Customer Reviews

The Junior Officers' Reading Club - Killing Time and Fighting Wars

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In the past several years I have read dozens of military memoirs from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but all have been from an American standpoint. Hennessey's is the first I've read by a British army officer. The writing, not surprisingly, is excellent. Hennessey's reasons for entering the army after what appears to have been a very privilged life and university are somewhat vague, although it seems fairly certain that he mostly wanted to test himself in ways that only the military life and the crucible of combat could provide. He got what he bargained for and perhaps even more. His attitude throughout the book remains a kind of brash, cocksure arrogance that reflects a determination not to break down under the multiple stresses of war and command. He sees fellow officers, friends and men under his command crippled, mutilated and killed, and he also is very much aware of the insulated indifference of the civilian populace that makes no sacrifices on "the home front." At these times his attitude widens to include anger and a certain amount of confusion and wondering how he will ever be able to readjust to a civilian role. There is a kind of hard-earned youthful wisdom expressed in his attempts to articulate the idea that what is happening to him on these foreign battlefields will probably be the defining experience of his life -

"I suddenly know that I hate this and love it at the same time because I can already feel both how glad I will be when it is over and how much I will miss it. How difficult to convey to anyone that matters something which they will never understand, and how little anything else will ever matter."

Hennessey's narrative is also filled with cultural references of his time - films, music, television. And most of it was familiar even to me, despite an ocean and forty years of living that separates us. The foul language that permeates military life and which filled the book was not a bit off-putting to me. I've been there and have lived that high-spirited boundary-testing time that almost all soldiers go through when they are finally on their own and far from home for the first time. The obscenity and the often shocking dark humor expressed here are normal; they are checkpoints of the genuineness of the experience. The juxtaposition of being shelled by enemy fire daily and an addiction to a DVD set of the American hospital soap, "Grey's Anatomy," during the lulls in battle are handled well. Readers will quickly become accustomed to such things, which represent, in many ways, the madness of war.

If there was anything at all which disappointed me in THE JUNIOR OFFICERS' READING CLUB it was that very few books were actually given. I came to the book with pen and paper at hand, hoping to harvest a list of actual books these men were reading. I came away with nothing I wished to read. But perhaps that was a cultural or age-related disconnect on my part; I don't know. Another minor shortcoming, one mentioned by other reviewers, is that the book goes on perhaps a bit too long. The Afghanistan section of the book, the part which describes the fiercest combat - the patrols, the ambushes, the shelling - almost seems to drag on, as Hennessey continues to try to "tell it all." I have read that he is now studying for the legal profession. Perhaps he figures this will be his one and only book and he just wanted to "get it all in" before hanging up his writer's hat for good. Again, I don't know.

It might be intersting now to read some memoirs from other nationalities who have been there - other members of that much-mentioned "coalition of forces." In the meantime I will recommend this one - a very good book. - Tim Bazzett, author of the American Cold War memoir, SOLDIER BOY: AT PLAY IN THE ASA

Despite the rather off title, this is a first hand account of a young officer going through Sandhurst and onto the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is told in an almost breathless style with the occasional insert from an e-mail home and it does take a little getting used to. This is a generation that are trained to fight and it is not surprising that they are keen to get in and do the business. Some have complained that this is shallow or unprofessional, but the reality is that these guys are trained to do something and of course they will want to test their skills against a real enemy.

Patrick Hennessey manages to convey a number of things, the boredom, the intensity of action, the pain of loss, the comradeship and the professionalism of the fighting end of the British Army. It is a very honest work and quite hard to put down. It certainly gets over how relentless the fighting is in Afghanistan and how flawed some of the tactics and military assumptions are.

A very important picture of a young officer's lot, and a war that is going on right now.

A very bright young university graduate, Patrick Hennessey, has given us a very readable, entertaining and insightful account of his decision to opt for Sandhurst after graduation from university, followed by tours of duty which eventually bring him to Iraq and then Afghanistan. He writes extremelly well, often with humor. In Afghanistan his unit was paired with an
Afghan battalion whose commander's high motivation Hennessey clearly understood and respected, and Hennessey's accounts of strategies, tactics and combat are thought provoking.

After listening to an interview of the author on public radio I was excited to read this book and fully prepared to like it.

But sadly, I did not. It was even a bit of slog to finish the last few chapters. This morning I finally put my finger on why. A lot of the book comes across as the author ringing the same bell repeatedly - only those who served can understand what we went through, and how it affects us, and how I suffer, etc. If that is in fact true, there is really no need for this book, since the people who were there saw it firsthand, and the rest of us will never understand.

This is where the problem is. Rather than writing about the experiences in a detailed and artful way that captures the imagine and allows us to draw our conclusions, he more often tells us he wants us to glean in summary style, and it is not engaging or even very interesting. My understanding is the book was put together from e-mails he sent while serving, and the book suffers for it.

I respect the author and his experiences but there is better writing out there, I recommend taking a pass on this one. By way of contrast I'm reading The 188th Crybaby Brigade: A Skinny Jewish Kid from Chicago Fights Hezbollah--A Memoir, and the first two chapters have been far better than this book in its entirety.

I wish I had read these reviews before I picked up the book. Like a previous reviewer, I had heard (part of) an interview with the author on public radio, in which he described an actual "reading club". So I was really surprised to discover that there was barely any mention of this club in the book itself. A few references were made to books, and a few quotations were provided, but there was no description of officers actually getting together to discuss books. Perhaps I shouldn't have taken the title so literally, but I was intrigued to find out what they chose to read and how the terrifying events around them affected their views and discussions about these books. In fact, one of the things that kept me reading to the bitter end - and there were many times when I wanted to cut my losses on this book - was a disbelief that it could have the title it did without containing some kind of meaningful reference to a reading club. Even with 20 pages to go, I thought, surely...

Another reason I kept reading, as crazy as it sounds, is that I wanted to honor the service and sacrifice of the author and his fellow soldiers. After seeing how bravely they struggled through their mission in Afghanistan, the least I could do was to struggle through to the end of the book! And, actually, the last few pages were probably the most rewarding (interesting post-return perspective on the war, military honors, the difficulty of discussing the experience with others, etc.). But, for the most part, this was a very difficult book to read. Very brash, long run-on sentences, full of jargon and obscure pop-cultural references (at least to this 40-something reader), and ultimately not imparting anything particularly new or compelling. To me, it seemed like it was written almost exclusively for the author and his friends (i.e. British, university educated 20-somethings). Actually, I'm not sure if this material really constitutes a book. It's more of a mish-mash of emails, reminiscences, and extracts from his journals.

And I agree with another reviewer who questioned the editing job...it seems like there was no editing! For instance, one section entitled "Back In" starts with the following sentence: "Disaster struck as I was looking for the pay bloke in one of the huge huts at the back of the camp...". The story continues to meander in its typical, timeless, semi stream-of-consciousness way, but it never comes back to the "disaster". So the reader is left hanging and confused. A minor error in and of itself, but typical of the overall confusion of this book.

I salute Mr. Hennessey - he's a courageous, bright, and gifted guy - but I would caution prospective readers: you're not going to find any interesting material about books, literature, or soldier reading clubs in this book, and it's written in a style that makes it very hard to follow.

Excellent portrayal of military (officer) life that few these days experience. The book is broken into three main sections:

1) Sandhurst (seemingly inane training program)
2) Iraq (the boredom of 90% of military life)
3) Afghanistan (intense combat in which much of the training the author thought out of date at Sandhurst is employed every day).

Droll Oxford writing style in a "public school" voice.

I wouldn't be surprised if many critics dislike the gung-ho attitude he and his troops seem to maintain throughout (aren't all warriors these days supposed to be conflicted and full of guilt?) but I don't doubt for a moment that this what the tone in a British Army unit (especially a guards unit). There is a reason the Brits punch way above their weight - the culture of their excellent military.

I had a similar, albeit not nearly as dramatic, career as a junior officer culminating in the first Gulf War. This is the first book I have read to capture what that felt like, in all three of the above stages (training, garrison, combat war). Like I said, my experience was much less dangerous, in the event, than the author's.

I read this book with the expectation that it would be a valuable addition to the list of first hand accounts of modern combat. Although the section dealing with the author's training at Sandhurst was interesting, it, like most of the book, was not compelling reading. I often felt that the book needed an editor's touch. Much of the writing was clumsy, pedestrian at best. And, I was mislead by reviews that had led me to expect the author to discuss lessons he had gleaned from books read while in training and while posted in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, books are barely mentioned, and scantily, if at all, discussed. The back cover blurb referring to the soldiers "losing themselves in the dusty paperbacks on the transit-camp bookshelves," is inaccurate. The book, at best, is a poorly thought out expansion of a series of emails Hennessey sent out to friends and family. I suspect that had he not been an Oxford graduate, his book wouldn't have attracted the attention it has.

I suppose there is a story here, struggling to be heard. I'm half-way through the book, and so far on almost every page I find myself saying 'Did an editor every read this book?'. Unexplained and undefined acronyms and slang - not one or two, but scores of them of them - (and I am British and ex-military, and they are inexplicable and unknown to me, too) Time shifts in the story are totally confusing --- is this before, during, or after, he got to (pick one) Iraq, Sandhurst, Absurdistan? The time-line of his Sandhurst days is one big puzzle - only a Sandhurst graduate would understand half of what he writes about. There are references to the Reading Club before he even gets to tell us what it is --- only reason I knew what he was talking about is because Reading Club is described on the cover. Is this the trend in publishing these days? Stick a catchy title on the cover of a mss, send it the printer, and bingo. Or god forbid, was this book in fact read by someone known as an 'editor'? If so, was this a person actually educated beyond high school? Shame, shame, - an insult to the author who deserves better.

What I really enjoy is getting a tip from a friend or review as to a great book to read! When I go to Amazon I can get the book (even those odd ones that are self published by small counties) within a week of ordering AND always for a reasonable price when compared to the big bookstores!
Thank you!