Pleasant Hell in War Nerd Reading List

May 21, 2016 Carlos Hughes rated it it was amazing

'There aint no justice'

An apt saying when one sees the adulation Karl Ove Knausgaard receives for books that are nowhere near a patch on the magnificent 'Pleasant Hell' by John Dolan, about the trials and tribulations of a swotty nerd, growing up in a San Francisco commuter suburb in the late 1960's to early 1970's.

John Dolan, an Irish American raised in the hot desert sun seemed to be a man who was born in the wrong place if not the wrong time. Dolan was at the epicentre of the The 'Flower Pow ...more

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Jan 31, 2014 Adam McPhee rated it it was amazing

Shelves: americana, favourites, the-exile

This book is extraordinarily important to me.

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Aug 10, 2020 Rashid Yasin rated it it was amazing

I'm a Dolan fan as a listener of the Radio War Nerd podcast, so my perspective on categorizing this as a must-read is biased. But this memoir is only partially "the birth of the War Nerd". Mostly, it's about dealing with social anxiety as a college student in northern California in the 70's. There's a lot more body odor, pus-filled foot sores, and masturbation than I expected in this memoir. But I deeply empathized with the protagonist's many internal monologues and worries and I felt like it wa I'm a Dolan fan as a listener of the Radio War Nerd podcast, so my perspective on categorizing this as a must-read is biased. But this memoir is only partially "the birth of the War Nerd". Mostly, it's about dealing with social anxiety as a college student in northern California in the 70's. There's a lot more body odor, pus-filled foot sores, and masturbation than I expected in this memoir. But I deeply empathized with the protagonist's many internal monologues and worries and I felt like it was one of the best reflections of being human that I've seen written down.

There is no hero's journey here. That's for storybooks. This is a book for the little guy; not the underdog who eventually triumphs, but the one who never gets a movie made about him. The one who wishes he was part of the IRA or the Sinhalese Liberation Army so that he could die a martyr's death at the hands of the police and get in the papers. But in this life, in real life, nothing happens and nothing changes. It's much too much to ask for to die gloriously. Instead you have to live ignobly - as Dolan mentions throughout the book, there are no "quick cuts" and montages in real life like there are in the movies. The audience doesn't get to skip around and only see the highlights of action. There are instead long drawn-out phases of living when nothing in particular is happening. That's what life is made of and what is captured so well.

It's hard to tell exactly how "real" this memoir is. There is little character growth in this snippet of life, focused on ~1 year (probably compressed from real events taking place over a longer span for literary/plot purposes). I listened to the audiobook, narrated superbly by the author in first person, but even with that personal touch, I don't even know how much it is actually a reflection of reality. There are layers of self-deprecation and embellishment to get through first, so I hesitate to call the protaganist John Dolan himself. Even if it's all true with no embellishment, the author is decades older now - it's a familiar but entirely different character portrayed in the book than who "John Dolan" is.

While sometimes overwrought, I felt great empathy for young John's plights. Dolan recounts, in excruciating detail, the half-logical steps his young brain took while navigating unfamiliar social situations as an anxious and awkward young man. I recognize the same patterns from myself as a teenager or young college student: not quite sure how "other people" really work, not sure how to read and relate to social cues and how to act responsibly. He's good at ignoring problems in the hopes that they go away: I was very good at doing the same for a long time.

But in addition to being a deeply intimate portrait of this young man's particular neuroses, it's also a memoir about "Pleasant Hill" the (almost) titular setting of the book in the suburbs of Berkeley, California. Even from a working class background, Dolan describes the paradise of California in the 70's. I recognize it because it's the same setting as where+when my mother grew up and where+when my father moved to the US and fell in love with America. But Dolan, looking at heaven around him, is shut off from any meaningful social contact and lives mostly in his anxiety-laden mind. He creates for himself the Hell of the title, despite the pleasant surroundings. It's a good pun and also a good representative for the situation he finds himself in.

While young John is often pathetic [a prominent example being him pining after a young woman who is 1) already in a relationship 2) a lesbian and 3) spit on him one time], John Dolan-as-narrator gives the reader sufficient distance to not wallow in his incompetencies, low-self-esteem, and awkwardness. By seeing them one-step-removed, Dolan gets to have it both ways: the reader can recognize and empathize with young Dolan and yet still feel smug that we're not him by looking at him from a distance alongside Dolan the narrator. While sometimes there's a bit *too* much wallowing, on the whole it's well-written enough that none of this overstays its welcome.

I don't know if this book will resonate as well for others as it did for me. I too have some Irish blood in me, so I recognize the desire to lionize the IRA. I was an awkward, socially-anxious child with violent fantasies that were never acted on. I liked the study of war (for different reasons, but close enough). I never felt like I fit in with my peers and spent a lot of time second-guessing what to say inside my head. Maybe some of this is universal, but maybe it's just that I too am a War Nerd and so this cult classic hits very close to home simply because I'm member of the cult. ...more

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