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pr727's review against another edition
4.0
I listened to the audiobook which was read by the author; easy to understand. An interesting account of his service in Vietnam.
malaptica's review against another edition
2.0
I met Tracy Kidder once at a signing; he was a charming man, and he was pleased I was picking up this book. It isn't a bad book necessarily, and I appreciated the candor, but I didn't love it.
mburnamfink's review against another edition
3.0
The Soul of a New Machine is one of my favorite books, an all time classic that transcends the bits and bolts of late 1970s computing to capture the ineffable process of invention. So when I saw Kidder had a memoir about his time in Vietnam, I picked this up.
Kidder goes back in memory to find his war and his past self. The problem is that his war is, frankly, boring, and his past self a callow youth. While a student at Harvard, Kidder signed up for ROTC for ill-defined reasons, before the war became a dividing line in a generation. He specialized in military intelligence, and wound up responsible for (I decline to use the phrase 'in command of') a eight man radio finding detachment. Kidder and his men were the REMFiest REMFs who never left the wire. His sergeant had a pair of boots he deliberately abused to feel like he was in the shit, and the entire unit would gather every night to watch Combat! on ABC. Kidder tries his best to befriend his men, to protect everyone from the bullshit of military authority, to fix the elusive NVA regiments on his division's maps. The plot, such as it is, is a series of pranks orchestrated by rebellious soldier Pancho, and a cycle of new commanders distinguished mostly by the unwanted attention that they bring to the unit.
A parallel arc is Kidder's strange, on-off, and frankly abusive relationship with a kind of cometary girlfriend, Mary Ann. An object of lust since childhood, Kidder guilts Mary Ann into accepting a ring before going to Vietnam, torments her with invented war stories of atrocities, and finally accepts the death of the relationship, a friendship destroyed by his inability to let it grow. Boys can be terrible, and for his degree and his bars, the Kidder of this story is very much not a man. The best parts of the book are the humor provided by the story within the story. In 1970, Kidder wrote a melodrama set in Vietnam called Ivory Fields, about an idealistic Lieutenant killed by his own men for intervening in a rape. The book was rejected by over 30 publishers before Kidder burnt the manuscript and went on to other things. There are excerpts, and it is truly awful. Even a Pulitzer Prize winning writer doesn't bat 100!
The fact is, for as much as the Vietnam War defined a generation, a lot of people who served did so without particular distinction or courage. They ran supply depots, maintained trucks, processed transfers, and triangulated radios. The REMFs deserve their own stories, but this is not it.
Kidder goes back in memory to find his war and his past self. The problem is that his war is, frankly, boring, and his past self a callow youth. While a student at Harvard, Kidder signed up for ROTC for ill-defined reasons, before the war became a dividing line in a generation. He specialized in military intelligence, and wound up responsible for (I decline to use the phrase 'in command of') a eight man radio finding detachment. Kidder and his men were the REMFiest REMFs who never left the wire. His sergeant had a pair of boots he deliberately abused to feel like he was in the shit, and the entire unit would gather every night to watch Combat! on ABC. Kidder tries his best to befriend his men, to protect everyone from the bullshit of military authority, to fix the elusive NVA regiments on his division's maps. The plot, such as it is, is a series of pranks orchestrated by rebellious soldier Pancho, and a cycle of new commanders distinguished mostly by the unwanted attention that they bring to the unit.
A parallel arc is Kidder's strange, on-off, and frankly abusive relationship with a kind of cometary girlfriend, Mary Ann. An object of lust since childhood, Kidder guilts Mary Ann into accepting a ring before going to Vietnam, torments her with invented war stories of atrocities, and finally accepts the death of the relationship, a friendship destroyed by his inability to let it grow. Boys can be terrible, and for his degree and his bars, the Kidder of this story is very much not a man. The best parts of the book are the humor provided by the story within the story. In 1970, Kidder wrote a melodrama set in Vietnam called Ivory Fields, about an idealistic Lieutenant killed by his own men for intervening in a rape. The book was rejected by over 30 publishers before Kidder burnt the manuscript and went on to other things. There are excerpts, and it is truly awful. Even a Pulitzer Prize winning writer doesn't bat 100!
The fact is, for as much as the Vietnam War defined a generation, a lot of people who served did so without particular distinction or courage. They ran supply depots, maintained trucks, processed transfers, and triangulated radios. The REMFs deserve their own stories, but this is not it.
ericwelch's review against another edition
4.0
"What are they going to do Lt.? Send you to Vietnam?" This little question defines the relationship among draftees and lifers. Kidder was assigned to an intelligence unit in Vietnam that handled radio traffic. Their job was to monitor and triangulate North Vietnamese radio traffic. The lifers seemed to be interested only in side-burn length (often measured with a ruler) and "hooch" neatness. Kidder's attitude soon became one of just collecting a few chips to cash in later and one of live and let live. Only the lifers cared about haircuts and camp discipline. The draftees did as little as possible in the way of military etiquette.
Sometimes a little extortion helped. His unit once picked up the colonel commanding troops from an orbiting helicopter and in his excitement, the colonel was naming names and units in the clear. Kidder's group made a transcript of the recording. His gadfly, Poncho, wanted to send it up the line to get the colonel reprimanded, but Kidder realized the value of showing what they had to the colonel and letting him know that they would do nothing about it. Just collecting a few chips.
Kidder's relationship with Poncho was based on a constant struggle for power. Poncho using threats ("I could always just drop a bamboo viper in your bunk") and bribery (Kidder wants to have an easy relationship with his men). Incidents elsewhere offragging officers would be casually dropped into the conversation.
Several of the reviews elsewhere have castigated Kidder for being a coward and not putting forth full effort required of a soldier. My feeling was quite the opposite. This book is a vivid (pun in the title intended, I'm sure) and very honest memoir of a year in the life of a non-lifer, someone who just wanted to get it over with and survive without killing anyone else or getting killed. You get the feeling he is going through great mental anguish himself, having no idea how to lead troops (he says at one point how little training in leading men he received and how the army would have been better served had they sent new officers to teach in an inner-city school for a year to learn how to lead and control the unruly.) What's a young Lt. to do when one of his men, a troublemaker, announces there had been a meeting about him behind him back the night before and they decided they didn't like the way he was doing things and by the way they would shoot him if he didn't straighten out? He and Poncho, the troublemaker, finally make an uneasy alliance.
How does a twenty-year old deal with the knowledge that his men were being sent out on details to dig up Vietnamese graves so they could determine who would get credit for the kill: the artillery or the Air Force. How do you put that in your letters home? He writes fictional accounts in his mail of events that never occurred. So the mail becomes a mendacious catharsis often reflecting what he wished had happened, not what had really transpired.
The Kidder portrayed is not the hero we wish to see and he flogs himself repeatedly, if not ostentatiously, for his sell-out. Does he respect Poncho more than himself? Perhaps. A very useful addition to the literature of Vietnam from a perspective other than the front-line grunt. Reportage of the inconsequential.
Sometimes a little extortion helped. His unit once picked up the colonel commanding troops from an orbiting helicopter and in his excitement, the colonel was naming names and units in the clear. Kidder's group made a transcript of the recording. His gadfly, Poncho, wanted to send it up the line to get the colonel reprimanded, but Kidder realized the value of showing what they had to the colonel and letting him know that they would do nothing about it. Just collecting a few chips.
Kidder's relationship with Poncho was based on a constant struggle for power. Poncho using threats ("I could always just drop a bamboo viper in your bunk") and bribery (Kidder wants to have an easy relationship with his men). Incidents elsewhere offragging officers would be casually dropped into the conversation.
Several of the reviews elsewhere have castigated Kidder for being a coward and not putting forth full effort required of a soldier. My feeling was quite the opposite. This book is a vivid (pun in the title intended, I'm sure) and very honest memoir of a year in the life of a non-lifer, someone who just wanted to get it over with and survive without killing anyone else or getting killed. You get the feeling he is going through great mental anguish himself, having no idea how to lead troops (he says at one point how little training in leading men he received and how the army would have been better served had they sent new officers to teach in an inner-city school for a year to learn how to lead and control the unruly.) What's a young Lt. to do when one of his men, a troublemaker, announces there had been a meeting about him behind him back the night before and they decided they didn't like the way he was doing things and by the way they would shoot him if he didn't straighten out? He and Poncho, the troublemaker, finally make an uneasy alliance.
How does a twenty-year old deal with the knowledge that his men were being sent out on details to dig up Vietnamese graves so they could determine who would get credit for the kill: the artillery or the Air Force. How do you put that in your letters home? He writes fictional accounts in his mail of events that never occurred. So the mail becomes a mendacious catharsis often reflecting what he wished had happened, not what had really transpired.
The Kidder portrayed is not the hero we wish to see and he flogs himself repeatedly, if not ostentatiously, for his sell-out. Does he respect Poncho more than himself? Perhaps. A very useful addition to the literature of Vietnam from a perspective other than the front-line grunt. Reportage of the inconsequential.
le13anna's review
3.0
Not my favorite Tracy Kidder book, but I'm glad I read it. I finished it. that should count.
satyridae's review
4.0
In this memoir of Kidder's stint in Vietnam, he pulls no punches, describing the callow youth he was with unrelenting candor. Fine writing and a fascinating tale.
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