A very hard but entertaining read.

In this novel of the nuclear age, there is no nuclear wa5r, just great fear of it by the protagonist. GREAT fear. From building a shelter as a young child to apparently digging his own bomb shelter as a married adult, we are constantly involved in his phobia. His protest of nuclear war in college leads to greater protests against the war in Vietnam and even to a brief stint in a radical terrorist organization. There are surprise turns mixed in with predictability before you finish.

What if...

Ugh, I had to put it down after the first three chapters.

Such a masculine point of view. The main character was not at all sympathetic to me, I mean he describes his blond wife and daughter as "assets" at one point.

I guess if you are into/can identify with that sort of man-boy angst this would be great. If that isn't your cup of tea then pass this over in favor of something else.

Now I know what it feels like to be a guy and try to read Twilight.

I had not expected this one to be as good as it is. I saw it as the one I had to get through to read The Things They Carried. But, man, it's so far above what I imagined. From now on there will be no doubting of Tim O'Brien. That man can write like no one else. It's funny how he always seems to circle the same themes and subjects but his voice can be so different in different books. William Cowling is one of the most interesting creations I've ever encountered. Definitely 4.5 with a view to 5 someday.

good read

overall entertaining and interesting. the portrayal of mental illness, particularly debilitating paranoid anxiety, is quite good. i hated the ending, and found the resolution to be unbelievable and unsatisfying.

The Nuclear Age accomplishes what all great Tim O'Brien books accomplish: it disorients, it places you then warps you, it creates then destroys.

It begins with a man obsessed with the nuclear bomb. He's scared of its power and terror and the sound of its voice. Since he was a child, he heard the buzz of nuclear destruction overhead. He built small monuments out of a ping pong table, out of a flight attendant who's out of reach. His motives are so clear because, there it is, the way things are in the world. Tim O'Brien is a master at authority for the state of one's life and one's situation. His words demand attention, and the attention inspires loyalty.

Then things become fuzzy as atoms with no center. Places come and go; people are dead and not dead; the bomb calls. O'Brien's novels often end in the head, where we can accept reality because we have to.

There's never a moment where I wouldn't be content to read a Tim O'Brien book because I always feel such truth. Because I have to.

Salon wrote of Tim O'Brien, that for every masterpiece he'd written there was a corresponding stinker. Unfortunately, The Nuclear Age does not stand up against The Things They Carried, Cacciato, and In the Lake of the Woods. But there is a magical scene within it. The protagonist, as a young boy, is obsessed with nuclear Armageddon and builds a fall-out shelter in the family basement using a ping-pong table. His father comes down into the basement one night and talks the boy through his fear, and they dismantle the makeshift fall-out shelter in a ceremony that ends with them playing ping-pong.

The book is a great history of mans insane attempts to achieve something that has buried us all in the past and in the future.

Tim O'Brien never disappoints. His skills as a writer dazzle and compel, and he tackles the big topics. Definitely worth a read.

A crazy, paranoid, excessive novel that explores elements of Mutually Assured Destruction, love, infatuation, rebellion, and happiness.