In Pharaoh's Army: Memories Of The Lost War (1995) - Plot & Excerpts
Tobias Wolff must drive writing instructors nuts. His prose is easy, lucid, and wonderfully effective... but its sheer easiness, lucidity, and effectiveness makes it impossible to crack. Like George Orwell's, his style is a zenlike no-style -- no splashy effects, no tricky wordplay, nothing you can latch onto and say "yes, that's how he does it!" It's also dangerous. Because Wolff feels like he's in your head while you read him, it's so very easy to take everything he says at face value. Which is why In Pharaoh's Army, Wolff's memoir of his tour of duty in Vietnam, reminds me so much of Robert Graves's World War I memoir Good-bye to All That. Graves's "autobiography" is full of novelistic touches, including outright lies. For instance, Graves is probably more responsible than anyone for the myth -- still widely repeated -- that British troops heated water for their tea by firing off belt after belt of ammunition until the water in their guns boiled. He tells a similar story of British and German gunners tapping out Morse code messages to each other by stripping cartridges out of the ammo belts at certain intervals. But machine guns don't work that way, as anyone who served in the trenches would've known.* Similarly, Wolff portrays himself as naive, a child-in-arms who wasn't really sure what he was doing and not very good at it, either. But Wolff was a Green Beret. Their washout rate is between 70-90%, and nobody who volunteers for the Special Forces, especially in wartime, can be under any illusions about where he'll be going and what he'll be doing when he gets there. Which is not to say Wolff is lying about what he did or didn't do; it's just a word of caution. Soldiers who write well enough to get their memoirs published are already quite different from ordinary soldiers. Wolff is the rarest of the rare, an elite warrior who is also an elite writer. His experiences likely don't translate to the rank and file. One thing is probably universal, though: the boredom. In Pharaoh's Army is fascinating, but it's a "war story" only in the loosest technical sense. Wolff sees very little action; most of his time in-country is spent as a liaison with the South Vietnamese, directing artillery fire. But even the toughest troops in the hottest zones don't spend the majority of their time in combat. It's a cliche that "war is ninety-nine percent boredom and one percent sheer terror," but cliches are cliches because they're true. Wolff gives us the 99&, and he makes it fascinating. In Pharaoh's Army isn't really "about" Vietnam, much less war in general, and it's well worth a read just for the prose. But if you're interested in seeing the other side of combat through the eyes of a philosophical, wonderfully talented observer, get it right away.*the key word in "water-cooled machine gun" is "cooled." As in, the water circulates through the gun, cooling it by evaporation. As Paul Fussell points out in his wonderful discussion of World War I literature, The Great War and Modern Memory, anyone who drank tea made from that stuff would basically be drinking machine oil. Similarly, the blowback from each expended bullet is what brings a new round into the firing chamber, so taking bullets out of an ammo belt makes a machine gun useless.
War stories are really my brother's forte, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's a memoir of Vietnam, and because I read it for a Creative Non-Fiction class, I'm left wondering whether a few things actually happened. Is truth crazier than fiction?I also really loved the interjections of writerly advice within the narrative, and wish Wolff would have given us more. A young man overseas, always with a novel in the back of his head. In many ways, I related. In many ways, I found truth within his words, and I think I may have found my "in" to the novel I started writing.The format of the book was especially endearing. Each chapter really was its own short story. There is no true linear progression, and yet there is one. We start off in Vietnam, after he and his buddy has just stolen a color TV upon which they're planning to watch the Thanksgiving special of Bonzana. Then we're back in the States, following the author around as he tries to figure out what the hell he's doing with his life. Then back to the war. We are told even before meeting them that some of his buddies are going to die, and yet we watch their relationships unfold ignorant of that fact.He's funny without trying too hard to be funny, an unique trait among writers nowadays. His humor comes from the mouth of someone real, not merely a vessel for funny sayings. It read, perhaps, like the memoir of someone I might know. A full-timer, down in the dish room, who doesn't talk about it, but it's always there, like the dreams that were so viciously taken away from them and the dreams that they gave up on.
What do You think about In Pharaoh's Army: Memories Of The Lost War (1995)?
Read This Boys Life and fell in love with Tobias Wolff's writing so I decided to read In Pharaoh's Army next. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, but it didn't hold my attention as much. I kept falling out of the book. In theory, Pharaoh's Army has more plot and interest. Yet, I think the way Wolff writes about being a boy and a child is somehow more compelling and universal. This book left me feeling lonely, sad and ready to move on. Not to say parts of it weren't beautifully written. Wolff is such an observant writer. He sees the smallest details that reveal large truths and writes them in simple but poetic ways. If you're looking to learn a lot about Vietnam this is not a book for you. If you're looking to fall in love with characters this ain't the place. If you want to read a well constructed piece of writing from a great memoirist read this.One thing I admire about Wolff is his restraint. So much memoir is about shock-value; about exposing the reader to extreme feelings and situations. But life is lived mostly in the mundane and Wolff writes masterfully about these moments. He doesn't need to exaggerate or sensationalize things to keep you reading, because he is an excellent writer.This just wasn't my favorite of his. Hence the three stars.
—Kate
I loved This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff so reading his memoir of his time in Vietnam was a no-brainer. It is well-written and tells of Vietnam in a succinct almost detached fashion that maximizes the available horror. In particular, Wolff's description of the impact of the Tet Offensive will haunt me to my grave in the way that Michael Herr's description of Hue has.Wolff is less the soldier and more the writer throughout the book and you wonder how he got himself there. In many ways the book is about the search for self and for manhood and all the wrong places those searches can tell you. Interspersed are stories of his family, his parolee father and his brother, academician and writer, Gregory Wolff. Wolff has a talent for relating the small detail that sets off a string of details that become a story before you know it's happened. Worth reading both for a deeper understanding of Vietnam and for a great example of good memoir writing.
—Caitlin
When I describe Wolff's work to people, I say he's probably the most emulated short story writer in America. You have to read one of his stories and have read a lot of american creative writing work to know what I mean. And these are memoirs, which is pretty indicative of american fiction. He has the clarity of a baldwin, the structures of carver, and seems to have lived a life like hemingway. I don't recognize his tone, which is often a little cruel, so I'll say it's distinctly Wolff. This is probably his best collection of stories, overall -- but with nothing as perfect as 'bullet in the brain.'
—Albert
