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A review by toddlleopold
Redeployment by Phil Klay
4.0
There are stories in "Redeployment" that reminded me of Tim O'Brien's work -- high praise from me, given that I consider "The Things They Carried" one of the great short stories, period.
Klay's protagonists are soldiers or Marines in Iraq -- some of them are veterans back in the U.S. -- and they're trying to make sense of the senseless: IEDs, military bureaucracy, the reasons for the war (in one story, Klay notes, the reasons don't really matter; Marines are trained to kill and the overarching purpose is something for others to figure out), the meaning of death.
There are times Klay overreaches. Some stories, though powerfully told, tend to meander, making their points inscrutable.
But when he's on -- as in the title story, "After Action Report," the "Catch-22" humorous "Money as a Weapons System" and "Prayer in the Furnace," the latter a tale told by a chaplain -- you can see why this book won the National Book Award and Klay has been singled out as a writer to watch.
I do wonder if Klay, a Marine veteran of the Iraq War, is presenting a vision of the war, and of warriors, that's almost too ... literary, somehow. I'm curious to find out what other Iraq veterans think of his work.
At the same time, the guy is one hell of a writer. I can't wait to see what he does next.
Klay's protagonists are soldiers or Marines in Iraq -- some of them are veterans back in the U.S. -- and they're trying to make sense of the senseless: IEDs, military bureaucracy, the reasons for the war (in one story, Klay notes, the reasons don't really matter; Marines are trained to kill and the overarching purpose is something for others to figure out), the meaning of death.
There are times Klay overreaches. Some stories, though powerfully told, tend to meander, making their points inscrutable.
But when he's on -- as in the title story, "After Action Report," the "Catch-22" humorous "Money as a Weapons System" and "Prayer in the Furnace," the latter a tale told by a chaplain -- you can see why this book won the National Book Award and Klay has been singled out as a writer to watch.
I do wonder if Klay, a Marine veteran of the Iraq War, is presenting a vision of the war, and of warriors, that's almost too ... literary, somehow. I'm curious to find out what other Iraq veterans think of his work.
At the same time, the guy is one hell of a writer. I can't wait to see what he does next.