Read as leg 3 (Texas, USA) of the
Bookpacking reading journey.
Billy Lynn and the rest of Bravo Platoon are
nearing the end of their ‘victory tour’, their last engagement at Texas
Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys, for the Thanksgiving Day game against the
Bears.
The ‘engagement’ that got them here was a
short, sharp and bloody firefight in Iraq, captured on newsreel footage which,
being largely successful from the US viewpoint, has become an internet
sensation at home and a totem for the war effort. Their reward is a short
furlough back in the US – provided they perform in the media circus and accept
their due as heroes of the nation.
Billy Lynn doesn’t feel like a hero, he didn’t
exactly volunteer to serve, and the adulation is starting to wear thin.
There is a lot going on at Texas Stadium, a
lot for Billy to process. Bravo now have an agent who is trying to cut them a
film deal, promising big bucks but so far delivering nothing; their role in the
half time show is vague and while it should include meeting the fabulously
attractive cheerleaders, Beyoncé led Destiny’s Child will be on stage too; and
the Cowboys owner has invited the platoon into his suite for hospitality among
the rich and powerful, which takes them all far from their comfort zone.
Billy has two other preoccupations. He had
twenty-four hours at home, down the road at Stovall, that reintroduced him to
his family’s troubles and during which his sister Kathryn tried to persuade him
to dodge his return to war; and now he’s besotted with one of the cheerleaders
who to his surprise seems to reciprocate. More immediately he needs a drink and
some pills for his headache.
Through the blur in his head the contradictions
between his current treatment as a ‘hero’ and his previous as a ‘grunt’, a
nobody, lead to half-formed questions about who he is actually fighting for;
whose will the victory be? But though war is hell, and victory maybe hollow,
could he walk away from his platoon, his comrades, his true loyalty?
The narration places the reader firmly in
Billy’s consciousness, making the language authentic and providing a lot of
buy-in to his situation and mindset.
Billed as “the Catch 22 of the Iraq war”,
this takes a swipe less at the military than the civilian context of the war.
There is humour but the out-loud laughs are fewer and the cynicism is more
bitter – Billy is only nineteen so his eyes are just opening to the
self-serving and exploitation that abounds.
Billy Lynn is a book of its time and one that
deserves to be read and enjoyed on its own merits.
No comments:
Post a Comment