Tree of Smoke / Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke has been my audiobook for around 6 weeks. It’s 23 hours in length, so it takes a while to listen to.

Tree of Smoke is Johnson’s Vietnam novel. Unlike a lot of other war novels, it doesn’t really follow soldier’s in the thick of fighting. William Skip Sands idolizes his uncle, Colonel Francis Sands, who works for the C.I.A. The younger Sands goes to work for the Colonel, but finds himself mostly just waiting for the Colonel’s schemes to come to fruition where he’ll be needed. A second, mostly unrelated story, follows James and Bill Houston’s military experiences. Bill washes out of the Navy before he serves in Vietnam. James lies his way into the military to serve before he turns 18, and then re-ups for 3 more tours. The two stories briefly connect at a battle for a landing zone, but otherwise remain separate.

I really enjoyed the book for the story and the characters. I’m not literary enough to get all the symbolism, nor erudite enough to understand most of the historical context. Are Skip and the Colonel stand-ins for something else? No idea. But they are interesting even without understanding anything deeply.

Maybe I’ve just never met one of them, but larger than life people don’t intrigue me the way they do other people. The Colonel is one of those characters. He didn’t interest me much, but two other characters fall under his sway and they did interest me. Skip has such loyalty to the Colonel that he forsakes being an American. After the Colonel’s demise, the other, Jimmy Storm, refuses to believe it’s happened. The Colonel must have had a secret plan B and never told Jimmy about it. A couple of decades later he still continues to search for the Colonel. Logically, were he still alive, the Colonel would have stopped hiding from Jimmy at some point, but logic doesn’t enter Jimmy Storm’s head much. He feels things.

James and Bill Houston are good character studies as well. James’ story gets a little closer to a typical war is hell kind of storytelling, but only briefly during a firefight. Even then he never really sees the enemy. He shoots at jungle. The jungle doesn’t shoot back. That’s not really the important part. The important part is watching how James relationships change as his presence in Vietnam deadens him. By the end, he has loyalty to the men in his squad and little else. He’s openly insubordinate to his commanders by that point. Once home he follows Bill into shiftlessness, bar fights, drinking, and weddings without any connection.

Despite a decent number of characters, all of whom spend a lot of time interacting with each other, one big result is that every single one is alone. None of them can maintain connections to other people after their Vietnam experience. They live in the same cities as their families, yet cannot call or meet them. All are disconnected from society. This is one depressing novel.

One thing that some authors get criticized for is too much description. Johnson describes a lot of places and things in Tree of Smoke but he doesn’t overdo it. It’s interspersed seamlessly with dialogue and thoughts and action. As a result I could visualize where everything took place yet never got bored with ornate descriptive prose.

Tree of Smoke won the National Book Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer, losing out to Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I think Denis Johnson’s work will have a more lasting impact.

Title: Tree of Smoke
Author: Denis Johnson
Narrator: Will Patton
Imprint / publisher: Audio Renaissance / Macmillan
Format: Overdrive WMA
Length: 23 hours, 4 minutes
Publication date: 2007-09
ISBN-13: 978-079275115-1
Subject: Vietnam War, 1961-1975 — Fiction
LC classification: PS3560.O3745 T74 2007