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Naeem's Reviews > Fives and Twenty-Fives
Fives and Twenty-Fives
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Because my concerns are more with the people and the culture of the occupied country than with the US soldiers themselves, I have a problem with reading war novels by USians. That is why, last summer, I read 7 or 8 novels by Iraqi authors. Having banked those, I allowed myself to read this novel. I was wary and ready to put it down with the first offense.
But Pitre surprised me for two reasons. I will get to those. First, let me get my negative out of the way. He ends the book in the right and the wrong way. Right because the ending is told from the point of view of an Iraqi. Wrong because it feels like an ode to freedom or democracy or some such silly fantasy.
Now let me turn to why I think Pitre's is a surprising novel. The problem for a USian is how to tell the story of war without the people, culture, and topography of the occupied country serving as mere props. Pitre solves this problem in two ways. He makes an Iraqi translator, named "Dodge", a central figure. Perhaps the most important figure; and certainly the smartest character. This move has two very good effects: it forces the reader into an Iraqi point of view; and, it places the reader in two minds about Iraqi translators. One the one hand, they provide the "insider" eyes that the novel so badly needs. On the other hand, this insider is a traitor to the resistance against the US occupation. Pitre never makes this tension explicit but uses it to bend the reader's sensibilities.
The second excellent element is that the novel is about the mundane and not about the dramatic or heroic. All the characters are part of a US team whose function is to fix Iraqi roads after they have either been carved up to set bombs or after those bombs have exploded. The precise details required to fix roads -- the necessary coordination, the speed at which everything must be done, the anticipation required to defuse traps set by the Iraqis -- this is the medium through which Pitre tells his story.
What makes this novel palatable is Pitre's sympathy with people and the culture his nation's soldiers occupy. What makes the novel worthwhile is what we learn about the everyday conditions that make up contemporary Iraq.
Another bonus: Pitre shows no love to the Blackwater types.
But Pitre surprised me for two reasons. I will get to those. First, let me get my negative out of the way. He ends the book in the right and the wrong way. Right because the ending is told from the point of view of an Iraqi. Wrong because it feels like an ode to freedom or democracy or some such silly fantasy.
Now let me turn to why I think Pitre's is a surprising novel. The problem for a USian is how to tell the story of war without the people, culture, and topography of the occupied country serving as mere props. Pitre solves this problem in two ways. He makes an Iraqi translator, named "Dodge", a central figure. Perhaps the most important figure; and certainly the smartest character. This move has two very good effects: it forces the reader into an Iraqi point of view; and, it places the reader in two minds about Iraqi translators. One the one hand, they provide the "insider" eyes that the novel so badly needs. On the other hand, this insider is a traitor to the resistance against the US occupation. Pitre never makes this tension explicit but uses it to bend the reader's sensibilities.
The second excellent element is that the novel is about the mundane and not about the dramatic or heroic. All the characters are part of a US team whose function is to fix Iraqi roads after they have either been carved up to set bombs or after those bombs have exploded. The precise details required to fix roads -- the necessary coordination, the speed at which everything must be done, the anticipation required to defuse traps set by the Iraqis -- this is the medium through which Pitre tells his story.
What makes this novel palatable is Pitre's sympathy with people and the culture his nation's soldiers occupy. What makes the novel worthwhile is what we learn about the everyday conditions that make up contemporary Iraq.
Another bonus: Pitre shows no love to the Blackwater types.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
June 1, 2015
–
Finished Reading
June 2, 2015
– Shelved
