Of the novels that were nominated for the National Book Award, Phil Klay’s Redeployment was the only one I was aware of. My recognition of the book came from two sources: a February 2014 review from Michiko Kakutani who called the collection “gritty, unsparing and fiercely observed,” and an interview in March with Pamela Paul from Inside the New York Times Book Review podcast where Klay spoke intelligently about writing the book and his experiences as a Marine during the Iraq War. Since then, Klay’s collection of war stories has been on my virtual bookshelf though I’ve never had the itch to read it. In-spite of the hype, Kakutani’s review is one of many that has praised the collection, I couldn’t see how Redeployment was going to be anything more than a book that kept repeating the same two messages: War is Bad. Killing people Fucks You Up.
Which just goes to show how narrow-minded and prejudiced I can be.
In actual fact, Klay achieves the remarkable feat of writing a collection of war stories that are not only not repetitive but somehow straddle the line between pro and anti-war sentiment. The Killing people Fucks You Up message is evident throughout the collection, such as in stories like ‘After Action Report’ and ‘Prayer In The Furnace’ but it never feels gratuitous or manipulative. There’s a distinct lack of sensationalism present.
Klay keeps the collection fresh by varying both the subjects and point of view characters. We have stories told through the eyes of Marine who’ve just started their deployment (After Action Report) and those who are heading off home (Redeployment). Marines whose jobs are to retrieve the dead from the battlefield (Bodies) and Marines who spend the war shouting insults to the insurgents aimed at pissing them off (Psychological Operations). Then there’s the story told by a Chaplain who ministers to the men and their guilt (Prayer In The Furnace) and the bureaucrat who comes to Iraq thinking he’s going to make things better (Money As a Weapons System). We even have a prose poem told mostly in military acronyms (OIF).
In a collection that features a number of magnificent stories, the two strongest pieces are ‘Prayer In The Furnace’ and ‘Money As a Weapons System’.
‘Prayer In The Furnace’ is narrated by a military chaplain stationed in Ramadi. He becomes aware that one of the units he ministers too is falling apart due to recent losses. The chaplain is disturbed that the Marines in this Unit have started to view everyone in Ramadi as an insurgent.
“What do we do?” Haupert was saying to the loose assembly of 2nd Platoon members. “We come here, we say, We’ll give you electricity. If you work with us. We’ll fix your sewage system. If you work with us. We’ll provide you security. If you work with us. But no better friend, no worse enemy. If you fuck with us, you will live in shit. And they’re like, Okay, we’ll live in shit.” He pointed off to the direction of the city, then swatted with his hand, as if at an insect. “Fuck them,” he said.
Unsurprisingly, the chaplain abhors the idea that each Iraqi is the enemy, and he suggests to the men that maybe they should start seeing the humanity in the people they are here to protect. This doesn’t go done well with his congregants, not because each Marine is an evil killing machine, but because fighting in an enclosed environment like the streets of Ramadi means that bad shit will happen. You can follow standard operating procedure and civilians will still die. It’s confronting stuff, both for the chaplain and the reader. And while it does beg the question that not sending men to war means they don’t need to deal with impossible moral situations, the power of the story comes from the self-awareness that these Marines exhibit, this understanding that war might make you insane, that you might hate every Iraqi, but that doesn’t mean you become a monster.
‘Money As A Weapons System’ not only provides the collection with a story from a perspective other than a marine or army personnel, it’s also laugh out loud funny. The narrator is a US State Official sent to Iraq with the mission statement of making lives better for the people. His plan is to get a water treatment plant, that’s been lying fallow for some time, up and running. But he’s immediately faced with the reality of internal politics (the water treatment plan will help a Sunni community which angers the Shi’ite residents) and external politics (pleasing an influential congressman who’d rather see photos of the kids playing baseball in the equipment he donated). It’s mind-boggling stuff, incompetent and hilarious and most disturbing of all very likely reflective of what actually happened on the ground.
The story also has some corker lines:
Nobody wants to do a year in Iraq and come back with nothing but stories about the soft-serve ice-cream machine at the embassy cafeteria.
some well observed and funny dialogue
“Why do they call you the Professor?” I asked him.“Because I was a professor,” he said, taking off his glasses and rubbing them as if to emphasize the point, “before you came and destroyed this country.”We were getting off to an awkward start. “You know,” I said, “when this all started I opposed the war. . . .”“You have baked Iraq like a cake,” he said, “and given it to Iran to eat.”
and the sort of cynical perspective that’s funny because it’s true.
Bob folded his arms and looked me over. He pointed to the opposite wall, where we had a poster outlining the LOEs. “Give someone a job. That’s economic improvement. Give women a job. That’s women’s empowerment. Give a widow a job. That’s aiding disenfranchised populations. Three LOEs in one project. Widow projects are gold. With the council supporting it, we can say it’s an Iraqi-led project. And it’ll cost under twenty-five thousand dollars, so the funding will sail through.”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks