The title of Clayton's novel, Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam, seemed odd and whimsical when I first saw it. I'm used to Vietnam novels with stark, bold titles like The Short-Timers, The Fire Dream, or The Green Berets. But something about the title intrigued me and drew me in.
After reading the novel, I realized that the simple, straight-forward title is the perfect description for a book about a simple, straight-forward boy who becomes a man while fighting in Vietnam. Clayton's book is a coming-of-age story about Carl Melcher, a young man unsure of his place in the world who ends up getting drafted after he flunks out of college.
Melcher has never really experienced anything outside of "white bread suburbia" before he goes to Vietnam. As he tells his tale in plain, unadorned, and highly readable language, Carl frequently flashes back to childhood memories. The only way he can make sense of the confusion and violence surrounding him is to compare it to the games he played in his youth. By making Vietnam out to be no more than a children's game of war, he highlights the grim reality of his situation. Carl's fantasy mind-set makes the horror and death around him all the more poignant.
Clayton's novel has a pathos heavier than most Vietnam novels I've read but it never dips into the maudlin or hackneyed to pull response from the reader. The style is direct and even, evoking emotion through situation and characterization more than through language itself. Because Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam does not insist that your heart should bleed for its characters, the emotional impact is honest and satisfying.
This is a novel for people who like to read about people. Even those not normally inerested in war novels will enjoy this book because it's about the characters first and the war second. It is a sad and beautiful novel of friendship, loss, disillusionment and alienation that speaks as much to our times as it does about its own.
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