In the middle of things...

One reason why I won't recommend "Dog Soldiers" is the way that characters seem to know and influence the things that drive the plot without the reader knowing how they became acquainted with such information. I have read Robert Stone before, and, on the sheer power and magnificence of his short stories and a novel entitled "A Flag for Sunrise," I consider him a good writer. How "Dog Soldiers" won the National Book Award will continue to elude me. At any rate, there's bound to be a number of books that I will not endorse. This is one of them.

On a lighter note, I am now reading William Gass' "Finding a Form." It is a collection of essay in which the voice of Gass comes out clear and good. I will be annotating the collection so there will be citations and the like on the reviews.

Responsibility...

Because one has a certain responsibility, after all... to those books one picks up to read... that's the reason why I am continuing reading Robert Stone's "Dog Soldiers." I am sort of lost as to how even minor characters seem to know much more than the protagonist. John Converse returns from Vietnam to find that the man who he entrusted the cargo of heroin to has runaway with the cargo and also with his wife, Marge. Converse hears all about this from his own father-in-law. How this minor character gets to know exactly what is happening, we never know. After this there's the obligatory torture scene, complete with tough guys and handcuffs. I don't think I was in the mood to read this book. However, I do have to say that Stone's prose style is clear and good. This makes you read further and faster, and to a certain extent enjoy the fragile ties that hold the language to the plot and the characters.

This coming week is the anniversary of my coming back from the war. It seems like ages ago... I suppose because it was indeed a lifetime ago. I have decided to confront some of the left-over demons and go to my local Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting hall and have a beer :-) This past weekend was the funeral service for Lance Corporal Daniel Scherry. He was killed April 16. I can't imagine how much pain that family must have gone through, or must still be going through. May he rest in peace.

Teaching wise things are absolutely on track, and with some work caught up I have ventured to do some more reading and writing. I've also posted some lectures on the current unit on a brand new "YouTube" channel. Next semester there will be a new English teacher and she is an expert writing teacher and poet. I am really delighted to have a creative heart around here... God knows it is needed. I really have a great deal of hope for our English department next year.

Next on my list is William Gass' "Finding a Form." It is a collection of essays by the master of the form here in America.

Robert Stone's "Dog Soldiers"

I am still seeking why this novel won the National Book Award. Right now, the protagonist, John Converse, is in Vietnam. He arranges for a shipment of heroin to be delivered to his wife in the United States and then she would sell it to the pushers. As it turns out Hicks, the person in charge to get the heroin to the U.S., turns on Marge (John's wife) and basically kidnaps her, her baby and the heroin. Again, I suppose it's a bit early to tell. I really had difficulties getting into it, but now the prose is really starting to flow. "Dog Soldiers" is not an easy novel to digest, but I will report later if it was worth reading.

The Rewards of Teaching...

I finished reading Ethan Canin's "The Palace Thief" a few days ago. I have been unable to post because my weekend was filled with grading and also with the purchase of my first-ever, top of the line lawn mower. It was an interesting adventure to actually buy one of these things, really. It took us nearly a month to decide on one. It took me an hour and a half to do the front yard alone.

At any rate, I finished a few days ago with "The Palace Thief." The three stories that follow "The Accountant" (of which I wrote before) are excellent and each one grows in excellence from one to the next. The crowning achievement of this collection is, of course, the title story. In "Batorsag and Szerelem" a family struggles to understand a son who seems gifted in mathematics. As a regular genius, he is indulged and praised. The narrator, the genius' little brother, struggles with himself and his eccentricity. He invents his own language, which essentially turns out to be Hungarian at the end of the story. There are some compelling passages here regarding the protagonist's identity and the narrator's effort to convey this. I am not going to write to spoil any of these fascinating stories, so you'll have to read them and find out. In "City of Broken Hearts," the narrator, a middle-aged gentleman whose wife had just left him, is receiving his son who is away at college. His son is only staying one day at home (Boston) and father and son decide to go to a Red Soxs game. The dialogue between father and son is an exquisite ballet of alluding and avoidance, a constant back and forth game of "one-upmanship." It all boils down to a father concerned with his son's future and a son who in turn able to shape his father's life in the time he spends with him. Excellent twist.

"The Palace Thief" is an excellent story about a teacher at a preparatory school. He teaches antiquity, the history of the great civilizations. He takes under his wing a problematic student who turns out to be the catalyst of the story. The narrator is gifted--Canin's use of language here is particularly interesting. Canin is able to reproduce a diction of high intellectual with great ease. The narrator, Mr. Hundert, prepares the annual history competition, "Mr. Julius Cesear." As a teacher he fails to promote the one student who actually was supposed to compete in order to fit in the rebellious one, Sedgewick Bell. The story is about failures, repercussions, and the power of a teacher to make difference (for good or bad). I loved it because it mirrored some of the things I deal with in the classroom almost daily.

I am now reading "Dog Soldiers" by Robert Stone. This books won the National Book Award, but I am still struggling to find out why. I have read "Bear and His Daughter" and also "A Flag for Sunrise" by Robert Stone, and it was on the strength of these that I ventured into "Dog Soldiers." The story takes place in the last days of the Vietnam War. The protagonist, one John Converse, is preparing a drug deal that is supposed to make him rich, but the story doesn't go according to his liking. I am still early on the story, so I can't comment much. More to follow.