going After Cacciato and In the Lake by the Woods), has written his Big Chill book, and I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. July, July recounts a 30th reunion (what else? - it even includes a memorial service for fallen compadres) that focuses on ten classmates and how badly they perceive they’ve screwed up their lives. O’Brien alternates chapters from the reunion with those that tell the ten individual stories, so we can see the dashed hopes, the crumbling marriages, the dark secrets, etc. Marriage gets hit particularly hard, as even so-called perfect husbands get cheated on and verbally abused for failing to sustain perfect and abiding passion. Commitment isn’t easy for these folks- nobody told them it requires sacrifice- and boredom. There doesn’t appear to be any middle ground for these people between cynicism and despair. They are either defeated by their perceived failures or else the shell has hardened to allow only the jaded quip to exit those pouty mouths. That raises another problem- what comes out of those mouths rarely sounds like what comes out of the mouths of people I’ve encountered outside the printed page. The comebacks are too fast and too glib. We get no ordinary conversation about nothing, the kind you would expect to dominate a reunion in which people are getting to know one another again until the booze kicks in. It’s as if everyone is trying to one-up each other in the world-weariness competition by delivering only the sardonic jibe. So much of the conversation calls attention to itself by its spunk or its folksiness or its homespun “wisdom.” People just don’t talk like that, especially when they’re plastered or frying on acid, as two characters are near the end. And still they have a quip-off, no matter how many ellipses O’Brien employs to indicate normal, stuttering human speech.
I’m being harsh, because there is some psychological insight and some fine writing, but I simply don’t recognize these people. If they are genuine representatives of this generation, you just want to slap ‘em or shake your head. If not, well, O’Brien ain’t going for fantasy. It’s amazing with this guy, because he’s masterful when writing about Vietman, but he has produced two of the worst novels I’ve read (Tomcat in Love, The Nuclear Age), when he steps outside that arena. July, July is much better than those two, but it’s a long way from The Things They Carried. Comparing novels from a writer is never fair, so let’s just hope he either hangs out with more folks who didn’t believe in revolution in 1968, or else he lets folks talk like folks in the next one. Of course, there's always Vietnam...
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