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Tree of smoke a novel

Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me.This is the story of Skip Sands'spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong'and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature.Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date.Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction.

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alternateName

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  • "Tree of smoke"@pl
  • "Tree of smoke"@it

author

contributor

creator

description

http://schema.org/description

  • "Johnson's first novel in nearly a decade centers on Skip Sands, a CIA recruit working under his uncle, Francis X. Sands, known as the Colonel. But it is also about his uncle, a legendary CIA operative; Kathy Jones, a widowed, saintly Canadian nurse; Trung, a North Vietnamese spy; and the Houston brothers, Bill and James, misguided GIs who haunt the story's periphery. And it's also about Sgt. Jimmy Storm, whose existence seems to be one long vision quest. For all the story lines, the structure couldn't be simpler: each year, from 1963 (the book opens in the Philippines: "Last night at 3:00 a.m. President Kennedy had been killed") to 1970, gets its own part, followed by a coda set in 1983. Readers familiar with the Vietnam War will recognize its arc-the Tet offensive (65 harrowing pages here); the deaths of Martin Luther King and RFK; the fall of Saigon, swift and seemingly foreordained. Skip is mostly in the dark, awaiting direction, living under an alias and falling in love with Kathy while the Colonel deals in double agents, Bushmills whiskey and folk history. He's a soldier-scholar pursuing theories of how to purify an information stream; he bloviates in gusts of sincerity and blasphemy, all of it charming. A large cast of characters, some colorful, some vaguely chalked, surround this triad, and if Tree of Smoke has a flaw, it is that some characters are virtually indistinguishable. Given the covert nature of much of the goings-on, perhaps it is necessary that characters become blurred. "We're on the cutting edge of reality itself," says Storm. "Right where it turns into a dream." Johnson both evokes and consumes the work of many past fictive chroniclers of the Vietnam War - Graham Greene, Tim O'Brien, the filmmakers Coppola, Cimino and Kubrick - all of whom have contributed to our cultural "understanding" of the war. In the novel's coda, Storm, a war cliché now way gone and deep in the Malaysian jungle near Thailand, attends preparations for a village's sacrificial bonfire (consisting of personal items smashed and axed by their owners) and offers himself as "compensation, baby." When the book ends, in a heartbreaking soliloquy from Kathy (fittingly, a Canadian) on the occasion of a war orphan benefit in a Minneapolis Radisson, you feel that America's Vietnam experience has been brought to a closure that's as good as we'll ever get"
  • "This is the story of William "Skip" Sands, CIA - engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong- and the disasters that befall him. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of Arizona desert and into a war where line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away."
  • "Once upon a time there was a war . . . and a young American who thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American. That's me.This is the story of Skip Sands'spy-in-training, engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong'and the disasters that befall him thanks to his famous uncle, a war hero known in intelligence circles simply as the Colonel. This is also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war in which the line between disinformation and delusion has blurred away. In its vision of human folly, and its gritty, sympathetic portraits of men and women desperate for an end to their loneliness, whether in sex or death or by the grace of God, this is a story like nothing in our literature.Tree of Smoke is Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years, and his most gripping, beautiful, and powerful work to date.Tree of Smoke is the 2007 National Book Award Winner for Fiction."@en
  • "Skip Sands is a CIA spy engaged in psychological operations against the Viet Cong. This story describes the disasters that befall him and about double agents, missionaries, killers for hire and lost souls desperate for sex, death or God and thus an end to their loneliness."@en
  • "This is the story of William "Skip" Sands, CIA--engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong--and the disasters that befall him and also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, who drift out of the Arizona desert and into a war."@en
  • "This is the story of William "Skip" Sands, CIA--engaged in Psychological Operations against the Vietcong--and the disasters that befall him and also the story of the Houston brothers, Bill and James, who drift out of the Arizona desert and into a war."
  • "CIA officer William "Skip" Sands travels to Vietnam in 1967 as part of a team running deceptive operations against North Vietnam, but his involvement in their latest assignment is complicated by a Canadian nurse and two brothers whose misguided beliefs threaten the entire operation."@en
  • "Philippines, 1963. Skip Sands, jeune homme naïf, souhaite se prouver à lui-même qu'il peut être un agent de la CIA efficace. Il déchante lorsqu'il assiste à l'assassinat d'un prêtre philippin soupçonné de trafic d'armes, et perd définitivement la foi au Viêt Nam lorsqu'il est confronté aux méthodes de ses compagnons des services secrets."
  • "The lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a novel of America during the Vietnam War."
  • "The lives of Skip Sands, a spy-in-training engaged in psychological operations against the Vietcong, and brothers Bill and James Houston, young men who drift out of the Arizona desert into a war, intertwine in a novel of America during the Vietnam War."@en
  • "Describing a world where almost everyone is lost or looking for something, where disinformation is the ultimate weapon and disillusion the most insidious enemy, and where war is another way to self-destruction, Johnson takes the reader on a surreal yet vivid journey, revealing the fundamental truths at the heart of the human condition."

genre

http://schema.org/genre

  • "Compact discs"@en
  • "Novel·les"
  • "Historical fiction"@en
  • "Audiobooks"@en
  • "Erzählende Literatur: Gegenwartsliteratur ab 1945"
  • "Powieść amerykańska"@pl
  • "Electronic books"
  • "Spy stories"@en
  • "Electronic books"@en
  • "Americké romány"
  • "War stories"
  • "War stories"@en
  • "Roman américain"
  • "Psychological fiction"@en
  • "Válečné romány"
  • "Romans (teksten)"
  • "American fiction"
  • "Downloadable e-Books"@en
  • "Belletristische Darstellung"
  • "Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)"@en
  • "War novels"
  • "Fiction"
  • "Fiction"@en

name

http://schema.org/name

  • "Árvore de fumaça"
  • "Sloupové dýmu"
  • "Tree of smoke a novel"@en
  • "Een zuil van rook"
  • "Ein gerader Rauch : Roman"
  • "Ein gerader Rauch Roman"
  • "Tree of smoke: cd/unabr"@en
  • "Arborele de fum"
  • "Tree of smoke"
  • "Tree of smoke"@en
  • "Ein gerader Rauch"
  • "Albero di fumo : romanzo"
  • "Albero di fumo : romanzo"@it
  • "Arbre de fumée"
  • "Tree of smoke : [a novel]"
  • "Drzewo dymu"
  • "Drzewo dymu"@pl
  • "Árbol de humo"@es
  • "Árbol de humo"

workExample

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