Tree of Smoke: A Novel

by Denis Johnson

Tree of Smoke: A Novel

published	2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
binding	Hardcover
isbn	0374279128 (isbn13: 9780374279127)
pages	672
literary awards	National Book Award 2007
description	"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 t...more [close] "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.
date added	03-07-07 edit book

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John

John rated it:

05/03/08

Read in March, 2008

Tree of Smoke by Dennis Johnson is the finest novel about Vietnam or the Vietnam War I‘ve read and that includes books like Coming Home by George Davis, One to Count Cadence by James Crumley and The Quiet American by Graham Greene. The novel won the National Book Award and a bunch of other honors and deservedly so.

Trying to assemble a cogent review of this multi-layered elaborate book is difficult, there’s so much going on within so many levels among so many characters over a lengthy pe...more

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Joshua

Joshua rated it:

03/28/08

Read in March, 2008

I am not reviewing this book, as I consider myself to be utterly unqualified and am not sufficiently infatuated with my own sense of taste. I liked it. A lot. Hence the stars. There.

What I'm really delighting in right now, however, is how thoroughly unqualified B.R. Myers proved himself to be as well. His Atlantic Monthly review (found at: my link text) of "Tree of Smoke" is a display of such blind zea...more

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Jason

Jason rated it:

12/05/07

Read in December, 2007

(My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

So before anything else, a little history lesson...

From the mid-1800s until World War II, the Asian country now known as Vietnam was in actuality controlled by France and operated as a colony; during WWII, then, the Japanese invaded the area so as to install a Vichy-style fascist government. It was the Vietnamese...more (My full review of this book is much longer than GoodReads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)

So before anything else, a little history lesson...

From the mid-1800s until World War II, the Asian country now known as Vietnam was in actuality controlled by France and operated as a colony; during WWII, then, the Japanese invaded the area so as to install a Vichy-style fascist government. It was the Vietnamese, in fact, who eventually rose up and ran this group out of the country at the end of the war, led and funded by local communists who were being secretly supported by Soviet Russia; at this point the French tried to come back in and re-establish colonialism, but the 'Viet Minh' were having none of it. That led to what's now known as the 'First Vietnam War,' or 'Indochina War' if you want to get technical, which lasted for roughly a decade and which the French (backed secretly by US resources) lost; it led in 1954 to a splitting of the country into a North and South Vietnam, with a referendum two years later that was supposed to politically reunify them again. The referendum never happened, though, because of the US continuing to stockpile more and more military in the southern half of the country; it soon led to the 'Second Vietnam War,' the enemy now known as the Viet Cong, the war many more Americans are familiar with, the one that many people say we lost as well at the end of 1973 (which was more about us giving up fighting, which is why it's contested whether we should call it "losing a war"). And thus did the entirety of Vietnam become communist in the mid-'70s, which was kind of a disaster until 1986 when the country first embraced free-market capitalism; now in 2007 they're one of the economically fastest-growing countries on the planet, certainly of the so-called "third world," and last year hosted over three and a half million international tourists.

I bring you this little tutorial, of course, because you'll need it in order to get through the absolutely mindblowing Tree of Smoke, the latest novel by revered writer Denis Johnson, and a few weeks ago officially the recipient of this year's National Book Award. It. Is. An. Astounding. Book., make no mistake, one that floored me in a particular way a novel hasn't done to me in years; but it's also a book that asks a lot out of you as a reader, not the least of which is a good four to six weeks of commitment, not to mention a fairly good understanding of 20th-century Vietnamese history before starting, plus of course with it presenting a challenge to many radical liberals as to how to think of the very concept of "war" itself. It's one of those big books, you know, and by "big" I mean in a grand, old-skool, James Michener or Herman Wouk kinda way; a book with a dozen main characters, two dozen other minor ones, all of them scattered around the planet and coming to the same central core of a story from a dozen different backgrounds and mindsets. There are good things about such books and bad things; in this case, in my opinion, a lot more good than bad, but that's partly because I'm a big fan of these kinds of novels in the first place. It's certainly one of those books that people love giving awards to, because it feels good to give an award to a book like this; it's a hefty one, not only emotionally and intellectually but also its sheer physical weight, something that makes you feel like you really accomplished something by making it all the way through.

So why does Johnson's name ring a bell, you're thinking? Well, because......less

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Roderick

Roderick rated it:

01/28/08

Read in January, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This book makes me want to be a novelist at the same time that it makes me realise (again) how very hard it is to pull off. Denis Johnson manages to be psychologically concise and lyrical over and over again, which strikes me as incredibly difficult. How many different people can one person manage to be subtle and perceptive about at the same time? A lot, apparently, if you know what you're doing. Unlike, say, Ian McEwan. Just saying.

I'm having quite a hard time keeping up with a succes...more

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Tripp

Tripp rated it:

02/03/08

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: Literary fiction lovers, international relations students

There are Tree of Smoke lovers and haters. Count me on the side of the lovers. The time shifts in the first section might make you think you are in for a trippy update of Dispatches, but the book quickly moves into a year by year account of the destruction of a number of American and Vietnamese lives.

The title represents a number of images and themes in the book. It references a verse in the Bible which a grizzled intelligence vet uses as a code name and a kind of mantra. The tree is used to...more There are Tree of Smoke lovers and haters. Count me on the side of the lovers. The time shifts in the first section might make you think you are in for a trippy update of Dispatches, but the book quickly moves into a year by year account of the destruction of a number of American and Vietnamese lives.

The title represents a number of images and themes in the book. It references a verse in the Bible which a grizzled intelligence vet uses as a code name and a kind of mantra. The tree is used to signify ghosts, mushroom clouds, fire, threat and, I think, the potentially weak nature of family connection. Most of the characters wrestle with family members, some betraying and some trying to save, but nearly all lead to disaster. And like smoke, many find that their family is simply gone.

Religious imagery is also significant, with characters wondering just who the Judas is and what the nature of betrayal and redemption is. Again, it is primarily at the hands of family that the action takes place and when some are accused falsely it is terribly sad. In one case, people commit wrong to help their family, and the portrayal of it is morally ambiguous.

While this is a Vietnam novel, very little combat is depicted. This book is more in the mold of spy fiction with its exploration of the life of the operative and the Quiet American (which one character references more than once.) Ultimately it is about the human cost of war and it shows the cost is even worse than is usually shown.

There is a wide range of characters, including a Canadian nurse whose husband disappears in the Philippines, two working class brothers who experiences in the Navy and Army do not set them up well for civilian life, a Vietnamese Viet Cong volunteer who now doubts his choice, and the elder operative. The nephew of said operative, named Skip, is the core. He, and his uncle, ties the characters together and he goes through the worst of all of them.

The book's epilogue is a bit long, as it covers almost all of the surviving characters in 1983, but it helps wrap up the book. I had to re-read the opening section set in 1963, as it made little sense when first read, but clearly sets up the major themes of the book which include the possibility of spiritual death, betrayal, family and cultures which cannot comprehend one another.

Ignore the haters who, in my view, criticize tangential detail. My first reaction on closing the book was that I needed to read it again because I realized that I missed quite a bit. That is the sign of a great book....less

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Jesse

Jesse rated it:

03/29/08

Read in December, 2007

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke is right up there with Bolano's The Savage Detectives as the best novel published in 2007. Tree of Smoke follows a CIA agent (Skip Sands), the Houston brothers (James and Bill) and an engaging cast of foreign characters who are all caught up in the tragic drama that was the Vietnam War. Far from preaching about how wrong the US was in fighting that war, ToS lets us into the minds of the people involved in the war itself. It shows us the loss of innocence, the blurri...more Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke is right up there with Bolano's The Savage Detectives as the best novel published in 2007. Tree of Smoke follows a CIA agent (Skip Sands), the Houston brothers (James and Bill) and an engaging cast of foreign characters who are all caught up in the tragic drama that was the Vietnam War. Far from preaching about how wrong the US was in fighting that war, ToS lets us into the minds of the people involved in the war itself. It shows us the loss of innocence, the blurring of the lines and the points where characters stop fighting for their country and begin fighting for personal pride. If you have read Angels (Johnson's first novel) then you already know what's in store for the Houston brothers and the way in which the war Skip Sands turn from an idealistic CIA agent into a rebel gun-runner in South East Asia. We also see Skip's fate courtesy of an epilogue of sorts. This section reads like Angels, even being set in the early 80's, and Skip's fate is similar to that of the Houston brothers. Johnson's language here and throughout the rest of the novel is riveting, never wordy or pretentious, his writing seems to fluoresce off the page and carry an unworl-dly sense of psychology. He never attempts to moralize or judge his characters, he only allows us to see the consequences of their choices that they are forced to make. The novel ends with Kathy Jones, an aid-worker/missionary whose husband is killed toward the beginning of the novel. She is obsessed with Calvinism and the idea of pre-determinism, but at the end of the novel we are left with her redemptive thought: "all will be saved". This novel's purpose is to tear down the myths of the Vietnam War, and that means tear down all the myths, including the oversimplified myth that the US was completely wrong and evil to fight the war in Vietnam. In this, the novel succeeds. We are shown a picture of people doing what they believe is right, and yet that doesn't always mean the outcome will be positive. But in the end there is always redemption and that is a positive message for our country in 2008 after five years in Iraq. Because wars are never black and white, but almost always a smoky grey....less

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Michael

Michael rated it:

02/22/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

Reading this book is a little like reading Don Delillo novel; it is so full of descriptive passages and internal mind-scapes that one could get lost reading a page after page, or lost, needing to go back wondering the thematic importance of the last excerpt. I sometimes can't bring myself to put it down and go to much needed sleep late at night, or cannot bring myself to pick it up because the enormity of it leaves me bewildered. I am beginning to think that this is, in part, due to the format o...more

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Michelle

Michelle rated it:

05/11/08

bookshelves: contemporary-fiction

Read in May, 2008

recommends it for: Vietnam War Buffs

From this book I learned to carefully check materials before checking them out of my local library. When I saw Tree of Smoke on the shelf, I happily checked it out and couldn't wait to get it home and start reading it. I am a fan of Denis Johnson's work, and this was his first novel in about nine years.

When I flipped to the title page, there was what looked like a flattened booger on the page. I really wanted to read the book so I quickly flipped the page and started reading ...more

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6 comments

W rated it:

04/14/08

recommends it for: anyone who has passed Am Lit 100 & 101

First of all, TREE OF SMOKE is to JESUS' SON as DUBLINERS is to ULYSSES. Compare a writer messing around with his experience and craft and an author who has come under the full blown power of his pen. One can also say TREE OF SMOKE is about Vietnam in the same way MOBY DICK is about whaling. I will wait until a second reading, but we may have our first great American novel since Faulkner and, in a certain sense, Dreiser.
“Tree of Smoke” is a more literal translation of the Hebrew be’a...more

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1 comments

Alex

Alex rated it:

02/19/08

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: anybody

Tree of Smoke is something like a good, plot-driven thriller (like LeCarré more than Clancy) injected with a heady dose of fog of war. It's a novel that looks at the Vietnam War through a wonderfully tuned eye for the humane, a critical piece that has no truck with the cliché activisms we're used to. It's a novel about the human effects of fighting for abstractions. It's about forgiveness and salvation, about guilt itself in the face of the unswerving trueness of death. It's about w...more

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Chris

Chris rated it:

01/31/08

Read in January, 2008

Denis Johnson's NBA-winning novel reminded me of another major cultural event from last year -- Todd Haynes' Dylan biopic/mindfuck I'm Not There. Both are set mostly in the sixties, and both say less about the decade itself than about the sheen of fantasy that the subsequent years have applied to it. Both attempt, with the highest artistic intentions, to breath life into a tired form -- the Vietnam novel; the rock n roll biopic. Both contain a series of exquisite, even impeccable, gestures, p...more

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Melody

Melody rated it:

(review of isbn 1427202141)

03/12/08

bookshelves: bookgroup, favorites, war

Read in March, 2008

The Vietnam War (or conflict as some might insist) came right on the heels of the “good war”. And young men went off to fight, hoping they were fighting for the same noble cause they thought their fathers fought for, but they only discovered that the “good war” was a myth. The basic rules of war – don’t kill the animals, don’t rape their women – were initially obeyed – but as they became men at the age of 18 they learned there were no rules. The repercussions of the evils of ...more

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4 comments

Cjasper

Cjasper rated it:

02/08/08

bookshelves: my-books

Read in February, 2008

First, let me say it took me forever to read this book. I had to return it to the library, put a hold on it again, recheck it out, take a break to read a book for book group, return it, recheck it out...The entire time, my husband questioned why I was putting so much time into <i>this<i> book. I read The Name of the World a long time ago (when it was new?)and found it intriguing, but was not moved or greatly affected by it, and that was a much smaller investment.

So why did I ...more

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Damon

Damon rated it:

02/25/08

Read in February, 2008

As a fan of Denis Johnson's earlier work, I found this book terribly dissapointing, especially in light of the many rave reviews it generated. In contrast to Jesus' Son, in which he manages to tell stories simultaneously powerful, funny and disturbing with such economy of language it seems he barely uses words at all, Tree of Smoke is so overloaded with unnecessary description it becomes a chore to plod through.

Such verbosity would not have bothered me if Johnson had created compelling, ori...more

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Alex

Alex rated it:

11/12/07

Read in October, 2007

Hmm.

That was the short deadened sound I made when I read the last line of this book last night. Not 'wow' or 'stunning' or 'masterpiece,' just a small involuntary expression of respect for the forces at work in this book that never fully materialize. Yes, it is about the soul -- and in the last hundred pages that word begins appearing with a striking frequency -- and yes, it is about the machine of war -- again, mentioned explicitly a number of times near the end -- but unfortunately it is ...more

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Michael

Michael rated it:

01/02/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in January, 2008

i was expecting to be completely blown away by johnson's new book, Tree of Smoke. it made it onto so many best of 2007 lists, and i have loved his previous works (resuscitation of a hanged man, jesus son, almost dead, and seek that i thought it couldn't help by killing.

well, it was really good, but i think a little ambitious. there are upwards of 8 characters in the book and the novel spans 20 years (1963-1983) and tackles a complex subject (America's invol...more

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Grant

Grant rated it:

02/15/08

Read in December, 2007

I think I'm Denis Johnson's ideal reader in some ways--his first novel, Angels, and then his collection of short stories, Jesus's Son, are among my favorite books. So I was eager to read Tree of Smoke, especially after several reviews elevated it to masterpiece status and it was nominated for a National Book Award.

The novel is ambitious, but doesn't deliver. The things Johnson does so well--for example, his keen, poignant portraits of people desperately clinging to the edge of life--don't q...more

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Maria

Maria rated it:

10/17/07

bookshelves: so-good-they-live-on-my-desk

Read in October, 2007

I carried this around with me for about three weeks, working my way through it, and I still know I'm going to have to go at it again. It's that amazing on a cellular level. On an overall level, same deal. It's devastating. Already Dead is one of my favorite books, but it's much harder to get into - it took me about a hundred pages of hallucinogenic prose, and finally I just let it take me. This is much more linear, only took about 60 pages, though it bounces between characters who have only tang...more

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Doug

Doug rated it:

12/09/07

Read in September, 2007

It's hard not to be disappointed with a Denis Johnson novel. Something about everything he does allows it to be possibly the greatest writing thing to be ever written, but then he always sort of fucks it up.

This isn't any different. It's still great in a way, but for someone with an imagination as good as his he seems to get bogged down in facts, accuracy and boring things pitfalls like history. Of course the book has it's great points - showing the relationship between fear and boredom i...more

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Benjamin

Benjamin rated it:

10/26/07

Read in October, 2007

"Sleepy stall women wrapped in light blankets beside wooden cases opened up to display boiled eggs, cigarettes, candy, sugar rolls. Timothy, are you alive? The woman at the stall beside me is weaving tiny boxes for party favors out of coconut leaves. Another woman goes by bent over a short broom, just a sheaf of straw, sweeping... May I always remember the truth I feel right now... Timothy, we live, we die."

"Not long after his lunch the roosters alone on neighboring small far...more

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book data (includes all editions)

avg rating (all editions): 3.79 (659 ratings)
avg rating (this edition): 3.79 (653 ratings)
number of reviews: 255

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