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Summary: Brilliant.
Review: Tim O'Brien's language is so graceful it appears to have the touch of the supernatural. The central character, a politician and Viet Nam vet, is known as Sorcerer for his unidentifiable ease in making his way. O'Brien himself is such a writer.
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Summary: Review:
Review: An amazingly rich study of a tragic life ("tragic" in the Shakepearean sense, wherein a person achieves greatness through powerful strengths, yet ultimately destroys his life and the lives of those around him through equally powerful weaknesses). The style of the book, written as if it were a non-fiction investigation into the death of Kathy Wade, brings the reader so close and yet so far from understanding who John Wade was. On the one hand, I felt as though I knew so much about him since, within the context of the story, the fictional "author" had done a great deal of research into his life. But of course, the "author" never actually meets John. We get no firsthand accounts of him. All we get are quotes, suppositions, and re-creations. His story is sifted through multiple filters, leaving the real man tantalizingly out of reach.
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Summary: Another great, great piece of writing!
Review: I've read all of O'Brien's books and I rank IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS right at the top. It's partly a thriller, partly a love story, partly a look at the dark side of a Vietnam veteran's psyche. If some simple-minded readers get frustrated at the absence of an easy "solution" to the book's mystery, then they are missing the whole point of Tim O'Brien's story. What fascinates us is all that we cannot ever know in life -- lost loves, missing persons, what happens to us after we die. This is a beautiful, spooky, compelling, tightly written jewel of a book. Smart readers (who love a powerful and complex story) will be bowled over.
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Summary: Tim O'Brien Keeps Me Reading!
Review: This book is great! It has emotion, mystery, love, hate, the whole package. I really enjoy it and plan on reading more and more O'Brien books. I just read his new "Tomcat in Love" which is wickedly funny, and it's nothing like this, but both are really great. Keep it up, Mr. O'Brien, I'll keep reading.
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Summary: Middel-aged melodrama.
Review: Not execptionally written and not emotinally powerful enough to make it worthwhile. An interesting format in its investigative trope, but it doesn't really work. I just don't get what the big deal is.
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Summary: Wonderful book so far!!
Review: I really like this book. I haven't even finished the book and in fact I'm not even half-way through. The suspense of John and Kathy is great. I was suppose to read this book during school and now I regret that I didn't...but now I am glad that I decided to pick it up again. I will make another review when I am done with the book.
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Summary: Pleasure of the Heart and Soul
Review: This books is the middle ground between Life and the Search for Truth!! People who read it find a little something inside themselves that is special and NEW. A must read for all the beleivers in finding the thing that makes it all worth living.
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Summary: Good. Very, Very Good.
Review: This books displays just how talented a writer O'Brien is. O'Brien uses styles and tactics in his writing that I have rarely seen before. While not quite on a level with his "The Things they Carried," (very few books are) it is still a must-read. One side note: O'Brien is NOT a "war-writer." OH! How infuriated I become at the mention of this! O'Brien writes about what all human beings feel in their lives; NOT just for Vietnam Vets.
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Summary: An analysis of John Wade
Review: War, elections, family relationships, and a desire to be perfect all affected John Wade's life. The main character of In The Lake of the Woods by, Tim O'Brien, wanted to appear perfectly content to the public, therefore, he had to cover up some aspects of his past by burying them deep down inside. Experiencing a major war, being ridiculed, and watching a father kill himself are not situations that can be easily forgotten and ignored. John Wade's life did not work out the way he wanted it to, because he was trying to live a lie. John Wade's past affected his career tremendously, as it affects any politicians life. "Lieutenant governor at thirty-seven. Candidate for the United States Senate at forty. Loser by landslide at forty-one," (5). Wade was not perfect, because he could not cover up all the mistakes he has made. John Wade was overconfident, and far from perfect. This is a deadly combination in the political world. The Magician believed that he was untouchable, and had the whole country fooled, but in reality, John Wade had no chance of becoming a United States Senator. Some people still believed that John Wade was a good, trust worthy individual. Wade could still fool some people. One of these people was his neighbor, Ruth Rasmussen. She was quoted as saying: "For some reason Mr. Wade threw away that old iron teakettle. I fished it out of the trash myself. I mean it was a perfectly good teakettle," (30). Ruth was is possession of the weapon that killed Kathy Wade, and never even suspected it. Kathy had been missing for months, and never once did she think that John Wade had anything to do with her disappearance. Wade had convinced himself that he was not responsible for the death of his wife, by changing his own memories. This made it easy for Wade to convince others of the same. John Wade used more than emotional tactics to cover up his misconduct. He first did this to cover up some of the brutal things that he did during the Vietnam War. He went to the files and dug out a thick folder of morning reports for Charlie Company. Over the next two hours he made the necessary changes, mostly retyping, some scissors work, removing his name from each document and carefully tidying up the numbers. In a way it helped ease the guilt. (269).This selection shows that Wade could convince himself of his own innocence, and convince others through illegal activities and lies. John Wade had a very small conscience, which was easily ignored and forgotten. Wade would stop at nothing to make himself appear to be an All-American kind of guy. The ability to change his own memories was a frightful characteristic that John Wade had. He made himself believe that he was a good person, and that he was in no way responsible for the death of his wife. He fabricated alternative scenarios to explain Kathy's disappearance. He made it a freak accident, which occurred because Kathy had not planned a day trip will enough. She just ran out of gas, and was waiting somewhere to be found. "And here in a corner of John Wade's imagination, where things neither live nor die, Kathy stares up at him from beneath the surface of the silvered lake," (288). John Wade had blocked out this painful memory, just like he had blocked out his memories of the war in Vietnam. No feeling can stay buried forever, John Wade's pain would be known to the world eventually. Unfortunately it resurfaced through the murder of Kathy Wade. What would John Wade be like if he had never experienced war? Would he just be a silly old man who did magic tricks, only to be made fun of by the people in his life? John Wade did not have an easy life. He had many situations to struggle through. What made John Wade the way he was? "Can we believe that he was not a monster but a man? That he was innocent of everything except his life?" (303). If John Wade had never experience the turmoil of war, he would not have been a criminal, but he would not have been a prominent politician eith! er. The war took John's innocence away from him. John Wade would have feared the world, rather than have tried to conquer it, if he had not been in Vietnam. War changed John Wade. It ruined him, and his marriage. War made John an angry murderer, who could not even face himself. He had to become a new person in order to stay alive, but unfortunately for John, the illusion of his life was not complete.
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Summary: An interesting mystery with a historical background.
Review: This is a war story and a love story all in one. The book is based on the life and events of John Wade. The horror at My Lai in Vietnam and John Wade's childhood play a major role in the personality of this intriguing and controversial character. The two driving forces in John Wade's life are his need to be loved and his dementia. The reader is constantly questioning the character of John Wade as the reader asks himself if John could have really done what he is acused of. The book is interestingly pieced together and is written in an articulate manner. It is a good read and hard to put down.
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