A few books turned out to be disappointments in 08. Usually I stop reading disappointing books long before the end and I won’t even list the ones that really didn’t make the grade. However 3 books came with many good recommendations and yet felt flat.
I was really hoping to like Human Goodness, by the University of Wisconsin geology professor emeritus Yi-Fu Tuan. His website is full of deep thoughts and cogent criticism. But the book went from commonplace to commonplace without the intellectual rigor or literary flash that I was anticipating. Too bad.
Tree of Smoke, Denis Johnson’s magnum opus of the Vietnam war was ultimately just as hollow and meaningless as the war. Maybe that was his point. What it lacked in plot it also lacked in character. Just one appearance by Pig Bodine might have saved it from ennui, but alas!
Finally, many people, including some in the Drinking and Reading Society, spoke highly of Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry’s latest work of fiction. I found it just too much like one of his essays come to life. The characters and the setting were designed to be effective vehicle for his propaganda and never struck me as real.
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Just finished "Tree of Smoke" and found myself a little perplexed. But your take on the hollowness of the military endeavor and the novel makes sense. I also like your take on Wendell Berry. Long a favorite (mainly for his poetry), he's got some amazing prose, but I find myself both drawn to and (ever-so-slightly) repelled by the nostalgia.
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