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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exquisite and wrenching, June 1, 2002
This review is from: Sympathy for the Devil (Mass Market Paperback)
This is a truly remarkable book, one that could only have been written by someone who'd experienced the madness of the Vietnam conflict and lived to tell about it. It is the most powerfully authentic of all the books I've read on the subject and succeeds because it takes us along on the transformation process. We are witnesses to how a young man discovers the seeds of primal savagery within himself and, thanks to military training, is set "free" in a fashion, to go to war. Within the context of Hanson's mindset, through his eyes, we see all that is evil and ugly simultaneously externalized and internalized. In Hanson's war there is a scalding justice that is meted out on those who are arrogant, or stupid, or in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who are too young to comprehend the training they've received (or victims of its inadequacy.) Death is everywhere, pointless yet necessary to satisfy a general's need for another star for his epaulettes; to vanquish an enemy it's too often impossible to recognize. The sights, the smells, the reek and feel of torn earth, torn bodies, the melting death of an Agent Orange landscape, invade the reader's senses; with lyrical force we are taken with Hanson through the madness that is his soldier's life and, ultimately, becomes ours. A powerful tour-de-force, this book is peerless, an absolute must-read for anyone with the least curiosity of what too many young men faced eight thousand miles from everything familiar, and what those who survived brought home to relive in their day- and nightmares forever.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A definite buy., February 3, 2002
This review is from: Sympathy for the Devil (Mass Market Paperback)
Kent Anderson can really write. I mean, it's good that he's writing from experience, and it's good that he's chosen such important subject matter, but the main reason Sympathy for the Devil is such a good book is simply that Anderson knows what he's doing so completely. This book covers Anderson's Army Special Forces protagonist, Hanson, through boot camp and two tours in Vietnam. The sequel, Night Dogs, is about Hanson in his job as a police offier after the war. I highly recommend them both, but if you don't feel like buying the pair, Sympathy for the Devil stands alone just fine. The only caveat is that the book is pretty well hashed up into a series of anecdotes, incidents, and short-story-length pieces. It's a detailed account, but it's out of sequence and light on context. As far as I'm concerned, that makes it even stronger, but I've talked to people who disagreed, so I mention it here. If you're looking for a Vietnam book that's more orderly and educational, I suggest something by James Webb, who seems to have quite a bit of the journalist in him, or one of the oral-history books, like Nam. But Sympathy for the Devil is really a beauty. It doesn't so much try to be a book on The War, like those others, but it gets ahold of you, it easily keeps you reading, and it really does make you think-- and not about foreign policy or the military's conduct in Vietnam or anything like that. It's more about the things Hanson tries, the lengths he goes to, in dealing with the Army and the enemy. I don't say this often, but this is one of the very best books I've ever read.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
truth bleeds from the open wounds of this novel, May 27, 2000
Kent Anderson has given me what I've been looking for in a VietNam book. It's as good as James Crumley's One To Count Cadence, butwith more combat. Where Going After Cacciato wandered through a dreamlike, surrealistic landscape, Sympathy trudges through the brutal terrain of realism. Sure, the facts are a bit off...but this is presented as a work of fiction. It seems like that's the best approach if you want to tell the absolute truth about some of the brutalities of war. The only flaw I found here was the small segment dealing with the return to the States. The prose flowed much more naturally( as well as more believably) when Hanson(the lead character) is actually in Viet Nam. I already own Anderson's Liquor, Guns & Ammo...Sympathy has guaranteed that I will soon own Night Dogs. Anderson has an amzing eye for detail and handles dialogue rather smoothly. This one will knock the air right out of you, but when you get your breath back your first word will be MORE! Dennis McMillan has published some of Anderson's work, deservedly placing him in the company of masters like James Crumley, Charles Willeford, and other hard-boiled craftsman. Anderson writes about war without losing you in the terminology. There wasn't a single part of the book where I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. It's as easy to read as it is ugly. Crumley's introduction is as good as the actual book. He also lists several other excellent books of the genre for you to explore.
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