Karl Marlantes' "What It Is Like to Go to War": Book Review

I recommend reading "Matterhorn" first. This non-fictional companion narrates many of Marlantes' real-life incidents around Christmas 1968 on the Laotian border near the DMZ which inspired that masterful Vietnam War novel. Those who immersed themselves in that epic work's detail and mood will see how Waino Melles stands in as a counterpart for Karl Marlantes--even if a few of the most daring moments of his real life (as in hanging on outside an overloaded chopper so he could make his R+R) service gain in the true telling even more than the fictional fashion.

As previous reviewers noted, this follow-up lacks the seamless quality that at its best (which was often) carried one through six-hundred plus pages of "Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War" [see my brief Amazon review in Aug. 2012]. It's much choppier: he integrates recollections of his Oregon coming-of-age among Finnish fishermen, his Yale and Oxford studies, and his difficult re-entry into civilian life. These reminiscences alternate with topical chapters on aspects of warrior culture. These in turn explore in tangents or directions many moments gleaned from his Marine tours of duty, his literary and cultural studies, and his experiences at integration as a man who understands the costs of sending nineteen-year-olds to fight in an era when such duties will be done more and more at a distance, via a drone from a Nevada base and not as hand-to-hand taking a hilltop from the NVA (memorably recounted in both "Matterhorn" and "What It Is Like to Go to War," understandably).

He emphasizes recommendations for rituals that ease the transition from life to death, battle to peace, killing to harmony, which are necessary in an age when compassion for both the fighter and his or her enemy may be more difficult to sustain. Mass killing and not individual duels may add to this societal and cultural switch, and our psyches may not handle the transfer. Marlantes shows how "natural aggression," as with our sexual drive, needs not to be denied or suppressed, but comprehended, cared for, and disciplined. He does not shrink from honesty, and he mingles justice with mercy adroitly.

He draws upon religious analogies intriguingly. He locates the spiritual in combat. He finds "constant awareness of one's own death, total focus on the present moment, the valuing of other people's lives above one's own, and being part of a larger religious community" [loc. 159] in the contrast of the mystic's heavenly ascent and the soldier's hell descent. Both enter a sacred space; respect must be paid. Unless young men and women learn to deal with initiation, the realization of compassion, the balance of justice with mercy in doling out punishment in the field, the shift into this fearsome space and their sudden retreat from it by jet or video, they will not reach healing and wholeness within.

This higher cause appears akin to the "semper fi" commitment he vowed to never leave behind his comrades and to make their needs a priority above his own. Marlantes tells how, in a humble but inescapably dramatic fashion, his first Bronze Star emerged out of such a willingness. He applies Jungian notions of the shadow via Joseph Campbell to explain this imperative.

War ideally is like mercy killing: done out of necessity, but with respect and sadness. Marlantes tackles the "touchdown" cheerleading, the innate reaction we share with apes to kill and take pleasure in it, but he also sees that this alone, the "white heat atrocity" of logically premeditated killing or the "red" of unleashed bloodlust, cannot control those whom we send to fight for us. Evil, as with good, can be summoned out of the energies around us, like we turn on a television.

Transcendence, he boldly argues, can come with frenzy in war. Homer, Cúchulainn, the Bhagavad Gita, video games show this pattern over centuries. We need to channel this energy. Out desire to fight for our side cannot be eliminated. Those who ignore it within our nature do so at a destructive cost. This common drive, as he shows with a vignette from British and Germans pitched against each other in North Africa's desert, can reveal respect that connects the souls of sworn enemies.

I am not sure I agree with his implied stance that if one is not for one's own side in a war decided by national policy and detached politicians, one is aiding and abetting the enemy, but my experiences have not been tested as have been his and his successors, and to be fair, Marlantes aims this book more at them than me. He concludes with ethical suggestions and ways to blend his idealism into practical programs and rituals for those who fight. I teach many veterans (near a VA hospital). I see young men starting college with physical and psychological damage. As I read "Matterhorn" I discussed it with some students, and I will guide more to this companion volume, and their classmates, for this will benefit them all. (Amazon US 9-3-12)

Gerard Cappa's "Blood from a Shadow": Book Review

This Belfast writer's thriller incorporates not only the 2012 presidential election, Iran's nuclear ambitions, and Al Qaeda's threats. It turns to ancient Ulster mythic figures, Cú Chulainn and his foster-brother and best friend Ferdia, to enrich this presentation of two contemporary veterans from Route Irish and the war for Baghdad. Con Maknazpy (hold on for the spelling; I happened to have guessed correctly its derivation, but it was a long shot!) and Ferdy McIlhane, pals from Yonkers, after a traumatic, pyrrhic first scene of strife in Iraq, meet separation. Con seeks to find out Ferdy's fate.

The mission with which Con's entrusted takes him to Belfast, Rome, Istanbul, and then back to New York City. Without any plot spoilers, suffice to say that Gerard Cappa's pace never lets up. His love for action sustains very brutal showdowns in three out of the four locales. However, he eases up the tension, amid considerable body counts and a massive amount of woe inflicted on and by the mid-thirties Con which seemed indeed to recall his Irish predecessor, that may defy a bit of belief, as required for such tales.

There's an astonishing amount of references--on cultural, political, and what's intriguingly a personal level for the author--packed into its pages. I found this considerably denser in its telling than the genre typically presents, once I noticed character names and places. This intertextuality may overwhelm some readers but entice others, as such dogged, clever, "Easter Egg" construction tends to do. A love of the Irish form of excessive delight in the detail and ramble helps.

Other allusions, to Rostram and Sohrab of Persian lore, to the Peacock Angel of the Yazidi Kurds, owls and crows of Celtic shapeshifting, Columbus, the Crusades, and the 69th Fighting Irish of the US Army--from the Civil War to Operation Enduring Freedom--show Gerry Cappa's wide-ranging interests, as he deftly incorporates them into the espionage and thriller genres. He aims at a diverse readership. One that demands a page-turning violent saga, and another that savors a more polished gloss.

As Gallogly keeps telling our compromised, conflicted hero, Con tends to radiate trouble around himself. He narrates his own story--this does lessen a bit of suspense as happens in such conventions. Wisely, Cappa balances this narrative choice with legendary resonances which play into the Irish, American, and Middle Eastern contentions for heroism, idealism, hubris and folly effectively.

Con surrounds himself with many who try to throw him off his course of investigating what may be a heroin trafficking network from the opium fields through the Middle East to Turkey, into Europe, and over via Ireland to the States. The old Irish republican gun-running trails, it seems, may be to blame. For this reason, Con's singled out, as he learns, to come to Ireland and to begin his frenetic quest.

The author likes to fill you in on the characters, who pop up regularly to try to help or fool the protagonist. Eddie the bartender "once had a grand Roman nose but now it folded under his right eye," while a beefy concierge displays "white bristles wired out of his grainy pore craters of his nose, shoulders made for bouncing the lowlifes and carrying the highlifes." Con tends to meet the lowlifes.

Con's story does get complicated. It can be, as with fast-paced thrillers, hard to keep up with. So much bloodshed can take its toll on a reader as well as its cast of spies, turncoats, and avengers. A cinematic flair in the settings and set-ups that gain vivid depiction shows Cappa's skill. It eases the labyrinthine, disruptive, often dialogue-driven and quicksilver-unpredictable story structure.

Red herrings abound, and false leads. The Turkish sections become markedly intricate, so the busy plot demands patience amidst the threats and mayhem, as in the midst of rapid movements and conversations with which I sought to keep up. Similarly, its New York scenes turn as energetically as a quickly edited sequence from a film such as "The Bourne Identity."

Speaking of parallels, setting this so soon in the future--nearly real time, as it starts October 2012--is a daring choice. It may shorten its shelf life. But even when we know who will be elected as the next president, it's a worthwhile look at the costs that international strife exacts on everyday folks, even if fewer of these exist among the more devious and less honest men and women who fill these pages.

All the same, vivid descriptions of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the Belfast breeze, a venerable Roman church, or the brief camaraderie afforded our harried hero in a Bronx pub provide necessary respite among the skulduggery. Con needed a chance to recuperate now and then, considering his record in the ring lashing out against all who try to tame him. Cú Chulainn in the "Táin" translations of Thomas Kinsella underwent "warp-spasms" or Ciaran Carson "torque"; here, Con enters a "red cycle," "dark energy," and "soul plasma" as he faces off against inner ghosts and haunting demons not only on the outside, as his antagonists. This layer deepens the impact of this rousing debut, and I hope to hear more from the hero, once he recovers from his notably bloody routs!  British (British Amazon and + US Amazon 8-8-12)

Dr. Druid: Celtic Tibetan Buddhist Superhero!

No April Fool! Via my "Celtic Buddhist" research. Not even this tiny sect's practitioners of "Crazy Heart" dharma may've envisioned this fusion. "Religious Affiliations of Comic Book Characters" tells how Dr. Anthony Ludgate Druid, Harvard Med grad, psychiatrist, "minor telepath, and magician" after study with an ailing lama then emerged from seclusion. He unleashed his one-two punch of Tibetan arcana laced with Celtic lore.

Thus, mirabile dictu, by meditation and levitation he melds yogic mastery with shape-shifting and nature-transforming runic skills. "Possessing the racial memories of his Celtic ancestors, Doctor Druid employs the knowledge and skills of the ancient Druids after whom he was named." He's a pre-cog, employing astrology to suss out-- at least for four installments-- the powers that oppose him. Which are considerable, given that Hellstorm son of Satan's his foe. That green goddess you see here emblazoned may be Nekra, who may be his nemesis.

I enjoy the host site Adherents.com. I found there a well-annotated list a while back of SF & Fantasy-related titles dealing with Tibet. What a great conjunction of sheer fun and critical diligence.

Image: All four covers from Marvel's 2007 series suitable for framing. Here's #4 displayed for its lysergic luminosity, its tattooed colleen, and those swirling warp-spasms. Horslips would've loved this, especially Éamon Carr who sought this shotgun marriage (in the no-on-Prop 8 sense? Or highland fling?) between Captain America and Cúchullain, among a credal cast of ever expanding and exceedingly ecumenical characters. I recall their "Tracks from the Vaults" LP cover, too.

Old Irish Online: Compert Con Culainn

U. of Texas, Linguistics Research Center, has a webpage with the Compert Con Culainn ("The Conception of Chú Chulainn"), a beginner's text offering we daunted novices scholarly assistance with this daunting tongue. The UT's LRC's founded by Winifred P. Lehmann (a "he!") a fine translator of OI. His wife, Ruth P.M. Lehmann, crafted an accurate Beowulf. (Ruth's version's one of the closest to the feel of the Old English, along with the looser but readable Kevin Crossley-Holland; Seamus Heaney's quite fluent with the Anglo-Saxon rhythm, but as with many renowned poets, his own prize-winning power of verse transforms the original's severe stomp into his own mellifluous medium, whereas Lehmann allows the clanging clash of the OE via ModE vocal volume.) Both letter-loving L's collaborated on the brave but for me still too technical MLA "Introduction to Old Irish."

Scholarly collaboration. Heaney and his brother-in-law Barry Devlin in Horslips retelling deeds of medieval heroes. (The image from the UDA's mural in Belfast, the complicated legacy that allows factions to compete over heroic lineage and, as Horslips sang about Ferdia and Cú Chulainn, to meet in battle over control of the same small turf.) Our debate over Ulster's cycles of tale-telling and of violence bear witness, I may add as an academic and diasporic outlier but still an indie scholar of both Irish language and pop culture, to the need for instruction in these sources, whether at UCD, UT, or here via the Web and Come Back Horslips and HorsLit.

Me and my wife have our own pillow talk, shades of the Táin, not of bigger bulls but perhaps grander b.s., over the future impact of secular doubt and spiritual certitude that we witness. Come to think of it, day before my anniversary #16, my wife's name sort of fits "lainn" and mine, naturally, the "cú" not to mention my nom de plume meets birth surname as Fionn. So, fittingly, we match up with this OI conflation in terms of their term for our hero CC.

Thanks to googling for an image for "Old Irish myth," which you can see in the post immediately prior to this one today, I stumbled serendipitously upon a (now newly linked) blog, Atalanta Fvgiens, and its own OI entries, which directed me hither to Austin's cyber archive. There's ten OI texts, all brief with translations and annotations. Including two that Horslips fans will enjoy: Lebor Gábala Érinn, a.k.a. Book of Invasions, and a wee Táin, this one not from Cualnge but a Táin Bo Regamna. Also here, a map of the Isles, language family overviews, and connections with other Indo-European groups. Well done. I'd been looking for such, but never found this until now. Perhaps my former classmate The Digital Medievalist (searchable via earlier mentions on my blog) can add a UT tag to her own blog to guide the Net's OI learners in turn?

http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/eieol/iriol-1.html