I have a great affinity for Tim O'Brien's writing style. In general, this book was a real page-turner that kept me engaged.

However, I did encounter some difficulties along the way. The excessive use of quotes throughout the book was a bit of a stumbling block for me. It felt as if there were just too many, and it made it a bit challenging to fully immerse myself in the story.

Another aspect that I struggled with was the overabundance of repetition. This was particularly true when it came to the memories from Vietnam. The ghastly repetition of these memories really hit me hard and made it difficult to read at times.

The themes of rape and murder were also constantly present, right in your face. Maybe O'Brien's intention was to show just how often these atrocities were in the face of the soldiers during the war. While that may be the case, I believe that just imagining what happened is already enough horror.

Despite these drawbacks, I wouldn't completely discount O'Brien's writing or his genre. He is clearly a talented writer, but this particular book just wasn't my favorite of his.

I really wanted to have a much greater affection for this book than I actually did. As I was reading it, I constantly thought that I should be deriving more enjoyment from it. However, that simply wasn't the case.

Essentially, this was a character exploration of the main character after the events had occurred. It was written in a way that seemed as if it was compiled from the notes of an investigator. Although the majority of it read like a typical narrative, there were certain chapters labeled "evidence" that were filled with quotes from various sources, both real and fictional, that were related to the story in some manner. There were also "hypothesis" chapters where he was speculating about what had happened to the main character's wife who had suddenly disappeared.

The story was told in a nonlinear fashion, intermixing the past, present, and future. Surprisingly, it worked better for me than most nonlinear stories do. Nevertheless, I still missed having a single, straightforward narrative. There were moments in the story where he would make references to things from the future, such as saying "John would wonder about this moment in two days after his wife vanished," which didn't sit well with me. I often feel that this kind of writing creates a sense of distance between me and the story, making it difficult for me to form a deep connection.

Moreover, it was a bit too convoluted for my taste. I prefer to be able to keep track of every single detail that is happening, but this was one of those stories where that wasn't possible and perhaps not even necessary. Each quote was referenced to a source, some with the date of the interview, and I made a great effort to keep all of that organized in my mind, but it was just overwhelming. It was one of those things that, while not truly essential, definitely bothered me when I couldn't manage it.

I also didn't find the main character as captivating as I should have. As I mentioned earlier, this book was essentially a character study of this man and his entire life. I usually love books that focus on character studies, but I just wasn't that intrigued by John Wade. He was deliberately portrayed as an unlikable character who stalked his wife and frequently talked about his love for manipulating people. But for some reason, it didn't strike me as particularly interesting. I can't quite put my finger on the exact reason, but I just wasn't as invested in him as I should have been. Still, it was enough to keep me engaged and get through the entire book in a day.

Finally, there was one aspect of this book that really bothered me. The person who was compiling the book, who wasn't actually a character in the story and mostly remained removed from the narration, stated that he didn't think the main character had killed his wife because he was crazy about her. How could a man who literally stalked his wife, said he needed her, got extremely jealous, and caught her cheating on him not be a suspect for murdering her just because he was crazy about her? He seemed like a prime candidate for having committed the crime. That's not to say that I think he actually did it, but that one line really rubbed me the wrong way. Men who kill their wives often exhibit those kinds of behaviors, and I didn't like the implication that the reason he wouldn't have done it was because he was crazy about her. But since it was just one line, it didn't completely ruin the book or anything. It just made me feel very uncomfortable when I read it.

Overall, I thought this book was fairly decent. It managed to hold my attention, and I was able to finish it quickly because I enjoyed the act of reading it. There was always something that prevented me from fully enjoying it, and I can't quite figure out what that was. It was probably a combination of all the issues I had mentioned, but nothing was singularly bad enough to completely turn me off. It's definitely a book that I would recommend if it sounds interesting to you. I thought the style was really unique and well-executed, just maybe not entirely to my liking overall.

Additional warning: This is not a book where you're going to get closure or find out for certain what happened. That's not a spoiler; it's stated quite early on. So if you're someone who needs to know the truth about what occurred, this probably isn't the right book for you.

Why do the books that kids have to read for school have to be so awful???

This particular book was truly miserable and extremely difficult to comprehend.

It didn't even read like a proper story. You couldn't really get a sense of the characters or their emotions; it was just about how they behaved.

They all seemed crazy!

Ugh - I'll be so relieved when high school English is finally over.

It's really frustrating to have to struggle through these kinds of books that don't engage or interest us.

We should be reading books that激发 our imagination and make us want to keep turning the pages.

Instead, we're stuck with these dull and confusing ones.

Hopefully, there will be some changes in the future and we'll get to read more enjoyable and meaningful books in school.

There comes a time when you question your own sanity.

This time of year is particularly conducive to it. Spending an hour or two traveling a wasted winter landscape can do it to you too. You read a book like In the Lake of the Woods, and you might think you're pretty stable by comparison. But O'Brien will fuck with you. He'll teach you there is no truth. The only truth, he says, is the one you find by looking inward. But what if you're fucked? Then there is no truth.

Mary said this was a book about pain. About being haunted. That's definitely the case. This is the perfect cure to all the glib holiday gusto. Fake it til you make it, eh? How bout you just lay all the cards out on the table and take what comes? Cause it's going to catch up to you eventually. Quit running from it. If it's going to consume you, let it, and be done with it.

I really enjoyed Skippy Dies. Got it for my brother in law this year for Christmas. He laughed when he saw the title. \\"Your brother got me a book about a kid choking on donuts...\\" \\"--In the first couple pages, no less!\\" I felt a strong connection to all the characters in Skippy. It's hard to imagine feeling a stronger connection to anyone on the written page, but O'Brien did it. I grieved with these characters as though I was sitting right next to them, offering them a blanket and a warm cup of tea. I couldn't very well tell any of them it was gonna be all right because that would be untruthful, no truth or not. But I feel like I was given the opportunity to sit with them in order that I might somehow come out of it a better person. One of those life changing books. One of those that no matter how hard you scrub, you'll never erase the weight it left you to carry. And you don't want to. If it were to leave, a part of yourself would then be missing. And like the characters here, you would be damned to wander the Lake forever, searching, searching for that which is truly meaningful and real in your own life.

This was a truly fucked up story. It centered around one extremely fucked up guy. His childhood was a complete mess, filled with turmoil and trauma. His marriage wasn't any better, also being in a seriously fucked up state. And then there was probably the most notoriously fucked up incident that emerged from America's most fucked up war.

Despite all the chaos and darkness within the story, I have to respect it as a piece of well-crafted literature. The author had managed to weave together these elements in a way that was both captivating and disturbing. However, I certainly can't say that I enjoyed it. The themes and events were just too沉重 and depressing. It made me reflect on the harsh realities of life and the consequences of our actions.

Overall, it was a powerful and thought-provoking piece, but not one that I would recommend to everyone. It requires a strong stomach and an open mind to fully appreciate its depth and complexity.

What an amazing 5-star book, what a gem from the shelves!

When you discover a book that is almost twenty years old, which you didn't even know existed, and which grabs you by the throat into its history, then you simply relax and enjoy.

A type-A obsessive, passionate, Vietnam veteran, successful politician who knew absolute defeat, withdraws with his wife to a secluded rural home, to find their "equilibrium" again, to come to terms with the situation and ultimately save their marriage. Until one morning, she disappears...

Excellent psychological portrayal of all those presented in the book, the evil of war and its impact on those involved is horrifically present throughout history, and a wife who couldn't take it anymore (?), are enough to give 5 stars.

First of all, this book made me realize just how much I typically enjoy most of the books that I read. Because this one was a screaming exception.

The basic summary of the story is as follows: "In the Lake of the Woods" is O'Brien's depiction of a historian or biographer's attempt to piece together the mystery of the disappearance of Kathy Wade. Kathy's husband, John, recently lost a primary election to become Minnesota's Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate after his involvement in the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam was exposed to the public.

I absolutely hated the structure of the book. It was divided into the story, pages of strange evidence (quotes from other trials, from literature, from interviews of the missing woman's case), and hypothetical imaginings of where the woman might be. I didn't care if they found her. I also didn't care what happened to John.

I despised John (the main character). I had no regard for his wife Kathy (the missing woman). I loathed the story itself and didn't care about anything that was happening to them. I just felt a sense of revulsion at how they portrayed John's obsession with his wife throughout college - it completely grossed me out. HATE.

People on Amazon's reviews mostly loved it. But I truly appreciated this particular negative review because it accurately captured how I felt about it: "This novel does not have enough thematic substance or emotional resonance to hold our interest. The symbolism is heavy-handed and the protagonist lacks sympathy. His parents are caricatures, as are the other supporting characters. Kathy, the missing wife, is not developed as a character enough nor is their marriage compelling enough to arouse our interest in their fate as a couple or as individuals."

I'm so glad it's OVER. I never have to read that one again.

When you pick up this book, it feels as if you are about to embark on a journey that will lead you to a place of great darkness. You are told to dig two graves - one for yourself, and another for the death of innocence.

From the very first chapter, titled “How Unhappy They Were,” it is evident that this will be a read that delves deep into the shadows. We know that the hours are ticking away until Kathy will be gone, but we have no idea just how far down this rabbit hole the story will take us. I found myself faltering both while listening and reading, and even writing this response has taken an emotional toll on me.

John Wade, a boy who was insecure and had an interest in magic, loses his father to suicide at the tender age of 14. He then goes on to serve in Vietnam, comes home, marries his college sweetheart, enters politics, and almost manages to leave his past behind. However, fate has other plans, and his past catches up with him in the worst possible way.

The investigation that follows his wife’s disappearance presents the threads of his life as evidence. It is a jumbled mix of his childhood magic paraphernalia, testimony from his Charlie Company about a village massacre, and items related to Wade’s breakdown on the night his wife vanished. Also included are quotes from and about politicians and their desperate need for validation, as well as historical figures infamous for their violent acts.

For Wade, everything in life is a trick. In Vietnam, the trick was to maintain his sanity. When he returned home, the trick was to keep the secrets of what he had done. And for Kathy, the trick was to make her love him and never stop. He is possessive and obsessive about her, spying on her and comparing their love to a pair of snakes eating each other’s tails until they both disappear, with the equation “One plus one equals zero.”

When the secrets finally come to light and all hope for unconditional love and validation is lost, Wade retreats behind the mirrors in his mind. His soldier persona, “Sorcerer,” emerges and performs the trick of his life - a vanishing act. It is the only way he can let her go and the only way out for him.

What is even more chilling is the author’s footnote, which reveals that the story and his writing are motivated by the desire to confront the mystery and the implacable otherness of others. Despite all the study he has done on his character John Wade, the author admits that “the man’s soul remains for me an absolute and impenetrable unknown, a nametag drifting willy-nilly on oceans of hapless fact.” He realizes that what drives him is a craving to force entry into another heart, just as we are compelled to care about Lizzie Borden, Lee Harvey Oswald, or the Little Big Horn - because of the mystery that lies within.

The author ends the book with compassion for Wade, suggesting that he may not be a monster but simply a man. He asks, “Can we believe that he was not a monster but a man? That he was innocent of everything except his life?” And for the rest of us, he writes, “One way or another, it seems, we all perform vanishing tricks, effacing history, locking up our lives and slipping day by day into the graying shadows.”

As readers, we can understand John Wade as a man who has suffered a traumatic childhood and has been further traumatized by the horrors of Vietnam. But can we truly confront the pure and absolute Mystery of otherness and our inability to truly know anyone? This reader, for one, experienced an overload of existential contemplation that required emergency treatment in the form of mindless binge-watching #soulpunch.

Like his renowned work The Things They Carried, this book is yet another profound meditation on the deeply haunting effect that Vietnam had on a generation of Americans and its lasting impact on the national and individual psyche. The narrative is masterfully layered, making it a while before the true heart of the book reveals itself. On the surface, it presents the story of a failed politician and the mysterious disappearance of his wife. However, as the layers are gradually peeled back, we come to realize that it is also a poignant tale of the needy and wounded psyche of Wade, who is not only a fictional individual but also a kind of Everyman.

O'Brien's writing style is characterized by plain, clean, and direct prose. Yet, the story he tells is oblique and complicated. Here, he employs chapters of hypotheses, along with interviews and multi-time narratives, to create a palpable sense of mystery and tension. These elements open up the story, presenting a plethora of possibilities rather than confining it to a neatly defined and resolved ending.

This book is likely not for those who crave definitive closure and a complete understanding of what exactly happened. However, if you relish challenging literature that engages the reader and treats them as an intelligent participant in the act of story-telling, then this work is both potent and highly satisfying.

This was a Book of the Month (BOTM) read for me, and I managed to finish it. However, I have to say that I found absolutely no redeeming qualities in either of the main characters. To my mind, they were flat and completely undimensional. The ending, if you could even call it that, was more like a non-ending. The writing style was a bit tedious to get through as it went backwards, forwards, and sideways, with the sideways bits being footnotes that were presumably meant to give it a more scholarly effect. But unfortunately, it just didn't work for me.

There was some background provided, but it was nowhere near enough when it came to Kathy. As a result, I have no idea why she married and chose to stay with John. Since I couldn't find any redeeming qualities in him, I ended up lacking respect for her as well.

John, on the other hand, was damaged from the start. His father was an alcoholic and had committed suicide, and to top it off, John was involved in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, which no doubt caused him even more trauma. He was active in politics and had some success for a while, until all the skeletons started falling out of the closet. Whether it was PTSD or something else like tertiary syphilis, it's hard to say.

In the end, Kathy vanished, and John drove a boat and disappeared as well. And that's it. It was completely anticlimactic. It would have had at least some impact if something had been found later on, like shoes, the vanished boat, the gas can, or maybe even a body part. But no, they just vanished without a trace.

Maybe this entire story was just a dying man's fantasy, similar to the concept in the TV show LOST. Overall, I gave this book two stars, and I have to admit that I was being rather generous.

In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien is a historical fiction book that vividly描绘s the brutal slaughter of Vietnamese villagers by American soldiers on March 16, 1968, in Thuan Yen, South Vietnam. The reading experience is truly harrowing. Those who endured that fateful day and survived are forever scarred.

The fictional story's central protagonist, John Ward, was present on that day. The narrative revolves around him and his wife, Kathy. John enters politics in an attempt to cleanse the stains of his past. However, when he runs for the U.S. senate, his past resurfaces, and some accuse him of atrocities committed in Vietnam. After losing his senatorial bid, he and Kathy retreat to the woods of northern Minnesota, where Kathy mysteriously disappears. This is the fictional aspect of the story, but the exploration of life after surviving that March day is far from fictional.

The book presents a mystery that demands to be solved. What happened to Kathy? Was it murder? If so, by whom and how? Or was it suicide? Do the known facts support this?

The author presents the facts in a way that keeps the reader guessing, which can be frustrating. The story jumps back and forth not only in time but also between chapters of different content, purpose, and type. This is extremely confusing at the start. There are chapters titled "hypothesis" and others titled "evidence," which relate to a possible crime, but we still don't know if a crime is truly at the heart of Kathy's disappearance. These chapters are interspersed with those about events in John's and Kathy's lives, which are not presented in chronological order. In the initial "evidence chapters," we are given quotes without knowing who the characters are or what has occurred. Quotes from books and well-known people are also thrown in, making the information unclear and difficult to understand without context. Other information is withheld to heighten suspense, which I don't appreciate. The way the story is constructed is not to my liking.

Moreover, information is repeated, and the most gruesome and disturbing elements are emphasized, intended to shock and repulse the reader, which they do.

Kathy is a character I couldn't relate to at all. I thought I understood her at first, but my initial impression quickly vanished. The more I learned about her, the less I comprehended.

I gave the book two stars instead of one because I do appreciate what the author is trying to convey about the Vietnam War, those who fought in it, politicians, and the destructive consequences of keeping secrets in a relationship. I have no issue with the novel's messages, but I don't like the way the author chose to convey them. I have no problem with the story's open-ended conclusion, as we are forewarned.

The audiobook, narrated by L. J. Ganser, is excellent. I have no complaints about his performance, which is clear and easy to follow, so I gave it four stars.

In conclusion, while I don't like how this story is told, I do think it's good that the events of March 16, 1968, in Thuan Yen, South Vietnam, are brought to the forefront.

*******************

*The Things They Carried 3 stars
*In the Lake of the Woods 2 stars
*Going After Cacciato TBR

“The human desire for certainty collides with our love of enigma…Would it help…to issue a reminder that death itself resolves into uncertainty, and that out of such uncertainty arise great temples of tales of salvation?” – Tim O’Brien, In the Lake of the Woods

In 1986, as this captivating book commences, John Wade, a once-promising politician, experiences a crushing landslide defeat in his attempt to secure a seat in the US Senate. He had been leading in the polls, but unfavorable publicity in the recent past had sealed his fate. Devastated, he withdraws with his wife, Kathy, to a secluded cabin at the Lake of the Woods in Minnesota, near the border of Canada. However, within a mere 36 hours of their arrival at the cabin, Kathy mysteriously disappears.

The narrative unfolds by presenting various hypotheses regarding what might have happened to Kathy. It also delves into John’s past, including his childhood, relationship history, hobbies, service in Vietnam, and his career in politics. Chapters consisting of evidence are sporadically inserted, yet ironically, these evidence chapters do not always bring clarity. Instead, they seem to create more questions, adding to the complexity and layered nature of the story. It appears that the author, years later, is still involved in trying to piece together the events that transpired. Themes such as relationships, the suppression of horrible memories, the contrast between appearances and reality, and the psychological scars of war are explored.

The tone of uncertainty is maintained to an astonishing degree. Throughout the story, the reader is constantly left questioning whether or not John was involved in his wife’s disappearance. As a cautionary note, the book includes detailed and gory descriptions of war-related carnage against civilians, which is an integral part of John Wade’s past and crucial to the plot. I was so engrossed that I put aside everything else I was reading to finish this book. I found it utterly fascinating.