A Time Of War

Boring

Excellent read.

While this novel is not on the level of timeless literature, it is a compelling read filled with interesting characters, a serpentine plot, and lots of sex and violence, underpinned by a sharply critical perspective on the Vietnam misadventure. As you read it, you cannot help thinking of "Iraq." Example: "This is an enemy we cannot defeat and an ally we cannot prop."Adding to the tragic nature of this novel is the fact that its author, a Vietnam veteran, was convicted in 2003 of the murder of his wife and now serves a life sentence for the crime. A riveting documentary on the case "The Staircase" is available on dvd and is highly recommended.

Great novel ..unique view of political and combat aspects of the war...

I first became aware of author Michael Peterson via a documentary on Netflix. The subject matter of that film had nothing to do with his writing, but I was curious to see if this man I was watching could actually write. And write he can! Michael Peterson’s novel A Time of War reminded me of James Jones’s From Here to Eternity. A Time of War did for me what From Here to Eternity did—gave me a clearer picture of wartime (Eternity, of course, is World War II, while Time of War is Vietnam,) plus both novels give us beautiful portraits of those who fought, died, and lived through these wars. Peterson, who fought in Vietnam, has unique insight into the war. His characters are rich-blooded people who may or may not have been thinly veiled actual people he encountered. Certainly, his story is peppered with real people among his fictional ones. There is General Westmoreland and there is President Johnson. I was a teen during the Vietnam War, and I didn’t really know Johnson. I don’t know if Peterson captured the real Lyndon Johnson, but his painting of the man shows us a President who was funny, a bit bumbling, certainly not refined, and very concerned about how he would be perceived by his constituency and by history because of this war. I can believe, because of Peterson, that this is exactly Lyndon B. Johnson. The other, fictional, characters are created with detail that makes us care about them, feeling so deeply that we shudder when they are in danger, worry for their safety, and rejoice when they survive. But make no mistake, this is war, and some do not survive. And there is Michael Peterson’s skill as a writer. This almost 750 page novel moves along with fluidity and purpose. And Peterson throws in literary allusions from time to time that make us realize this writer is more than a hack who decided to throw together a book. And I have to say, his treatment of homosexuality, though never graphic, is quite satisfying indeed, for amid the expected characters who think it disgusting, there is an equal number, many of them prominent characters, who show understanding and acceptance. This, I’m sure, since the fight for equality has been with us probably since time began, was unusual for the 1960s, when the gay rights movement was just getting started. Yes, Peterson wrote this in 1990, but his portrayal of the gay “dilemma” seems accurate for the ‘60s and wartime. My only criticism with the book is that Peterson’s character names are a bit heavy-handed: the man who thinks he is God is named Lord; the saintly woman who is trying desperately to save the children is named Theresa; the main character is named Marshall, for he is trying to bring law and order back to the world in his efforts to stop the war. But in a huge epic novel, perhaps we need such character names to remind us of who we should be cheering for and who we should be booing. I’m surprised some enterprising, insightful movie maker has never found this novel, for it could be a star-studded blockbuster, as celebrated as the film of From Here to Eternity. A Time of War is the quintessential Vietnam War novel, in my humble opinion.

I became aware of Michael Peterson through the Netflix documentary The Staircase. My personal feelings about Peterson's guilt or innocence aside, I wanted to know, "Can he write?"First published in 1990, A Time of War was released when I was in IOBC at Fort Benning in 1996. I'd never heard of Peterson. We had a recommended reading list with lots of Vietnam War books on it, A Rumor of War, Chickenhawk, We Were Soldiers, even the fictional Fields of Fire by Webb. But Peterson wasn't on it. Neither was Peterson included in the seminal collection of essays "Why Vietnam Still Matters" published in 1996.More to the point, no one I knew had heard of him. My peers would recommend On Killing, or Wolfe's The Right Stuff, some had already discovered George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones, but no one ever mentioned Peterson. I say this b/c the reviewers had compared his book to From Here to Eternity, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Naked and the Dead. Peterson is hardly any of those guys, but can Peterson write?Yes, Peterson knows how to tell a good yarn. The book is real potboiler stuff and Peterson hits all the tropes: sex, violence, corruption, greed, political intrigue. His description of Sung walking with a group of refugees into Saigon in Chapter 2 is fairly compelling..actually quite gripping.But that's about it. There's nothing poetic or transcendent about Peterson's writing. It's a good time and that's about it. But the book is long (750+ pp.) and has a certain pointlessness about it and not in a good way. You know how its all going to end. The read is just a guilty pleasure. There are also parallels between the character Marshall and Peterson himself that I would have preferred not to notice: the narcissism, the self-aggrandizement, covert sexuality...all on display. (Peterson can't even dedicate the book to his family without giving himself a hero's pat on the back.)Another strange thing about the book is that while Peterson really soars when he's writing about sex or violence or political intrigue...almost seems to revel in it...whenever he writes about Marshall's family, it seems fake, forced, melodramatic, cloying...embarrassing to read. Yeah, really that bad. Almost bad enough to make you want to throw the book down.I guess what it comes down to is are you willing to spend a couple of hours in the company of Michael Peterson. Or at least the 1990s version of Peterson before the staircase controversy.