This novel was quite the literary event, when it first appeared, in 2012. I finally got the chance to read it, and it was not half bad.
A military group, the Bravos, of which Billy Lynn is a member, is honored at a Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving Day Football Game, for their brave deeds. That is the plot, but within there are insights to military versus sports loyalty, family values, self-righteous heterosexuality, and the perils of fame, where even there, one can get screwed.
Those on the Right Wing spectrum can read this as a justification of their twisted ideals. You know which spectrum I am on, darlings, and I see this as a social expose of all that supposed REAL Americans hold dear. Only, it is not very dear. And Billy Lynn knows it.
Maybe I thought the book a tad too long. Maybe I felt it was a novella having been extended too far. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth reading.
It is a socio-political Rorschach test. See where you stand, dolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yup I remember this book.
ReplyDeleteThere was a weird, stylized movie version too.
I haven't been reading here long so, what's your opinion on politics, the military, guns etc.
MY opinion is, politicians are pretty much all terrible people.
ReplyDeleteThe book is not one of my faves.
Hard to imagine it as a movie.
I don't get political on here
much, but let me tell you. I grew
up in a strctily right wing house,
around a right wing family. I made my
decision early in life to think for
myself. It started with me buying
Joan Baez recordings. I loved her
voice and songs, my parents and relatives
hated her politically. And things continued
as I got older. My parents stood by me, as
did my sister and her kids, but the rest I
do not have much of a relationship to anymore.
And that is OK.