Highways to a War [Hardcover]

Christopher J. Koch (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Minerva (1996)
• ASIN: B000M4V4C2
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Settle back for the ride, February 21, 2000

By 

hugh riminton - See all my reviews

This review is from: Highways to a War (Paperback)

This is a big book, lumbering in structure, almost Victorian in the way it mucks about before settling into the yarn - but it winds up rich and troubling and moving and difficult to forget. Rather too obviously based on the life of famed war cameraman Neil Davis, it follows its hero from sylvan days in the hopfields of Tasmania to the warzones of Vietnam and Cambodia. The evocations of scented Asia, the journo/GI milieu, the chaos of battle are extremely strong.

Over time the hero's naive idealism is forged into - um, experienced idealism, as he comes to identify with the Cambodian people in particular. His ultimate fate is almost operatic in its awfulness.

The French have a word - sillage - which means the ineffable scent left in the air by a woman's passing. This book leaves a sillage. It is the gentle wash of sadness of the old survivors of those horrible South-East Asian wars, as they calculate the prices paid, and wonder at their meaning.

I recommend this book. It is like an old-fashioned Sunday roast - not necessarily the meal you'd choose, but richly satisfying at the end.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Espionage, God and the Khmer Rouge, November 29, 2007

By 

A. Williams "Tokyo Reader" (Penang) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Highways to a War (Paperback)

Christopher Koch writes about recent history in a way no other writer has done. He frequently is compared to Graham Greene, because they both write about espionage and moral confusion in exotic locales and because they both create unforgettable characters, but Koch approaches novel-writing from a different point of view. Both write beautiful, poetic prose. Koch, who rejects many contemporary literary vogues, nevertheless shows more interest in the structure of the novel than Greene. Greene was a troubled Catholic; Koch is a former Catholic, and either in spite or because of this, has a more clearly developed moral perspective. He uses it to lead his readers into one of the most ghastly moral cul de sacs of the 20th century, the triumph of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. His hero, Mike Langford, his greatest character, even greater than Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously, is a Christlike figure -- literally, as is revealed in the tremendous conclusion to this wonderful book. More fashionable Australian writers, like the former advertising copywriter, Peter Carey, have been more adept at selling their work than Koch, but his books will be the ones that endure. Koch originally conceived Highways as a longer work, which would have included the story of Mike Langford's ancestor. The other half was later published as Out of Ireland. The first 40 or 50 pages of Highways provides a bridge between the two novels, which might be confusing to readers who don't read them as a pair.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful piece of literature, October 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Highways to a War (Paperback)

'Highways to a War' is a wonder and interesting novel to read. It explores many intersting issues and concepts, including love, human suffering and friendships. It initially seems long and it is difficult to get into, but in time the reader gets drawn into the story and you won't want to put it down.