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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
The Yellow Birds was beautiful, powerful, and heartbreaking. The scenes set in Iraq were so vivid they were almost difficult to read, but the most affecting parts were when Bartle was home, dealing with the aftermath of the war and his choices.
Ron Charles of the Washington Post said of The Yellow Birds what I keenly felt throughout my reading of the book but could not quite put into words. I'll quote him: "Frankly, the parts of The Yellow Birds are better than the whole. Some chapters lack sufficient power, others labor under the influence of classic war stories, rather than arising organically from the author’s unique vision." Another reviewer said that Powers was suffering from a "massive Hemingway crush." Both assessments ring true--and yet I don't see this as the sole fault of an insanely talented author. This is a poet writing his first novel. The small trespasses, such as the bald imitation of Hemingway (most notable in the first half of the book, disappearing for the most part in the second), the assignation of detailed accounts to secondary characters which come across as impossible at worst or an unconvincing protagonist's inhabitation of a secondary character's perspective at best, and so on, are easily caught by sensitive editors. Part of me wonders if the editor was loathe to touch even a sentence of a book about a veteran's war experience, most particularly when that author clearly labored over each sentence. I appreciate so tremendously the craftsmanship of each sentence. At times, though, it was almost too much--a problem I see often in novels or nonfiction by writers who consider themselves primarily poets. There is an overrichness to the prose that is taxing, and that is the case here, quite often. The imagery sometimes bloats an otherwise spare book, making some of the more remarkable sentences easily lost. And there are some stunning--stunning in the literal sense--sentences here. I happened to find that the sections detailing the most important events in the book, the language is so beautifully precise that it haunts. So for me there was a tremendous feel of unevenness here that was really frustrating.
The interiority of this piece was the point, I gather, and yet it's that very interiority that kept me from fully investing in Murphy. I couldn't understand the impetus behind the decision made jointly by Sterling and the narrator at the end of the book. Completely out of character for Sterling, even the brutality that resulted from their decision. Anyway, once again, I find myself in the minority with a book that has garnered almost universal critical praise. It reminds me of my experience with Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which I found to be a deeply flawed novel but which was widely considered one of the best books of the decade. I have far fewer complaints with Powers' book. I just think a sensitive editor doing a slight amount of pruning and calling the author to account in the first half of the book when the over-reliance on Hemingway is so egregious that it sometimes read to me as parody and asking him to revert to his own true voice, would have turned this into a five-star book for me.
The interiority of this piece was the point, I gather, and yet it's that very interiority that kept me from fully investing in Murphy. I couldn't understand the impetus behind the decision made jointly by Sterling and the narrator at the end of the book. Completely out of character for Sterling, even the brutality that resulted from their decision. Anyway, once again, I find myself in the minority with a book that has garnered almost universal critical praise. It reminds me of my experience with Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which I found to be a deeply flawed novel but which was widely considered one of the best books of the decade. I have far fewer complaints with Powers' book. I just think a sensitive editor doing a slight amount of pruning and calling the author to account in the first half of the book when the over-reliance on Hemingway is so egregious that it sometimes read to me as parody and asking him to revert to his own true voice, would have turned this into a five-star book for me.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I need a couple days to recover from what I just read. It was a roller-coaster of emotions. The style in which the book is formatted is really smart, that fact that it was not in chronological order was brilliantly done. The plot twist is like a genuine knife to the gut. I really like how it displays the inner turmoil Bartle goes through and how it shows the brutality of war.
Normally I find that authors first books are not the best, but this one is spectacular. The writing style if phenomenal and I will be thinking about this book non-stop for the next week at least.
Normally I find that authors first books are not the best, but this one is spectacular. The writing style if phenomenal and I will be thinking about this book non-stop for the next week at least.
Beautifully written, but hard to read. War has victims, not only among those whom the war is fighting against, but also those engaged in the fighting. The descriptions and the mental anguish felt like they were written from personal knowledge.
dark
informative
medium-paced
" ... I might realize that to understand the world, one's place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning."
"It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow."
"It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow."
" ... I might realize that to understand the world, one's place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning."
"It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow."
"It reminded me of talking, how what is said is never quite what was thought, and what is heard is never quite what was said. It wasn't much in the way of comfort, but everything has a little failure in it, and we still make do somehow."
3.5 stars. I liked the writing style and parts of this were very moving, but I found the back and forth between time frames and talking around the main plot points somewhat ineffective (or maybe that’s just my postpartum addled brain).
Beautiful prose though heavy subject matter. It felt really honest to me. I'd be curious to hear what other veterans felt of the fictional account.
At the will of a good friend, I cracked this book open after finishing 369-paged Me Before You, this year's tear-jerking you-must-read-this-before-the-movie-comes-out romance novel, over a holiday weekend. The transition from that book to this one was uncomfortable, and it grew increasingly clear to me that this 226 page book cannot be devoured in three days like a box of Saltine crackers or a bag of your favorite chips, rather it must be savored, like an expensive cake or an exotic fruit-- something rich, and rare, and slightly detrimental to your personal well-being.
I work as a receptionist, and regular visitors keep up with my literary escapades as they come in and out, so having this book in front of me for a whole month really surprised people (I typically don't take longer than a week to polish something off). But I kept telling them that it would be worth it, and I tell you what, it was.
I was a virgin to the war novel genre, except for a high-school-level study of All Quiet on the Western Front and the first thirty pages of Slaughter House Five, so this novel was and remains a bit out of my depth, however I don't feel like I've ever had my perspective changed so much by a book in my life. I went into this expecting heroism, exasperated death soliloquy, and tearful sacrifices, but what I got was a candid and self-deprecating novel of survival. Kevin Powers connects the "chalk line" stories of Privates Bartle and Murphy in a way that reads like a classic novel (that is to say, there is something significant in every line if one looks hard enough), but tells a story that is relevant in today's social climate. I foresee this becoming required reading in the next few years.
My love for the characters grew silently; I did not know that it was there until they started falling apart. By the last few chapters I was so invested in each one that I found myself gasping at the mention of one's hypothetical suicide, flinching at their mistreatment, and crying at their destruction. So little goes right, so little is good-- it's such a hard reality to face, and yet it is reality for many soldiers.
Powers' style of writing is phenomenal. Each word in a sentence is selected carefully, not a single one's precise meaning is neglected. His manipulation of language can so vividly transcribe the emotions of the author to the reader that it's unsettling. His panics became my panics, his sorrow became my sorrow. Reading this book is like reading something very private, something that you're not supposed to see.
Briefly in the book, the protagonist (if one could call him that) Bartle talks about the hardest part of being a returned soldier is that people are constantly thanking him for his service, when in reality all he did was survive, and there was nothing glorious about that. That got me thinking. I've never really been one to celebrate war or war heroes, and yet I still feel inclined to thank the men and women I see dressed out in fatigues at the grocery store. It's no social construct I don't think, I do genuinely appreciate their service, but I had never dissected why. I think it's a common belief that when we say thanks, we are saying "Thank you for your bravery, thank you for defending us, thank you standing up for our country", but when I thought about that some more, I think what I am saying-- and what many others are saying-- is not thank you for your bravery in defending me, thank you for risking it all for me. Thank you for going through this for me. Because wars are going to be waged ("It was their idea," [Sterling] said. "Don't forget that. It's their idea every time. They ought to kill themselves instead of us." (42)) and soldiers will always be needed, so it's a thank you for being a sacrificial lamb. A common theme in this book is "glad it's you, not me", and that message eerily resonates with the reader the whole way through.
To summarize, this book was powerful and genuine, all the makings of classic that will be revered for time to come, and yet I have a bad taste in my mouth. I think it's supposed to be like that.
I work as a receptionist, and regular visitors keep up with my literary escapades as they come in and out, so having this book in front of me for a whole month really surprised people (I typically don't take longer than a week to polish something off). But I kept telling them that it would be worth it, and I tell you what, it was.
I was a virgin to the war novel genre, except for a high-school-level study of All Quiet on the Western Front and the first thirty pages of Slaughter House Five, so this novel was and remains a bit out of my depth, however I don't feel like I've ever had my perspective changed so much by a book in my life. I went into this expecting heroism, exasperated death soliloquy, and tearful sacrifices, but what I got was a candid and self-deprecating novel of survival. Kevin Powers connects the "chalk line" stories of Privates Bartle and Murphy in a way that reads like a classic novel (that is to say, there is something significant in every line if one looks hard enough), but tells a story that is relevant in today's social climate. I foresee this becoming required reading in the next few years.
My love for the characters grew silently; I did not know that it was there until they started falling apart. By the last few chapters I was so invested in each one that I found myself gasping at the mention of one's hypothetical suicide, flinching at their mistreatment, and crying at their destruction. So little goes right, so little is good-- it's such a hard reality to face, and yet it is reality for many soldiers.
Powers' style of writing is phenomenal. Each word in a sentence is selected carefully, not a single one's precise meaning is neglected. His manipulation of language can so vividly transcribe the emotions of the author to the reader that it's unsettling. His panics became my panics, his sorrow became my sorrow. Reading this book is like reading something very private, something that you're not supposed to see.
Briefly in the book, the protagonist (if one could call him that) Bartle talks about the hardest part of being a returned soldier is that people are constantly thanking him for his service, when in reality all he did was survive, and there was nothing glorious about that. That got me thinking. I've never really been one to celebrate war or war heroes, and yet I still feel inclined to thank the men and women I see dressed out in fatigues at the grocery store. It's no social construct I don't think, I do genuinely appreciate their service, but I had never dissected why. I think it's a common belief that when we say thanks, we are saying "Thank you for your bravery, thank you for defending us, thank you standing up for our country", but when I thought about that some more, I think what I am saying-- and what many others are saying-- is not thank you for your bravery in defending me, thank you for risking it all for me. Thank you for going through this for me. Because wars are going to be waged ("It was their idea," [Sterling] said. "Don't forget that. It's their idea every time. They ought to kill themselves instead of us." (42)) and soldiers will always be needed, so it's a thank you for being a sacrificial lamb. A common theme in this book is "glad it's you, not me", and that message eerily resonates with the reader the whole way through.
To summarize, this book was powerful and genuine, all the makings of classic that will be revered for time to come, and yet I have a bad taste in my mouth. I think it's supposed to be like that.