Rating  - Disappointing
After all the hype about this one I couldn't wait to read it when published in paperback. I've read thousands and thousands of books in my life and hardly ever give up, but I gave up on this one about a fourth of the way. It should have been titled "Impressions of Smoke" because it was just about as vague, wandering, and lost. I'm not asking to have everything spelled out for me, but this one was all over the place. Worst of all, it has no heart, its characters unknowable and uninteresting. Maybe as an allegory of the Vietnam experience it works, but I could never find the thread.
Rating  - Boring - stereotypic characters - unengaging plot
I wish I'd read BR Myers' review in the Atlantic (Dec 2007) before I bought this book. His review was titled "A Bright Shining Lie," and he nails how I feel about "Tree of Smoke." [...].
I read a LOT and widely. I rarely hate a book, but I truly hated this one. I never cared about or was engaged with the one-dimensional, unauthentic characters. I could not relate to a single one of them. One can't get to know the characters because there is nothing to know.
The plot seemed, well, not there. I never felt dramatic tension or cared what happened next.
There is no sense of place that matters - the setting is a jungle or a village close to a jungle. It doesn't matter whether it's the Philippines or Vietnam. The author may describe water dripping off leaves, but there is no feeling connected to the location.
The author surely wasn't in Vietnam. Factual errors add to the biased view of who served in the Vietnam: poor, stupid high school dropouts; idealistic midwestern patriot (Skip), psycho, over-the-hill, Dr. Strangelove CIA operative, inscrutable Vietnamese, mysterious German assassin, crazy missionary. Honestly, there isn't one nuanced character in this book.
Why would this book add anything to a discussion of the Vietnam War? Why would anyone think this is the BEST book about the Vietnam War? "Tree of Smoke" is pathetic in comparison to Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead" or O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" or Herr's "Dispatches." The book gave no insights into a war that, unfortunately, still defines my generation.
I disagree with another reviewer that this book reflects American disillusionment after World War II. "Tree of Smoke" never reaches the level of generalization because it is so flat and has so little to say.
That this won the National Book Award is just amazing. What were they thinking? Save your money and rent "Apocalypse Now." Marlon Brandon plays a much more interesting psycho, and the movie, at least, has great music.
Rating  - Very long, very dense
I'm a fan of Denis Johnson, and I was looking forward to reading this. It turned out to be a more arduous experience then I anticipated, and not really in a good way.
There's a lot in here cribbed from other sources (Conrad's Heart of Darkness for one, and, by extension, Apocalypse Now). I was hoping that Johnson's voice would bring something new to the table; unfairly, perhaps, I was interested in seeing the aesthetic of Jesus' Son brought to bear on Vietnam, and that's not what this is.
Johnson is a fundamentally strong writer who typically finds interesting ways around a sentence. The language is shaped well, and there are more than a few scenes that are very vividly crafted. It's a Denis Johnson novel, so if you find his literary voice appealing, you find much of this as well.
On the negative side, I didn't find myself responding emotionally to much in this story. The main character's journey from company man to wild outsider was not convincing, nor was his relationship with the missionary. I wasn't engaged like I had hoped, or expected, to be.
The reviews for this book are generally positive, and it's picked up some nice award nominations. It is by no means a bad book- most of it is quite good. I just found that the whole was much less then the sum of its parts.
Rating - not another vietnam novel
The book has some patches of good writing, and it does suck the reader in. However, one soon realizes that one is trapped in a swamp of shallow characters and murky events. The portrayal of the war seems to owe more to repeated watching of Apocalypse Now than any direct or original insights. The reality is much more weird and stunning than fiction, so you're better off reading histories and biographies.
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