Customer Reviews

The Nuclear Age

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

_The Nuclear Age_ recounts one person's search for safety and sanity in a world that is anything but safe and sane. To develop this theme, Tim O'Brien uses William Cowling, the narrator of this book , as his instrument. The novel opens in 1995 with William, debatably insane, digging a huge hole in his backyard for use as a shelter (or is it meant to be a grave?) for his wife, daughter, and himself against an impending nuclear war.

Growing up in the 1950's I recall being extremely fearful of a nuclear war with the then-Soviet Union. I remember gazing in terror at a photograph on the cover of the New York Daily News of a huge mushroom cloud, with the newpaper reporting the Soviet Union testing a 100 megaton hydrogen bomb that was capable of destroying civilization 1000 times over. Like William, I would occasionally lay awake in bed wondering if the next day would be my last and also, like William, being afraid to share my fears of doomsday with my parents.

A child, naturally vulnerable and unfamiliar with the world around him needs to know that he is loved and protected from danger by his parents. When he is constantly bombarded by the media with the imminence of death from nuclear annihilation, even his parents are rendered totally impotent by that possibility. Building a shelter from a ping pong table with a roof lined with "lead pencils" may seem like the only answer to this child.

Years later William, who is a pacifist by nature, chooses to dodge the draft during the madness and carnage that was the Vietnam War. Even then he cannot escape death: all those who are closest to him, including his parents, all die. Even Sarah, his college cheerleader queen, turned anti-war revolutionary, is completely baffled by her imminent demise. Maybe if William had really chose to love her she could could have been protected. In the present, William's shadowy, former flight attendant wife, can only make fun of his fears by pinning puzzling, inscrutable poems that she composed to his clothing.

I agree with those who say that the best parts of this book are those dealing with William's childhood experiences, which includes his relationship with his parents. The sessions with his equally troubled therapist, Charles Adamson, who identifies and verbally empathizes with William's problems, are just priceless. I also liked the variation in the author's writing style, from a standard narrative during William's childhood to the near post-modern, sometimes stream of consciousness style of 1995. I did feel, however, that the 1995 parts concerning William's digging of the nuclear shelter a bit over the top. Also, I do not think that even someone like William, who grew up with the fear of nuclear war and who, though suffering great loss all around him would carry his fears of nuclear war with him into the present day. Nuclear terrorism and massive contamination from nuclear power plant material meltdowns seem more believable fears.

I was intrigued in reading the plot of this book as it is posted on the back cover. I have read some of O'Brien's other work and was very impressed. This book is among his best work. The best comparison I could give is that it is a combination of Dr. Strangelove and Catch-22. It is both witty and intelligent commentary on the culture of war.

William's Cowling's greatest fear is nuclear war. Since childhood, he has attempted to allude death in a nuclear fallout. It was during childhood that he built a shelter under the ping-pong table in his parents' basement. The consequences of his childhood behavior are among the more amusing scenes in the book. His fear subsides until the Vietnam protests of the 60's reawaken his phobia. He creates a gang of protestors, who eventually go into hiding to avoid the draft with him. Among these characters is Sarah, who is the most vivid character in the book. She is the woman who thinks she knows what she wants, but really has no clue.

After the series of flashbacks, we return to the present in which William is again struck with fear. The fear causes him dig a massive hole for a fallout shelter. His family thinks he has gone insane. His wife, a somewhat distant amateur poet, never speaks to him. The main dialogue in the present is between William and his daughter. His daughter swears like a sailor, but serves as her father's voice of rationality.

William's further breakdown and eventual recovery pose a number of interesting scenarios. "The Nuclear Age" is wildly entertaining and certainly a book I will recommend to many.

With every novel, whether it is his best writing or just under par, Tim O'Brien proves himself to be a master storyteller. His words spring to vivid life in the reader's mind; his characters as enthralling as they are flawed; his stories slightly absurd and complex, but always rewarding, no matter how strange the journey.

"The Nuclear Age" begins with the main character, William Cowling, waking at midnight to dig a bomb shelter in his backyard. In the morning, his wife and daughter are far from pleased, certain that he has gone insane when he can't explain his actions. The story then shifts back in time to recount William's childhood, the nightly terrors of nuclear war that had him building a bomb shelter under the ping pong table in the basement and caused his parents to worry about him. The reader follows William as he ages, ever the outcast on the fringes. With the onset of the war in Vietnam, William finds new purpose, and perhaps a dangerous alliance.

The bulk of the narrative takes place in William's past, with the coalition of renegade friends who plan sabotage as a means of war protest, while William is hiding out, having dodged the draft. The war in Vietnam is never far from O'Brien's writing, so it is interesting to have a story that takes place on the homefront, although the war is ever present. The story takes a turn for the absurd when William fears his bomb shelter will cause him to lose his family, but O'Brien crafts such a cunning story that the loose ends are tied up. "The Nuclear Age" is a demonstration of O'Brien's wit, with laugh-out-loud moments, and the subtle way he can strike a message home is a testament to his intelligence.

I was introduced to this book by my girlfriend, who picked it up randomly because she liked the cover. Turns out she loved the book, which inspired me to read it as well. This book ended up being a great introduction to O'Brien, in some ways lighter than many of his other works, but it still has of the undertones common to many of his books. Because Vietnam is not as key to this book as many of the other ones, I think it's more accessible to the general populace. So if you are weary about reading war books, you could pick this one up first, and if you like it, maybe move on to some of his other novels.

The Nuclear Age is a compelling story about an overly paranoid man trying to find his way in a hostile world that he has trouble coping with. O'Brien, as usually, supports the text with great prose and interesting timelines. However, I recommend putting the book down twenty pages before it ends because it's not only anticlimatic but also lacks any hint of resolution.

In many ways, The Nuclear Age is a perfect counterpart to O'Brien's incredible Vietnam works like The Things They Carried and Going After Cacciato, this time focusing on life in the anti-war movement in the 60s and the terror that came along with the Cold War and the constant threat of nuclear war. The Nuclear Age is the story of William Cowling, who is digging a hole in his backyard as the book opens. As he digs, William flashes back through his life - his troubled childhood, his time as an anti-war radical, his relationship with the outspoken revolutionary Sarah - and we begin to realize that our narrator is a deeply, deeply broken individual whose terror of The Bomb goes so deep that it affects the very way he perceives reality. O'Brien's writing is markedly different here; immersed in the fractured psyche of Cowling, the narration jumps through time, wanders into stream of consciousness, and frequently even erupts in unannounced hallucinations, all while explaining how, exactly, we ended up digging a hole in the backyard. The Nuclear Age isn't entirely successful as a book. The story of William's life is fascinating and involving, as is the tale of his backyard, but the two halves don't join together as well as I'd like, ultimately feeling like two different stories roughly joined together. What's more, while the writing is beautiful and strong, it also is meandering, and at times the book seems to lose focus on what it wants to be - a character drama? a paranoia tale? a black comedy? Nonetheless, it's still an involving read, and if it doesn't hold up against O'Brien's best, that's pretty okay, given how incredible those books really are.

A rare book where the protagonist is not made so much to be a hero. The books illustrates just how easy it is to end up on the other side of sanity in a world full of reasons to be crazy.

The book starts strong with seeds planted in childhood that sometimes cannot be outgrown and the course one weaves down a troubled path, but the story lost me in its destination. Straddling the line of fear and aggression the main character never seems to find the line between insanity and brilliance, falling always firmly on the lesser side of the two.

Worth reading for the skill and intelligence always evident in O'Brien's work, but this is far from his best.

The Nuclear Age is a compelling story about an overly paranoid man trying to find his way in a hostile world that he has trouble coping with. O'Brien, as usually, supports the text with great prose and interesting timelines. However, I recommend putting the book down twenty pages before it ends because it's not only anticlimatic but also lacks any hint of resolution.

The Nuclear age was a wonderful book. I found it interesting, inveloping, inchanting, and not to mention scary. I have always found Tim's books to be like that, but I'll tell you one thing, I wouldn't have it any other way.

A man spends a lifetime worried about the bomb. Some parts were interesting - I liked the therapist that needed therapy the best, but mostly I felt the overall effect wasn't that interesting or funny. I suppose I was hoping for more true humor but found most of it just to be surrealistic in form and content.