Fragments (Phoenix Fiction) [Paperback]

Jack Fuller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0226268861 | ISBN-13: 978-0226268866

Fragments is a story about how war can make everything explosive—even love—and how two friends try to put the pieces of their lives together again.

"[Fragments] makes the usual semi-autobiographical account [of the Vietnam War] . . . seem flimsy and discursive in comparison. . . . The shapeliness and sense of larger design [is] so elegantly executed in Fragments."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"The plot is believable, the characters sharply drawn, the prose clean and distinctive. . . . Stand[s] with Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato, James Webb's Fields of Fire, Josiah Bunting's The Lionheads and John Del Vecchio's The 13th Valley. . . . A strong, compelling novel."—Marc Leepson, Washington Post

"There have been many books on Vietnam, and there will be many others. This is more a novel than the rest. . . . Fuller has reassembled the exploded grenade."—Bob MacDonald, Boston Sunday Globe

"Should our children ask about Vietnam, we would not go wrong to place this book in their hands. . . . [Fragments] purveys more than information—it gives the war a literary form."—David Myers, New York Times

"The best novel yet about the Vietnam War. . . . It ranks with Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead and James Jones's From Here to Eternity."—Daniel Kornstein, Wall Street Journal

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jack Fuller is the author of numerous books including Convergence, The Best of Jackson Payne, and News Values, all available from the University of Chicago Press. He is the president of the Tribune Publishing Company.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (December 22, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226268861
• ISBN-13: 978-0226268866
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,219,358 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Read This, May 28, 2011

By 

William S. Kerr - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fragments (Paperback)

Despite the other reviews, this is not a Vietnam novel. I don't think. It's hard to be too certain about a book of fragments that begins with, "In the end, the most constitutive characteristic of the fragment may lie somewhere between the intention of the author and the approach of the reader; the former always undiscoverable, the latter always in the act of discovering," and contains sentences like "Can there be a reading of the text which is not a form of co-authorship?" or "She has come to realize that interpretations are interpretations of interpretations."

The "fragments" that compose the book are literally that: snippets of varying length. Some are aphorisms, most aren't. The easiest way for a reader to connect them is to take the collection as a relationship story without a narrative. This would be interesting enough in itself but too limiting. It's also possible to read it as an exploration of the nature of language, but it seems too rich for that. It's not clear, in the end, that the book can be nailed down. It may be its own category.

I can only recommend that you read it for yourself. Regardless of what you make of the book as a whole, you'll be rewarded by individual fragments--by the language, if nothing else. I particularly liked "All of life is a lie in response to the truth that whatever beauty does not end was never there to begin with," though I have no idea what to do with this. Other personal favorites were:

"Shocked at the thought of barns."

"She drank to the immobility of stationary things."

"He wanted some confirmation of his worth from the outside world, but when the phone rang he was not prepared to answer it."

"Slowly he's learning to behave; he doesn't scream anymore when he sees a pretty girl--at least not out loud."

"'What if Kant had been at the Alamo?' she asks."

"He spent weeks in the waiting room at the wrong hospital."

"She has lostthatperfectcontrol of the spacebar that characterized her earlier writing."

"She told him he was losing his marbles, to which he replied, `at least marbles can be found.'"

Different fragments are very different in kind, however. Some are out-and-out philosophical epigrams. There is something here for all tastes. Intellectual stimulation aside, the book is highly worth reading for the sheer fun of it.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth reading, but just barely, April 16, 2001

By 

brazos49 "brazos49" (Sugar Land, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Fragments (Phoenix Fiction) (Paperback)

I rate this as a mediocre writing effort. To me, the characters were not really well developed and the story, while emotional, was not that interesting. It was worth reading, but I wasn't really sorry to finish it, so I can move on to something better.

If you want to read a better, even great, Vietnam novel, I'd recommend you try Fields of Fire by Webb, or Close Quarters by Heinemann, or Better Times than These by Groom. Fragments pales in comparison to those works.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent story during the Vietnam War, April 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fragments (Phoenix Fiction) (Paperback)

A breathtaking story bout a group of Soldiers in Vietnam. Fuller made me care about the soldiers and the villiagers that the soldiers wee trying to help.