Humans have always been fascinated with war. The earliest written works, from Gilgamesh to the Illiad are centered heavily around it. We seem to crave something about the violence, the heroism, the tragedy. Authors from Heller to Hemingway have written their most definitive works about war, attempting to craft some sort of narrative to help make sense of the insanity that plagues our brutish human nature. One of the latest attempts at sculpting meaning from war belongs to the author Phil Klay in his recent book Redeployment.
Redeployment is a collection of twelve short stories chronicling the Iraq War over the past decade. Klay himself served in the Marines Corps for several years, which lends him a decidedly unique perspective. Each story has a character in some way involved in the war. These characters range from a chaplain stationed in Iraq to an artillery man, struggling to come to terms with the deaths he is responsible for. Each character lends their own unique voice and perspective on the war. In an interview with the National Book Foundation, Klay commented on this narrative decision:
“When I came back from war, one of the things that happened was that people would ask me what it was like, and how the war is going. And I generally felt empowered to answer them. After all, I’d been there. And yet, each person has such a small piece of the war, and that piece will be powerfully shaped not only by when they were there and where in Iraq they were, but also by what job they did. So rather than writing a unified novel about the experience of war, I wanted twelve different voices—voices that would approach similar themes but from very different perspectives … And part of my intent was that that would open a space for the reader to come in and critically engage with the sorts of claims the narrators are making.”
The result of this panoply of perspectives is what feels like as close to an understanding of the war that someone not immediately involved can have. Klay, through this collection, makes clear that the war, and maybe war in general, is not some single definable thing, but rather a collection of individual experiences that shape the movements of nations. Through an idealistic post grad, Klay comments on the facade that is military/bureaucratic ‘success.’ Through a veteran suffering from PTSD, Klay reveals the immense sacrifice that we ask of our soldiers. Through a military chaplain, Klay navigates the struggle to create some sort of meaning out of a seemingly meaningless world. All of these themes are woven into fabric of war, and Klay proves equal to the task of knitting them all together.
In Redeployment, we have perhaps one of the defining works concerning the War in Iraq. It is at times cynical, at others optimistic. It is darkly funny, and hopelessly tragic. The stories are engaging and the reader will turn the last page one step closer to understanding what exactly it means to be a human being.
@TheChrony