This is one of the more interesting novels I've read. There is a linear plot, but the plot is fragmented by constant flashbacks to the childhood of John Wade and to his Viet Nam experiences. Plus O'Brien intersperses nonfiction quotations. This novel is truly different.
John Wade has just suffered a crushing defeat in a U.S. Senate race in Minnesota. He is doomed by late revelations of atrocitities in Viet Nam in which he played a part. Wade and his wife Kathy retreat to a cottage in Northern Minnesota. There we relive his childhood with an alcoholic and distant father, his childhood hobby of magic behind which he could hide himself, and, of course, the atrocitities of war in which he was involved.
Then Kathy disappears one morning into the lake and woods around the cottage. What happened to her? Did she run away by herself? Did she run away with someone? Did John Wade kill her?
The plot leads to ambiguity, which normally irritates me in a work of fiction, but in this instance it works. You read this book and you think and wonder. It's all very satisfying.
3 comments:
What is the point of this book then? I am confused.
Good question. I think, I suppose, what the author is saying is that life is ambiguous, there are often no clear-cut answers, and as a result and probably also for dramatic effect, he leaves the reader hanging at the end---the wife disappears and John Wade also disappears and we don't know what happend for sure.
That is reassuring.
Post a Comment