The Nuclear Age
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The Nuclear Age description
In 1969, 22-year-old Tim O'Brien was drafted and eventually sent to Vietnam. In a memoir, If I Die in a Combat Zone and two works of fiction--Going After Cacciato and The Things They Carried--he revisited the war, crafting gut-wrenching tales of terror, death, and futility among the rice paddies and jungles of Southeast Asia. In The Nuclear Age the author explores the road not taken: his hero, William Cowling, avoided the draft and spent the 1960s, instead, in a welter of antiwar radicalism. But soon one begins to wonder how different life in the underground, with its strange mix of idealistic visionaries and glory-seeking psychotics, really is from the battlefields of Vietnam. Enlisted in the ranks of an antiwar paramilitary organization in Florida, William remarks to his radical girlfriend Sarah that the group is "like a death squad. Can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, they're all gunslingers. Completely scrambled. But it's lethal. I know that much, it'll kill somebody." Nevertheless, he sticks it out in a noncombatant capacity and resurfaces several years later at the end of the war as a profitable trader in uranium. Success hasn't dulled William Cowling's survival instinct, however; at the novel's start in 1995, the now-middle-aged businessman is busy digging a bomb shelter in his back yard. Nuclear war has been a particular obsession of his since those childhood drills back in the mid-1950s during which he was expected to crawl under his desk at school and cover his head against fallout. Forty years later, he still isn't taking any chances. His daughter thinks he's crazy, his wife is on the verge of leaving him, but still he digs--and as he digs he reviews the events in his life that have led up to this moment. The Nuclear Age is especially strong when it focuses on William's childhood and the complex web of relationships that exist within families. Less successful is O'Brien's portrayal of his character's obsession with nuclear war; though we are meant to see William as the only truly sane man in an insane world, all too often he comes across as genuinely cracked. Despite the book's weaknesses, it has many strengths, not least among them being Tim O'Brien's fierce intelligence, black wit, and eloquent prose. --Alix Wilber |
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The Nuclear Age Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥
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Sign of the Times
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With every novel, whether it is his best writing or just under par, Tim O'Brien proves himself to be a master storyteller. His words spring to vivid life in the reader's mind; his characters as enthralling as they are flawed; his stories slightly absurd and complex, but always rewarding, no matter how strange the journey.
"The Nuclear Age" begins with the main character, William Cowling, waking at midnight to dig a bomb shelter in his backyard. In the morning, his wife and daughter are far from pleased, certain that he has gone insane when he can't explain his actions. The story then shifts back in time to recount William's childhood, the nightly terrors of nuclear war that had him building a bomb shelter under the ping pong table in the basement and caused his parents to worry about him. The reader follows William as he ages, ever the outcast on the fringes. With the onset of the war in Vietnam, William finds new purpose, and perhaps a dangerous alliance.
The bulk of the narrative takes place in William's past, with the coalition of renegade friends who plan sabotage as a means of war protest, while William is hiding out, having dodged the draft. The war in Vietnam is never far from O'Brien's writing, so it is interesting to have a story that takes place on the homefront, although the war is ever present. The story takes a turn for the absurd when William fears his bomb shelter will cause him to lose his family, but O'Brien crafts such a cunning story that the loose ends are tied up. "The Nuclear Age" is a demonstration of O'Brien's wit, with laugh-out-loud moments, and the subtle way he can strike a message home is a testament to his intelligence. |
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