Dog Soldiers

Rating:
Summary: Struggling with the Despair
Review: "Let smiles cease. Let laughter flee. This is the place where everybody finds out who they are." -Converse

Dog Soldiers is a story laced with despair, paranoia, and several other not so fuzzy moods, and this quote from the main character elegantly demonstrates this mood. The tone of the book was a point of interest and displeasure for me, since this was one of my first experiences with total negativity, it was a fun struggle for me to understand the point or the necessity of such an angry mood. At the same time it made me very uncomfortable, sometimes to the point where I would have to stop reading for the day.

There is a constant stream of action in this story, which makes it rather difficult to process what's going on as it happens. The story rarely drags and it is written so that it feels very real and alive. Slang terms are used often too, which are also hard to understand. But after the first few chapters it seems that most readers are able to get around this and start enjoying the fast paced style in which the book is written. This style also adds to the mood of panic and paranoia that encompass the entire book as Marge, Hicks, and Converse try to flee with their dope.

Marge, Hicks, and Converse are the book's three main characters, and as the plot follows first Converse's activities and then moves back and forth between Hicks and Converse, these two main characters develop into very complicated people. Marge's character isn't delved into as much, but it didn't seem to be that she was usually thinking about much besides the next time she could get high. Some of the things Converse and Hicks did or said still baffle me, just like the characters that are a part of my real life. Because all of the characters are so weak and hurt each other with such frequency and carelessness, I found it hard to like them, but I liked the fact that not many stories center on people of such violent natures.

I had to read Dog Soldiers for a class, and I'm not sure if I would ever seek out a book of such violent and depressing extremity on my own reading schedule, or even be able to get all the way through it without someone else pushing me along. It was hard to get into the story's angst and intensity, but once I was able to let myself enjoy such a gruesome story, I decided that Dog Soldiers is one of the best books I have read all year.

Rating:
Summary: A unique take on the Vietnam era
Review: After reading Tim O'Brien's "Going After Cacciato", I was sort of in a Vietnam-themed reading mood. I heard that Robert Stone, who had apparently been a companion of Keruoac, had written a dark adventure novel called "Dog Soldiers" that won the National Book Award. After reading the Biography.com description of Robert Stone and his "carefully crafted" books, I decided to give it a try.

For the most part, the book lived up to my expectations. It is indeed very exciting and pessimistic, but I did have trouble with some parts. One of the characters actively practices Zen at great length, but I didn't know much about that subject so much of that character was difficult to understand. Also, much of the discussion of drugs is written in a vernacular I'm not very familiar with, so a great deal of that was also difficult to understand. Aside from these shortcomings (which I know were largely my own), I would give the book five stars.

Rating:
Summary: Riveting and Real
Review: Framed in a story of drug smuggling gone wrong is a bleak portrait of America in the 1970s and of the people living then, specifically the subcultures. The underlying message appears to be how pointless things actually seemed (the Vietnam War, relationships, justice, life), and yet all the characters (and us as well) just keep soldiering on through the drudge and misery in the hopes that things get better. This is a sometimes difficult read that gets easier as the reader adjusts to the rhythms of the story. As the would-be drug smugglers end up on the run, the storyline picks up speed to its unexpected end.

Rating:
Summary: Dog Soldiers
Review: I felt that this book was an in-depth look on the crime and corruption in America in the 1970's during the Vietnam War. This book was about a drug deal gone very wrong because the main character, John Converse, was very inexperienced and wanted to deal drugs for the thrill of it. He gets a friend, Ray Hicks, who is in love with Converse's wife, to transport the three kilos of heroine from Vietnam to the US where Converse's wife, Marge, is supposed to take care of it. Unfortunately, the woman Converse was having an affair with and who he got the heroine from, Charmian, tipped off a CIA agent, Antheil. That led to Ray Hicks and Marge running away to New Mexico where Ray Hicks' insanity starts appearing as he gets very possessive over the heroine. All the characters and continuous switching of points of views from Converse to Ray and Marge made this book a little hard to understand at times. The explicit sex scene seemed a little unnecessary as did some of the "getting high" scenes in the book but overall, I think the author, Robert Stone, did a good job of representing the underground workings of the U.S. during the Vietnam war in the 1970's. He did an extremely good job with the dialogue when the characters were high. I could really get involved in what was going on because I felt as if everything was really happening. Dieter, a friend of Ray Hicks, said a quote in the book that I really liked. I think it really sums up what these people in the book were feeling. "There's such a thing as personal necessity. Maybe it's beyond moral areas." These people were doing anything and everything to get money from the heroine and it shows how evil people could really be.

Rating:
Summary: A great American novel
Review: I first read "Dog Soldiers" when I was a teenager and was deeply impressed by it. But judging from the reviews here this is a book that you will either love or hate with no in between. So be it. Stone is probably out of reach of most mainstream readers. The only bad thing I have to say about Stone is that he sold the film rights of "Dog Soldiers" to the wrong people. It was made into a very terrible movie called "Who'll Stop the Rain" starring the highly overrated Nick Nolte.

Rating:
Summary: The Darker Side of the 70s
Review: I read this book for a college course on the cold war. I couldn't believe my professor. He actually apologized for putting it on the curriculum! He said that it was perhaps too gross, or graphic.... or something. How insulting!...How are we s'poseta learn about the cold war if the teachers teach with sterilized kid gloves. This book is, to Vietnam, a more accessible version of what Gravity's Rainbow is to WWII. It's harsh but not without redemption. Dog soldiers is goods good good...

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I'd read a lot about how prescient Stone was about the drug trade and American involvement abroad, so I picked this book up, excited about a literary author who actually seemed interested in getting the reader's blood pumping. In any case, I was disappointed: I'm not sure how novel this was when it appeared in the 70s, but many of its scenes have become standard cliches of the movies - the torture scene, the bags of drugs, the shootouts in precarious and picturesque locations.

Perhaps it isn't fair to criticize a book for how much it's been imititated, but a genuine work of art shouldn't lose much of its lustre just because of mediocre followers, and I found myself genuinely bored by a great deal of Dog Soldiers. The only scene that showed the talent of the author was the surreal conversation between the central character and his slightly crazy mother. I haven't read A Flag For Sunrise or any of Stone's other books, but I'd certainly try those before this one.

Rating:
Summary: Sex, drugs and murder makes for a winner.
Review: The Dog Soldiers is an incredibly well written novel by Robert Stone. He tells the story of an over seas drug deal gone bad. A lot of the book is the characters experiences with sex and drugs in full description. This book is great for anyone interested in the counterculture, but is not for the weak hearted as many of the sex and drug scenes are extremely descriptive. I loved this book because I am so interested in the 60's and 70's. As I was reading the book I kept thinking about what my parents were like during this time. A lot of the book is disturbing to read becuase it is so hard to beliecve that people behaved like this. You really must keep in mind that this was a completely different time period and morals and ideas were extremely different. The characters are very hard to like becuase they are so weak, but the book is a quick read and is very interesting.