I had read a bunch of reviews saying that this novel was the novel on Vietnam. It was supposed to be better than any of Tim O'Brien's pieces. This isn't a bad novel, but O'brien's works -- particularly Going After Cacciato -- have much more depth. This has the absurdity of Catch-22 and the horror of Apocalypse Now. But from a literary standpoint, it isn't as powerful in language and imagery. Not a bad book, but didn't live up to the hype I had heard. ( )

2011, Jan.: #1
The last celebration of my 'mois de viet nam' from December, and alongside Eastlake's criminally underappreciated Bamboo Bed and Herr's Dispatches, the better of that month-plus-long immersion in the product of America's involvement with some Seriously Deep Shit. Like Herr, Wright tends to focus more on the EXPERIENCE of the war, the feelings felt in the moments of boredom and the moments of chaos--and speaking of that chaos, the rare explosions of war are the most powerful I've ever read, bar none. Absolutely horrific, tense, disgusting, beautiful, never-ending yet over too fucking soon (& o, what a note it goes out on!).

Now...the only issue with 50 days spent in Vietnam is all the experiences tend to blend together. And what doesn't help is that Meditations in Green is possibly the most difficult of them; the newest, borrowing elements and yet being entirely original, the worst choice to end with.

Wright is obviously a master of the craft. He really asks you to re-read and read again. There's no other way to understand him. (I still have no clue what the 'meditations' were all about. I am clueless. If/When I have the chance to re-read this, I'll be forced to re-review it, to really, like, know it.)

If you have any interest whatsoever in the Vietnam War, and especially the fiction that sprang from it, this--and don't forget Eastlake's Heller-esque-but-not-really Bamboo Bed--is required reading.

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