Reading Rainbow: In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien

I think I have officially come to the conclusion that Tim O'Brien is my favorite contemporary American author. There are others in the conversation--primarily Thomas Pynchon--but none seem to possess the ability to write in extremely readable prose while having his stories carry a significant weight with them. His books evoke intense emotional reactions yet never fall into the realm of a laborious read. In the Lake of the Woods definitely meets that description.

As is often the case in O'Brien's novels, there is a fuzzy relationship with truth and reality. This leaves the reader constantly searching for stability where it likely will not be found. In the Lake of the Woods follows a disgraced Minnesota politician who takes a break from the harsh light of the real world in the isolation of the far-removed Lake of the Woods on the Minnesota/Canada border. While on this getaway, John Wade's wife, Kathy, disappears. Given the very public discovery of John's dark past, all signs inevitably point toward the husband.

If that was all that was going on here, the novel would be pretty run-of-the-mill, but O'Brien uses the locked room mystery to great effect. As he delves into John and Kathy's past, it only muddles the circumstances surrounding the disappearance. With each detail of his service in Vietnam coming into light, the perception of who John Wade is--and for that matter, who Kathy is by her relation to him--becomes more and more tenuous. As more information comes to light, it seems that the facts of what happened on that fateful 1986 night only become more obscured.

It is the deftness with which O'Brien handles the investigation into the disappearance that vaults this book into the pantheon of transcendent mystery novels. He lays out evidence, presents hypotheses, and details the past. Through all this, he pieces together a puzzle that simply leaves you asking more questions and doesn't leave the reader worse for wear.

Man on Film: Affleck News

My apologies for not quite getting around to the Shutter Island film review as I had intended. I was initially planning on seeing it Thursday night at an advance screening, but life got in the way. I didn't end up seeing it until Sunday, and I've been working on another gargantuan column for Sports Grumblings about the teams that ESPN forgot exists. I fully anticipate getting to that write-up as soon as Thursday night, after which I have a queue of things I need to cover ranging from another Tim O'Brien-related Reading Rainbow entry, the newest season of "Friday Night Lights," and my first foray into the works of Jonathan Lethem.

Since I've not got the time at present to complete those tasks and more (namely, more Munch My Benson content), I did feel I should stop in and drop some ka-nowledge on y'all. To longtime readers this will come as no surprise, but your faithful Inconsiderate Prick is what could mildly be called a "big fan" of Ben Affleck. In recent years, he has made good on my consistent defense of him through trying times by being fantastic in such films as Hollywoodland, State of Play, and Extract, while also stepping behind the lens (figuratively) to give us the superb Dennis Lehane adaptation, Gone Baby Gone.

Coming out later this year (tentative release date of September 10th), we will get to see Affleck's directorial follow-up to Gone Baby Gone: The Town, another crime drama which will feature Blake Lively, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Chris Cooper, and the inimitable Ben Affleck.

Now while nothing about the above (and it's adapted from a Chuck Hogan novel, 2004 Hammett Prize Winner Prince of Thieves) doesn't get my hopes up insanely, what is perhaps even better news is that the infamous wife-trading* story of former Yankees' teammates Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich, The Trade. More details on the film can be found here and here, but the script was written by former "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" scribe Dave Mandel.

*I hesitate to use the term wife-swap as theirs was a full-on trading of each others wives, on a permanent basis.

The first time I heard this story, which I think I first read about here, I thought, "Holy shit is that weird." When you think that about a true story, you can't help but think it would make a sweet-ass movie. Seriously, read that last link, and tell me you don't want a Red Sox fan making (and allegedly co-starring in it with friend, Matt Damon) that film?

Thank you, Benjamin Geza Affleck, for rewarding my loyalty with your greatness.

Reading Rainbow: "If I Die in a Combat Zone" by Tim O'Brien

If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home marks my third foray into Tim O'Brien's Vietnam War experience. Going After Cacciato was a compelling trip into the haze of 'Nam. The Things They Carried was one of the most deeply affective books I've ever read. This third trip into Vietnam from perhaps the most accomplished author on the subject (at least in the realm of fiction) is a much more personal book.

Unlike his books to follow, If I Die in a Combat Zone is memoir. It is his account of his reluctant tour-of-duty as a Combat Infantry soldier in My Lai a mere year after the massacre. Much as we've come to expect from most Vietnam literature and film, this is not a nostalgic look at a noble war, but rather an often scathing journal calling into question the rationale for even being at war.

As a man who seriously considered fleeing the country from boot camp, obviously he was not in favor of the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam and did not want to risk his neck for a cause he viewed as questionable at best. When he did get there, his experience was not one entirely without valor in battle, however. There was awe at the honor and bravery with which some men carried themselves in battle, and an appreciation for the being able to conduct oneself by a fundamental code of man's ideals. But these brief explorations into the admiration of masculinity in war are outshone by the haphazard execution of a war fought on unfamiliar foreign land. In O'Brien's experience, the men in charge were largely ineffectual, boorish, and ill-suited for command, yet they were able to continue to order young men to their death for missions with little to no meaning.

If I Die in a Combat Zone is nothing if not compelling. O'Brien surely grew as a writer between this, his first book, and Going After Cacciato, his National Book Award-winning third book, but he doesn't seem to have been lacking much of the skill on display a mere five years later, and the first person account of real events add a verity that his works of fiction lack by nature.

But don't take my word for it...