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3.42 AVERAGE
3.42 AVERAGE
Halfway between Naked Lunch and The Tree of Smoke. Somewhere in the vicinity of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
I don't think it bears reading again. I didn't absorb large chunks of it so maybe watching the movie will be a good idea.
I don't think it bears reading again. I didn't absorb large chunks of it so maybe watching the movie will be a good idea.
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Although I enjoyed the book, I assume that the people who awarded it the National Book Award and the others who put it on Time's Top 100 List, were already adults during the period of time that the book takes place. I'm sure that because of this, the book that apparently "perfectly captured the underground mood of America in the 1970's" resonated with them much more than it did with me (who wasn't yet born at the time). However, reading about people of originally questionable character that then proceed to spiral into moral degeneracy, and the prevailing themes of greed and violence, are of course relevant and exciting, and I don't mean to say that the story didn't reach me at all. The actual story and its ending were good, and maybe I should give this 4 stars, but as far as drug-riddled books go, I find myself rating in comparison to "Infinite Jest", which probably is just completely unfair, but since Goodreads prevents me from going 3 and half, I'm sticking with 3 unless the book happens to stay with me into next week, at which point I'll bump it up one. Although I don't expect this to happen.
This one grew on me as it went along, I can give it 3.5 stars. In “Dog Soldiers”, published 1974, Robert Stone shows the 60s dream turned into a nightmare: the hippie weed smoker is now into heavier drugs; the violence from the war in Vietnam has leaked back home and society is, well - morally corrupt. The characters are unlikable but they keep fighting; what they want is unclear, even to themselves. Having irrational actors allows Stone to put together an action movie plot not without interesting philosophical asides; he is skilled, perhaps a little too much so, at detailing the tortured thoughts of his troubled creations. The novel not a bad thriller, a sort of cowboy chase across the wilderness not without a decent shootout. That the Mexican border is not far off near the end is inevitable, Mexico exists as an escape route for the American outlaw. He hardly ever makes it across though, maybe because he knows that once out of the States he ceases to matter.
The book's opening scene throws you off guard: Converse, a thirty-five year old American journalist in Vietnam, tries to pick up a older woman on a park bench. He might have had a chance if she wasn't a missionary, but he tries anyway. Converse is going to run heroin back to the States. He'll use his merchant marine buddy Ray Hicks. The 'scag' is to be delivered to Marge, Converse's drug-addled wife. She’s into Dilaudid bought from the Samoan usher at the adult movie theatre where she works selling tickets. Once the heroin arrives she quickly gets hooked on that.
Thugs tipped off by Converse's Vietnam supplier jump Hicks when he delivers the drugs to Marge. Hicks fights them off and takes Marge and the scag to a former hippie colony in the forest. The thugs, the violent and unbalanced Smitty and Daskin, with Converse as hostage set out in hot pursuit. They are working for a crooked cop of some kind and they’ll have their work cut out with Hicks, who was allegedly based on the famous beatnik Neal Cassady. I can’t imagine Cassady having the parts of a M16 in a safe place all greased up and ready to be assembled, Hicks even has a M70 grenade launcher attachment.
Some of the background about the hippie colony at the site of an old Spanish mission in the hills of Southern California doesn’t really come off. The spiritual leader, a German named Dieter, has put more security into his chill-pad than Castle Grayskull. Converse's past as a journalist with a flare for catchy headlines is mapped well enough, but I would have liked to get a clearer picture of Hicks.
Dog soldiers reminded me of Conrad’s "Victory" and Cormac McCarthy’s "No Country for Old Men". "Victory" has the same chase narrative and Stone was a fan of Conrad. "Dog Soldiers" has the evil of "No Country For Old Men" but more humour and less self-conscious preciseness. The female characters are all junkies in this book, but the men are messed up too, so it doesn’t feel too sexist. Here is an idea of Stone’s prose:
“He sat desiring the girl - a speed-hardened straw-colored junkie stewardess, a spoiled Augustana Lutheran, compounded of airport Muzak and beauty parlor school. Her eyes were fouled with smog and propane spray.”
I haven’t seen the movie with Nick Nolte, but I can imagine this novel would make a good film. A few years later Nolte starred in a movie of Steinbeck’s "Cannery Road", a much more positive take on the human condition - but not a book to make a movie out of.
The book's opening scene throws you off guard: Converse, a thirty-five year old American journalist in Vietnam, tries to pick up a older woman on a park bench. He might have had a chance if she wasn't a missionary, but he tries anyway. Converse is going to run heroin back to the States. He'll use his merchant marine buddy Ray Hicks. The 'scag' is to be delivered to Marge, Converse's drug-addled wife. She’s into Dilaudid bought from the Samoan usher at the adult movie theatre where she works selling tickets. Once the heroin arrives she quickly gets hooked on that.
Thugs tipped off by Converse's Vietnam supplier jump Hicks when he delivers the drugs to Marge. Hicks fights them off and takes Marge and the scag to a former hippie colony in the forest. The thugs, the violent and unbalanced Smitty and Daskin, with Converse as hostage set out in hot pursuit. They are working for a crooked cop of some kind and they’ll have their work cut out with Hicks, who was allegedly based on the famous beatnik Neal Cassady. I can’t imagine Cassady having the parts of a M16 in a safe place all greased up and ready to be assembled, Hicks even has a M70 grenade launcher attachment.
Some of the background about the hippie colony at the site of an old Spanish mission in the hills of Southern California doesn’t really come off. The spiritual leader, a German named Dieter, has put more security into his chill-pad than Castle Grayskull. Converse's past as a journalist with a flare for catchy headlines is mapped well enough, but I would have liked to get a clearer picture of Hicks.
Dog soldiers reminded me of Conrad’s "Victory" and Cormac McCarthy’s "No Country for Old Men". "Victory" has the same chase narrative and Stone was a fan of Conrad. "Dog Soldiers" has the evil of "No Country For Old Men" but more humour and less self-conscious preciseness. The female characters are all junkies in this book, but the men are messed up too, so it doesn’t feel too sexist. Here is an idea of Stone’s prose:
“He sat desiring the girl - a speed-hardened straw-colored junkie stewardess, a spoiled Augustana Lutheran, compounded of airport Muzak and beauty parlor school. Her eyes were fouled with smog and propane spray.”
I haven’t seen the movie with Nick Nolte, but I can imagine this novel would make a good film. A few years later Nolte starred in a movie of Steinbeck’s "Cannery Road", a much more positive take on the human condition - but not a book to make a movie out of.
challenging
dark
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I added Dog Soldiers to my TBR list after seeing it on a buzzfeed list for “books that will change your life” or “books that stick with you” it was one of those. I wanted to try and branch out with my reading in 2021 since I mainly read horror and thrillers, so a historical crime drama that is said to be an excellent read sounded like a good idea.
I’ll start by saying I did not hate this book. I can see why people love it, it’s just really not for me. The characters are all archetypes of the time, and none of them come off as real people. You have the journalist in Vietnam that decides to just run dope for some reason randomly. You have his hippie junkie wife, that enthusiastically goes along with it again for no real reason because they both say over and over again they don’t care about the money. You have the old friend who’s a war veteran and apparently either really good at dealing or completely insane, probably both. And then of course you have the crooked cop giving them hell over this dope.
For me this book was really hard to get through. I love character driven stories, thought provoking prose, and great storytelling. Dog Soldiers is told in a completely detached method of writing, there are details for the settings and scenarios but none given to the characters. They don’t have personal thoughts, not really. None of them even seem to have any emotions, they’re all just there to be part of the story and move it along. This detached sort of writing works for this type of novel, but it’s not something I enjoy. I really had to sit down and force myself to get through this one, it was so boring at points.
It was also so weird!! Converse and Marge are married but they both sleep around so is it an open marriage? Is it a failed marriage? Wait they have a kid?! You’re so far out from these characters’ lives that information like this is just strange. And there are some scenes in this book where I literally put the book down and was like wait what? So is this happening or did I read this wrong?! After finishing this book to me it really felt like more of a historical account and analysis of this time in America. An account and statement of American lives during and after the Vietnam war.
I can’t say this novel is terrible because I CAN see why some people would like it. I wasn’t angry or felt like I wasted my time but I didn’t really enjoy it either which is why the two stars felt fitting to me. Will this novel stick with me as Buzzfeed promised? Who knows. The characters sure wont.
I’ll start by saying I did not hate this book. I can see why people love it, it’s just really not for me. The characters are all archetypes of the time, and none of them come off as real people. You have the journalist in Vietnam that decides to just run dope for some reason randomly. You have his hippie junkie wife, that enthusiastically goes along with it again for no real reason because they both say over and over again they don’t care about the money. You have the old friend who’s a war veteran and apparently either really good at dealing or completely insane, probably both. And then of course you have the crooked cop giving them hell over this dope.
For me this book was really hard to get through. I love character driven stories, thought provoking prose, and great storytelling. Dog Soldiers is told in a completely detached method of writing, there are details for the settings and scenarios but none given to the characters. They don’t have personal thoughts, not really. None of them even seem to have any emotions, they’re all just there to be part of the story and move it along. This detached sort of writing works for this type of novel, but it’s not something I enjoy. I really had to sit down and force myself to get through this one, it was so boring at points.
It was also so weird!! Converse and Marge are married but they both sleep around so is it an open marriage? Is it a failed marriage? Wait they have a kid?! You’re so far out from these characters’ lives that information like this is just strange. And there are some scenes in this book where I literally put the book down and was like wait what? So is this happening or did I read this wrong?! After finishing this book to me it really felt like more of a historical account and analysis of this time in America. An account and statement of American lives during and after the Vietnam war.
I can’t say this novel is terrible because I CAN see why some people would like it. I wasn’t angry or felt like I wasted my time but I didn’t really enjoy it either which is why the two stars felt fitting to me. Will this novel stick with me as Buzzfeed promised? Who knows. The characters sure wont.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racial slurs, Violence
Moderate: Animal death, Antisemitism
Weird and utterly captivating in stretches. Like most novels of its time it's built around one moment for each of the main characters, one image, one set-piece. Everything else is noise, sometimes beautiful, sometimes ugly. I contemplated giving up in places where the narrative was lost in drug or anxiety-haze. Glad I didn't. A true work of art.
I started reading this because I heard that this was a cross between Raymond Chandler and Hunter S Thompson. While I haven’t read anything of Thompson (I will soon) I am a huge fan of Chandler; this is more neo-noir than hard-boiled but that’s ok. Dog Soldiers follows the story of a war journalist, a marine and the journalist’s wife as the plan a smuggling deal. Converse (journalist) plans to ship heroin from Vietnam on a marine vessel with the help of Hicks (marine). When Hicks gets to America he meets up with Converse’s wife Marge but they are been followed. Hicks and Marge go on the run trying to save the heroin, unsure whether he has been double crossed by Converse or the Supplier.
While Marge is dealing with a growing painkiller addiction she is also coming to the realization that, her life wasn’t a life she thought it was but she was just a junkie. Hicks is still dealing with issues of Vietnam and becoming paranoid and a growing attraction to Nietzsche. As for the heroin, it is become more and more apparent that things have changed in America; no one cares about heroin anymore, it’s all about LCD in the 1960’s.
While this book deals with the many different aspects; from the war and its effect on America to drug and even the corruptibility and mistrust of authority. Dog Soldiers can be a little difficult to read but in the end it is well worth the effort.
While Marge is dealing with a growing painkiller addiction she is also coming to the realization that, her life wasn’t a life she thought it was but she was just a junkie. Hicks is still dealing with issues of Vietnam and becoming paranoid and a growing attraction to Nietzsche. As for the heroin, it is become more and more apparent that things have changed in America; no one cares about heroin anymore, it’s all about LCD in the 1960’s.
While this book deals with the many different aspects; from the war and its effect on America to drug and even the corruptibility and mistrust of authority. Dog Soldiers can be a little difficult to read but in the end it is well worth the effort.