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Missionaries
From the author of the National Book Award-winning short story collection Redeployment comes an astonishing novel of Conradian suspense, set in Colombia among other fronts of America's wars, as four lives become fatally entangled thanks to our country's gift for projecting its power into situations it half understands.
Neither Mason, a U.S. Army Special Forces medic, nor Lisette, a foreign correspondent, has emerged from America's long post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan unscathed. Yet war also exerts a terrible draw that neither can shake--the noble calling, the camaraderie, the life-and-death stakes. Where else in the world can such a person go? All roads lead to Colombia, where the US, with its patented fusion of intelligence dominance and quick-striking special operators, has partnered with local government to stamp out a vicious civil war and keep the predatory narco gangs at bay. Mason, now a liaison to the Colombian military, is ready for the good war, and Lisette is more than ready to cover it.
For Juan Pablo, Mason's counterpart in the Colombian officer corps, translating reality into a language the Americans can understand requires a cartoonist's gift for caricature, but it's child's play next to the challenge of navigating the viper's nest of factions bidding for power, in the capital and far out in the field. And if Juan Pablo's view is dark, the outlook of Abel, a lieutenant in the militia Los Mil Jesuses, which controls territory in rural Norte de Santander, a region on the Venezuelan border where the writ of law scarcely runs, is positively Stygian. Abel has lost everything he loves in the carnage that for his entire life has flowed unceasingly in this region, where the lines between drug cartels, militias, and the state are semi-permeable. It is Abel's cruel fate to find safety only by serving a man he has come to fear and loathe.
Missionaries is an astonishment, a novel of extraordinary suspense whose central, unsparing drama is infused by a geopolitical sophistication and a wisdom about the human heart that would be rare even in isolation. As Los Mil Jesuses make their move to fill a power vacuum in Norte de Santander, aided and abetted by the Colombian military for its own reasons, the Americans are made pawns of a game they don't even begin to understand. The result is an unfolding calamity that will leave no character unscathed, and will echo across the planet. A work whose accomplishment calls forth comparisons to Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and Robert Stone, Missionaries ultimately stands apart as its own electrifying new form of artistic reckoning with the forces we have unleashed in our world.
Neither Mason, a U.S. Army Special Forces medic, nor Lisette, a foreign correspondent, has emerged from America's long post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan unscathed. Yet war also exerts a terrible draw that neither can shake--the noble calling, the camaraderie, the life-and-death stakes. Where else in the world can such a person go? All roads lead to Colombia, where the US, with its patented fusion of intelligence dominance and quick-striking special operators, has partnered with local government to stamp out a vicious civil war and keep the predatory narco gangs at bay. Mason, now a liaison to the Colombian military, is ready for the good war, and Lisette is more than ready to cover it.
For Juan Pablo, Mason's counterpart in the Colombian officer corps, translating reality into a language the Americans can understand requires a cartoonist's gift for caricature, but it's child's play next to the challenge of navigating the viper's nest of factions bidding for power, in the capital and far out in the field. And if Juan Pablo's view is dark, the outlook of Abel, a lieutenant in the militia Los Mil Jesuses, which controls territory in rural Norte de Santander, a region on the Venezuelan border where the writ of law scarcely runs, is positively Stygian. Abel has lost everything he loves in the carnage that for his entire life has flowed unceasingly in this region, where the lines between drug cartels, militias, and the state are semi-permeable. It is Abel's cruel fate to find safety only by serving a man he has come to fear and loathe.
Missionaries is an astonishment, a novel of extraordinary suspense whose central, unsparing drama is infused by a geopolitical sophistication and a wisdom about the human heart that would be rare even in isolation. As Los Mil Jesuses make their move to fill a power vacuum in Norte de Santander, aided and abetted by the Colombian military for its own reasons, the Americans are made pawns of a game they don't even begin to understand. The result is an unfolding calamity that will leave no character unscathed, and will echo across the planet. A work whose accomplishment calls forth comparisons to Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, and Robert Stone, Missionaries ultimately stands apart as its own electrifying new form of artistic reckoning with the forces we have unleashed in our world.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published October 6, 2020
About the author
Phil Klay
9 books440 followersPhil Klay is a veteran of the US Marine Corps. His short story collection Redeployment won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and the National Book Critics’ Circle John Leonard Prize for best debut work in any genre, and was selected as one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times. His nonfiction work won the George W. Hunt, S.J., Prize for Journalism, Arts & Letters in the category of Cultural & Historical Criticism in 2018. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and the Brookings Institution’s Brookings Essay series. He currently teaches fiction at Fairfield University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 468 reviews
October 27, 2020
Brilliant writing. Klay wrote about the men and women who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan in his short story collection Redeployment, for which he won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2014. In Missionaries, Klay addresses the highly complicated conflict in Columbia and the multiple factions that were going to be impacted by the 2016 vote designed to end the fighting between the government and the Marxist-Leninist FARC guerrillas.
Who are the missionaries in a country where right-wing paramilitaries massacred entire villages, soldiers in the army murdered innocent civilians, and criminals fought for control of the lucrative drug trade? Klay uses the stories of four characters to help the reader understand the country—two Colombians and two Americans. There is Abel, a former paramilitary foot soldier trying to get a second chance at life by working hard to create a legitimate business; Juan Pablo, a lieutenant colonel in the Colombian Army; Mason, a Special Forces liaison; and Lisette, an American journalist who recently covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are all complicated people that have suffered in the past.
The twists and turns in the fortunes of these four are worthy of a good thriller. There are the faulty intelligence reports, the confused politics between the Army and the police, between the Colombian government and the military aid from the U.S., and even the inadvertent repercussions from innocent students concerned with human rights.
Needless to say, this book is not for the squeamish. There is violence aplenty. Highly recommend for readers interested in the dynamics behind the Peace vote in 2016 and the ethics of American intervention.
Who are the missionaries in a country where right-wing paramilitaries massacred entire villages, soldiers in the army murdered innocent civilians, and criminals fought for control of the lucrative drug trade? Klay uses the stories of four characters to help the reader understand the country—two Colombians and two Americans. There is Abel, a former paramilitary foot soldier trying to get a second chance at life by working hard to create a legitimate business; Juan Pablo, a lieutenant colonel in the Colombian Army; Mason, a Special Forces liaison; and Lisette, an American journalist who recently covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are all complicated people that have suffered in the past.
The twists and turns in the fortunes of these four are worthy of a good thriller. There are the faulty intelligence reports, the confused politics between the Army and the police, between the Colombian government and the military aid from the U.S., and even the inadvertent repercussions from innocent students concerned with human rights.
Needless to say, this book is not for the squeamish. There is violence aplenty. Highly recommend for readers interested in the dynamics behind the Peace vote in 2016 and the ethics of American intervention.
October 20, 2020
4.5
With this, his debut novel, Phil Klay has delivered; he has brought all the considerable talent displayed in his NBA winning short story collection, Redeployment to a longer form. While the general themes are much the same as his collection, it is interesting to see him stretch, widen his lens and take a few risks in doing so, particularly in narrative structure. The novel felt, oddly, cut in half, both in tone and structure, with intimate first person narratives in the beginning half and a switch to third person for the second half, where the action really ramps up in a more traditional way. The novel is not without its flaws, yet I was able to ignore or put aside certain personal criticisms because, overall, this is a really great read. It is an eloquent look at the senseless but euphoric draw that war and violence have on certain individuals and the inevitable damage done both physically and mentally. And make no mistake, damage is done; this is a war novel, and it is violent and gruesome and too many innocent people die at the hands of several warring factions.
The two Americans depicted in the novel, a former combat medic in Iraq and a female journalist in Afghanistan, are looking for a ‘good war’, a ‘winning war’. Columbia becomes their destination, an escape from their difficult memories of the Middle East. What they find is not really a ‘better’ war, only a different war, one that is highly complicated and has been going on for years. Klay does an excellent job with his four major characters, the Americans previously mentioned, and two Columbian men on different sides of the war. For me, the Columbian characters shone, including minor characters, from the first half of the novel, that take on more significant roles in the later part of the novel.
I had a difficult time deciding on how to rate this novel. Again, I thought there were flaws, things I might have done differently. Despite it all, as a reader I truly admired Klay’s intentions, the research he did untangling all of the complexities of the war in Columbia while delivering a thoughtful novel filled with understanding and empathy. I do recommend it, an engaging, exciting read from a talented author. I’ll be interested to see where he goes next.
With this, his debut novel, Phil Klay has delivered; he has brought all the considerable talent displayed in his NBA winning short story collection, Redeployment to a longer form. While the general themes are much the same as his collection, it is interesting to see him stretch, widen his lens and take a few risks in doing so, particularly in narrative structure. The novel felt, oddly, cut in half, both in tone and structure, with intimate first person narratives in the beginning half and a switch to third person for the second half, where the action really ramps up in a more traditional way. The novel is not without its flaws, yet I was able to ignore or put aside certain personal criticisms because, overall, this is a really great read. It is an eloquent look at the senseless but euphoric draw that war and violence have on certain individuals and the inevitable damage done both physically and mentally. And make no mistake, damage is done; this is a war novel, and it is violent and gruesome and too many innocent people die at the hands of several warring factions.
The two Americans depicted in the novel, a former combat medic in Iraq and a female journalist in Afghanistan, are looking for a ‘good war’, a ‘winning war’. Columbia becomes their destination, an escape from their difficult memories of the Middle East. What they find is not really a ‘better’ war, only a different war, one that is highly complicated and has been going on for years. Klay does an excellent job with his four major characters, the Americans previously mentioned, and two Columbian men on different sides of the war. For me, the Columbian characters shone, including minor characters, from the first half of the novel, that take on more significant roles in the later part of the novel.
I had a difficult time deciding on how to rate this novel. Again, I thought there were flaws, things I might have done differently. Despite it all, as a reader I truly admired Klay’s intentions, the research he did untangling all of the complexities of the war in Columbia while delivering a thoughtful novel filled with understanding and empathy. I do recommend it, an engaging, exciting read from a talented author. I’ll be interested to see where he goes next.
April 8, 2021
This novel explores the ramifications of asymmetric low-intensity armed conflicts currently being experienced throughout the world. They may seem to be scattered little wars, but his book makes it clear that they are as ugly and dirty as any big war. If these multisided civil wars have any glory, it's hard to identify within the midst of the resulting human misery. The primary focus of this book is on the Columbian Civil War.
The majority of this book's action may take place in Columbia, but the American skills and experiences in Afghanistan are also describe as they are being transferred into the Colombian conflict. Beneath the veneer of the Columbian experience of having come to a successful "good" conclusion, the novel fully develops the tragic complexity of what was at times a six sided war—guerrillas, narco-traffickers, coca-growers, paramilitary, police, and the government's military with American advisers. All these sides are armed and at times guilty of atrocities.
The book concludes with a description of the counter-insurgency skills learned in Colombia being transferred to the war in Yemen.
This book's story is told from the perspective four different individuals.
▪▪▪ Lisette—American journalist
▪▪▪ Abel—paramilitary foot soldier
▪▪▪ Juan Pablo—lieutenant colonel in the Colombian Army
▪▪▪ Mason—American Special Forces liaison
These individuals have their roles and responsibilities which they perceive to be honorable. Their intentions are to do good, but they are players in complicated circumstances which sometimes lead to unintended consequences.
The following are excepts taken from the book with my introductory comments:
In the following excerpt a news correspondent is thinking of reasons to take her experience from covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—wars we're losing—and shifting her focus instead onto Columbia—a war we appear to be winning. I've selected this excerpt because it seems to serve well as a summary description of the novel's message.
The majority of this book's action may take place in Columbia, but the American skills and experiences in Afghanistan are also describe as they are being transferred into the Colombian conflict. Beneath the veneer of the Columbian experience of having come to a successful "good" conclusion, the novel fully develops the tragic complexity of what was at times a six sided war—guerrillas, narco-traffickers, coca-growers, paramilitary, police, and the government's military with American advisers. All these sides are armed and at times guilty of atrocities.
The book concludes with a description of the counter-insurgency skills learned in Colombia being transferred to the war in Yemen.
This book's story is told from the perspective four different individuals.
▪▪▪ Lisette—American journalist
▪▪▪ Abel—paramilitary foot soldier
▪▪▪ Juan Pablo—lieutenant colonel in the Colombian Army
▪▪▪ Mason—American Special Forces liaison
These individuals have their roles and responsibilities which they perceive to be honorable. Their intentions are to do good, but they are players in complicated circumstances which sometimes lead to unintended consequences.
The following are excepts taken from the book with my introductory comments:
In the following excerpt a news correspondent is thinking of reasons to take her experience from covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—wars we're losing—and shifting her focus instead onto Columbia—a war we appear to be winning. I've selected this excerpt because it seems to serve well as a summary description of the novel's message.
That she did know Columbia, because she knew Iraq and Afghanistan. That this was an extension of the same war, not the endless war on “terror” but something vaguer, harder to pin down and related to the demands of America’s not-quite-empire which was always projecting military power over across the globe and just shifting of the rational of why. That Cold War communist guerrillas became War on Drugs narcoguerrillas became War on Terror narcoterrorists. That you keep seeing the same policies or strategies or even people bouncing around the globe. Two U.S. ambassadors to Colombia going on to be ambassador to Afghanistan. Another going on to be ambassador to Pakistan. In 2004, SOCOM had told Colombian troops to focus on counter-insurgency. In 2007, the new counterinsurgency strategy gets rolled out in Iraq. In 2004, a revolution in targeted killing starts in JSOC in Iraq. Mid-2000s, we start applying the same methods to Colombia, the only difference being that we let the Colombians do the actual killing. Then we give them drones. And if the rumors Diego had told her are true, that the targeting apparatus was about to get applied to domestic drug groups, and that the State Department was carefully eyeing the coming success or failure of insurgents in Colombia as they worked to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table in Afghanistan, then she may have had precisely the right kind of knowledge and context to describe the theoretical and of the theoretically successful war. (P. 236-237)By the time we reach the end of the book our Colombian colonel has retired early and become the employee of a private military contractor. His counter-insurgency skills learned in his native Colombia under the tutelage of the Americans is now being applied to the dirty ugly war in Yemen
“This is a good war,” he said. “Who is on our side? In our operations center we’ve got Americans and Israelis and Emiratis and one Colombian. We’ve got resupply from the United States, arms from half the globe, and if you look closely, see who is supporting this war, directly or indirectly, you will find that what sits behind us is the entire civilized world. And on the other side, we have men and women raised in tents, in a debased culture of rituals and poverty and sacred texts that half of them are too illiterate to read, sending out suicide bombers and laying land mines that will maim and kill for generations, and for what? So they can install the great-great-great-great-grandson of a desert preacher’s cousin as king? I am on the side of civilization against primitive nonsense.” (p.397-398)Our Colonel's thoughts recall that his own Catholic background is also based on ancient roots with its own primitive rituals.
He did not add that this was a sometimes lonely side to be on, even in his own family. That his wife and daughter believed in primitive nonsense, in rituals and sacred texts, and it was an embarrassment he hardly liked to consider himself. (p. 398)In case the reader questions the claim of being on the side of civilization, his thoughts continue to recall various parts of the world from which the equipment originated.
Civilization versus primitivism. Those armored vehicles could have come from almost anywhere in the civilized world. He’d seen American MaxxPro and Oshkosh M-ATVs here, but also Finnish Patrias, South African RGs, even French Leclerc tanks, …. Singaporean 120mm mortars, Serbian Zastava machine guns, Belgian FN minims, Chinese M80s, and an assortment of small arms and heavy ordnance from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Norway, the Netherlands, Brazil, and more. The buildings they were destroying were made of local stone, or soil mixed with straw, or burn mud. (p.399)A word of warning: This book contains disturbing descriptions of violence.
November 25, 2023
Missionaries is a story about the lasting impact of war and follows 4 primary characters, from the Middle East to Colombia. These characters experience conflict and danger, and must confront their roles at work and at home, even if they’re not physically “home”, because of work. I enjoyed some storylines more than others, though they were all interconnected, at least to an extent.
“Missionaries is a window not only into modern war, but into the individual lives that go on long after the drones have left the skies.”
I preferred Redeployment more between these two Phil Klay books, though there’s no question he can write. I look forward to reading his latest, Uncertain Ground soon — 3.5 stars
“Missionaries is a window not only into modern war, but into the individual lives that go on long after the drones have left the skies.”
I preferred Redeployment more between these two Phil Klay books, though there’s no question he can write. I look forward to reading his latest, Uncertain Ground soon — 3.5 stars
February 1, 2021
This book is #15 on the pprize.com prediction list (I plan to read the other 14 as well.) In summary, it is sort of a mashup of Apocalypse Now, Narcos, and Call of Duty. The title is intentionally ambiguous referring to, I suppose the pseudo-religious rationalisations used for atrocities committed during wartime. It introduces us to four primary characters: a paramilitary officer who is a orphan of the cartel wars between paracos, FARC, ELN, cartels, etc; an American journalist covering war zones in Afghanistan/Iraq and later Columbia; an American mercenary working for Blackwater/Academi in Afghanistan/Iraq and later Columbia; and a Columbian military officer. We learn their backstories over the first 2/3 of the book and then dive into the last third in which their paths cross rather violently. It is a bit predictable and there are really no standout moments or personalities. The horrors of war are gruesomely but somewhat coldly described (as opposed to the more artful, disdainful descriptions in, say, Gravity's Rainbow) and this is where it reminded me a bit of a video game.
I am not sure what conclusion the author wanted us to draw from this tableau of death in which the bad guys mostly win and the good guys are not necessarily all that good. The ending left me a bit hanging, which would be fine if I had been able to connect with a character or two and actually care about what happened to them.
Three stars for the interesting idea and the background of the connections between the drug wars in South American and Iraq/Afghanistan, but not more because of the lack of depth in the characters.
My List of Pulitzer 2021 Hopefuls: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
I am not sure what conclusion the author wanted us to draw from this tableau of death in which the bad guys mostly win and the good guys are not necessarily all that good. The ending left me a bit hanging, which would be fine if I had been able to connect with a character or two and actually care about what happened to them.
Three stars for the interesting idea and the background of the connections between the drug wars in South American and Iraq/Afghanistan, but not more because of the lack of depth in the characters.
My List of Pulitzer 2021 Hopefuls: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
October 13, 2020
Highly intelligent in its geo-political analysis and knowledgeable about the realities of modern combat, this is nevertheless quite baggy as a novel. Moving between Iraq, Afghanistan and the drug wars in Colombia, it can be hard-hitting and horrific but also quite loose in the number of PoV characters. Overall, it offers interesting commentaries on the explosion of private contractors in the US military and on the systematic use of technology that is also part of capitalism's circulation of power.
This strikes me as a very adult book where others tackling similar topics may be emotional and soap-y (i.e. Columbiana), or boy's own adventures - this is neither. At the same time, it's quite hard to summarise in a pithy way and there were times where I really wasn't sure where it was going or how the various strands related to each other. Smart, sharp, perhaps a bit more diffuse than I'd have liked.
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley
This strikes me as a very adult book where others tackling similar topics may be emotional and soap-y (i.e. Columbiana), or boy's own adventures - this is neither. At the same time, it's quite hard to summarise in a pithy way and there were times where I really wasn't sure where it was going or how the various strands related to each other. Smart, sharp, perhaps a bit more diffuse than I'd have liked.
Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley
November 16, 2020
Missionaries is an excellent book about war, told from the point of view of two Americans and two Columbians. The first two sections have chapters that alternate between two characters each, providing a deep dive into the people and events, with it all coming together in the end. Missionaries is not about religious groups proselytizing. Rather, it is about the missions of each story, whether war, journalism, American intervention or government strategy. Although not about religion, one character has a religious experience in a monastery and later draws a comparison to his father’s life as a soldier as similar in intensity and its monastic rhythm.
While Columbia is referred to as the “good war”, compared to Afghanistan and Iraq, the novel is an ant-war book. It concludes that while the missions made sense, the wars as a whole were insane with no coherent strategy. The book focuses on an isolated section of Columbia where the warring factions change regularly, with the populous terrorized by whoever is in power. Within this context, we get perspectives from a variety of actors. One character compares how an intimate relationship brings order and solace despite the chaos of the world to how the State carves out order from chaos.
The first page of the novel says a lot about many of the characters, including people terrorized by militia and those fighting in war.
"Most people think that a person is whatever you see before you, walking around in bone and meat and blood, but that is an idiocy. Bone and meat and blood just exists, but to exist is not to live, and bone and meat and blood alone is not a person. A person is what happens when there is family, and a town, a place where you are known. Where every person who knows you holds a small, invisible mirror, and in each mirror, held by family and friends and enemies, is a different reflection……A person is what happens when you gather all these reflections around a body. So what happens when one by one the people holding those mirrors are taken from you? It’s simple. The person dies. And the bone and meat and blood goes on, walking the earth as if the person still existing, when God and the angels know he doesn’t."
This also sets the stage for the importance of family and relationships for each character, as well as their losses.
Other readers have summarized the characters and the story, so I will comment on a few passages that struck me. The violence in Missionaries is not easy to read. An interesting section on wounds (page 189) follows. Although a long excerpt, it gives a feeling for the depth and writing.
“There are two ways to think about severe wounds. One is the very smallness and weakness of the human body, pathetic even compared to other animals, and so easy to break beyond repair, so easy even with the most basic of tools, a rock is enough, and then to think of it in the midst of the sorts of thing that happen in war, not just explosions sending earth and brick blossoming but weapons that work by strange inversions of pressure, collapse buildings from the inside, or concentrate force in small spaces that liquefy metal and send it shooting out through the air. The penetration of the human body is so easy it almost seems beside the point – such tool should be used for greater creatures than us. We are weak, we are fragile, and so, perhaps, we are nothing. There is wonder in the world – the unbearable blackness of the sky in Afghanistan, its piercing stars, the vibrations of the guns, soundless light on the horizon, flashes like echoes, a moon rising over sharp blades of mountain while tracers carve lines into the night. But man himself is nothing.
But the other way of thinking is the opposite. That the world itself is what is small. Mountains, stars, horizon, so much accumulation of rocks, dust, and an expanse of empty air. Meaningless without someone there to see it. I was once shot in the shoulder. The world around me wobbled and vibrated and collapsed to nothing in the midst of the pain. I applied my mind to the pain, oriented myself, returned the world to its proper place around me. I thought of my brothers, who I was currently failing by no longer being in the fight…..And then I looked at my arm, flopped to the side, immobile, mere matter. A thing. Meaningless. And I applied my mind again to the pain, and a finger wiggled, dead flesh suddenly live. There was a miracle there, in the difference between the two.”
Missionaries takes some effort due its structure, the number of characters and the shifting time line. I found it well worth the effort.
EXTRAS:
Link to NYT book review
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/bo...
https://bookmarks.reviews/five-books-...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/phil-kl...
Link to author’s website
https://www.philklay.com/
NPR review
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/08/921194...
While Columbia is referred to as the “good war”, compared to Afghanistan and Iraq, the novel is an ant-war book. It concludes that while the missions made sense, the wars as a whole were insane with no coherent strategy. The book focuses on an isolated section of Columbia where the warring factions change regularly, with the populous terrorized by whoever is in power. Within this context, we get perspectives from a variety of actors. One character compares how an intimate relationship brings order and solace despite the chaos of the world to how the State carves out order from chaos.
The first page of the novel says a lot about many of the characters, including people terrorized by militia and those fighting in war.
"Most people think that a person is whatever you see before you, walking around in bone and meat and blood, but that is an idiocy. Bone and meat and blood just exists, but to exist is not to live, and bone and meat and blood alone is not a person. A person is what happens when there is family, and a town, a place where you are known. Where every person who knows you holds a small, invisible mirror, and in each mirror, held by family and friends and enemies, is a different reflection……A person is what happens when you gather all these reflections around a body. So what happens when one by one the people holding those mirrors are taken from you? It’s simple. The person dies. And the bone and meat and blood goes on, walking the earth as if the person still existing, when God and the angels know he doesn’t."
This also sets the stage for the importance of family and relationships for each character, as well as their losses.
Other readers have summarized the characters and the story, so I will comment on a few passages that struck me. The violence in Missionaries is not easy to read. An interesting section on wounds (page 189) follows. Although a long excerpt, it gives a feeling for the depth and writing.
“There are two ways to think about severe wounds. One is the very smallness and weakness of the human body, pathetic even compared to other animals, and so easy to break beyond repair, so easy even with the most basic of tools, a rock is enough, and then to think of it in the midst of the sorts of thing that happen in war, not just explosions sending earth and brick blossoming but weapons that work by strange inversions of pressure, collapse buildings from the inside, or concentrate force in small spaces that liquefy metal and send it shooting out through the air. The penetration of the human body is so easy it almost seems beside the point – such tool should be used for greater creatures than us. We are weak, we are fragile, and so, perhaps, we are nothing. There is wonder in the world – the unbearable blackness of the sky in Afghanistan, its piercing stars, the vibrations of the guns, soundless light on the horizon, flashes like echoes, a moon rising over sharp blades of mountain while tracers carve lines into the night. But man himself is nothing.
But the other way of thinking is the opposite. That the world itself is what is small. Mountains, stars, horizon, so much accumulation of rocks, dust, and an expanse of empty air. Meaningless without someone there to see it. I was once shot in the shoulder. The world around me wobbled and vibrated and collapsed to nothing in the midst of the pain. I applied my mind to the pain, oriented myself, returned the world to its proper place around me. I thought of my brothers, who I was currently failing by no longer being in the fight…..And then I looked at my arm, flopped to the side, immobile, mere matter. A thing. Meaningless. And I applied my mind again to the pain, and a finger wiggled, dead flesh suddenly live. There was a miracle there, in the difference between the two.”
Missionaries takes some effort due its structure, the number of characters and the shifting time line. I found it well worth the effort.
EXTRAS:
Link to NYT book review
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/28/bo...
https://bookmarks.reviews/five-books-...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/phil-kl...
Link to author’s website
https://www.philklay.com/
NPR review
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/08/921194...
November 28, 2020
I know a lot about the Colombian civil war and was living in Bogota roughly the time this story is centered on and it all makes me quite uncomfortable with this story. Klay writes really well - even with the borderline violence porn descriptions of war - there's a real feeling of what war is like. That said, his characters are predominantly military/paramilitary men with power and there's a glorification of war and violence and an erasure of the victims and their identities. We do learn about the backstories of the main characters and yet most of them do not end up conflicted about their role in war and violence. There's a normalization of gruesome tactics and extrajudicial killings that is highly problematic. There's a glorification of a certain kind of "stoic" victim who suffered terribly but makes "the best" out of it. And there's no acknowledgment that many victims of the Colombian civil war are Black or Indigenous - race is silent in this book. At best there's some recognition of imperialism and the U.S. role in enabling and continuing conflicts around the world through the military industrialist complex, but it's absolutely a pro-U.S. military account.
October 4, 2022
3.5*
Knygos epigrafas:
report us fairly,
how we slaughter
for the common good -Seamus Heaney, "Kinship"
Romano autorius Phil Klay yra JAV jūrų pėstininkas-veteranas. Už apsakymų rinkinį 2014-iais gavo National Book Award ir kt. premijas, išleido kelias negrožines knygas. Šis romanas šmėžavo prieš mano akis nuo pat jo pasirodymo 2020-iais. Ir turbūt jei ne karas Ukrainoje, būtų taip ir nušmėžavęs į nekontroliuojamai pampstančią want to read lentyną.
Tai knyga apie karą. Visokį karą. Pagrindinis veiksmas vyksta šiuolaikinėje Kolumbijoje, karo tarp narkotikų prekeivių, revoliucionierių ir šalies valdžios metu. Kartas nuo karto, vienai iš pagrindinių veikėjų, JAV žurnalistei Lisettei atmintyje sproginėja patirčių vaizdai iš karų Artimuosiuose Rytuose.
Daug žiaurumo. Vietomis priminė Fernandos Melchor "Uragano sezoną", "Paradais". Ir be abejo, negalėjau negalvoti apie dabar vykstančio karo žiaurumus. Beje, autorius užsimena KAIP vyks karai netolimoje ateityje. Man ši knyga dar buvo ir apie karo neišvengiamybę.
Mano galva, parašytas romanas puikiai. Sklandžiai, sumaniai, įtikinamai, jautriai. Tačiau šiomis dienomis jį skaityt - mazochizmas.
Knygos epigrafas:
report us fairly,
how we slaughter
for the common good -Seamus Heaney, "Kinship"
Romano autorius Phil Klay yra JAV jūrų pėstininkas-veteranas. Už apsakymų rinkinį 2014-iais gavo National Book Award ir kt. premijas, išleido kelias negrožines knygas. Šis romanas šmėžavo prieš mano akis nuo pat jo pasirodymo 2020-iais. Ir turbūt jei ne karas Ukrainoje, būtų taip ir nušmėžavęs į nekontroliuojamai pampstančią want to read lentyną.
Tai knyga apie karą. Visokį karą. Pagrindinis veiksmas vyksta šiuolaikinėje Kolumbijoje, karo tarp narkotikų prekeivių, revoliucionierių ir šalies valdžios metu. Kartas nuo karto, vienai iš pagrindinių veikėjų, JAV žurnalistei Lisettei atmintyje sproginėja patirčių vaizdai iš karų Artimuosiuose Rytuose.
Daug žiaurumo. Vietomis priminė Fernandos Melchor "Uragano sezoną", "Paradais". Ir be abejo, negalėjau negalvoti apie dabar vykstančio karo žiaurumus. Beje, autorius užsimena KAIP vyks karai netolimoje ateityje. Man ši knyga dar buvo ir apie karo neišvengiamybę.
Mano galva, parašytas romanas puikiai. Sklandžiai, sumaniai, įtikinamai, jautriai. Tačiau šiomis dienomis jį skaityt - mazochizmas.
November 29, 2020
I was about to give up on this book at the one-third mark. I saw the high community rating on Goodreads and decided to stay with it to the end. I should have went with my first instinct.
There were some sections that were very interesting but there were too many sections that were long and not very captivating. The development of some characters was so weak that when they sporadically popped up I recognized the names but could recall much about them.
The good thing about this book is it helped me fall asleep when I was reading in bed.
There were some sections that were very interesting but there were too many sections that were long and not very captivating. The development of some characters was so weak that when they sporadically popped up I recognized the names but could recall much about them.
The good thing about this book is it helped me fall asleep when I was reading in bed.
Read
September 29, 2020I kept thinking this book was going to settle on a tone or a theme or at least consistent characters, but instead it just flits about, spouting off war cliches until it arrives at a most generic of conclusions. There are reams of interesting thought in this book, sadly none of it is in the slightest bit cohesive.
October 29, 2021
Zum Kriege gibt es etliche Theorien. Natürlich militärimmanente, die von Strategien und Taktiken im Gefecht künden, aber auch jede Menge metatheoretische, die sich mit dem Wesen des Krieges beschäftigen, mit den Motiven, die Kriege auslösen, damit, wieso Kriege zu welchen Zeitpunkten ausbrechen. Es gibt Theorien, die an jene zum „kulturellen Gedächtnis“ andocken und argumentieren, daß mit dem Vergehen der Zeit, dem Sterben der Augenzeugen, auch die Schrecken schwinden, die Krieg eben auch bedeuten. Entweder wird die Erinnerung formiert und einem tradierten Erinnern überantwortet oder sie wird gar dem Mythos zugeeignet. Andere, bösere Theorien gehen davon aus, daß – zumindest lokal/regional begrenzte – Kriege eine soziale Funktion haben. Demnach müssen aus jeder Generation ca. 30% der jungen Männer in einen Krieg ziehen, damit überschüssiges Testosteron abgebaut werden kann. Junge Männer werden so implizit als grundlegende Bedrohung für ein funktionierendes Gemeinwesen gebrandmarkt. Man hört es nicht gern, kann sich aber des grundlegenden Gedankens nicht ganz erwehren.
Dennoch möchte man eine solche Betrachtung natürlich zurückweisen – und stellt, beschäftigt man sich mit den kulturellen Zeugnissen zum Krieg, gleich ob Literatur, Theater, Lyrik oder Film – fest, daß das Thema meist aber Männer interessiert und fasziniert. Sie scheinen nun einmal die treibende Kraft hinter kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen zu sein. Und folgt man einigen der wesentlichen literarischen Publikationen der letzten Jahre, die sich mit dem Thema beschäftigen, sind es letztlich eben auch Männer, die den Krieg als Möglichkeit politischer Konfliktlösung, aber auch als ein persönliches Bewährungsfeld betrachten. Immer noch – und immer wieder.
Es ist dies auch einr der zentralen Erkenntnisse eines Werks wie Phil Klays DEN STURM ERNTEN (MISSIONARIES,2020; Dt: 2021). Oder, besser gesagt, ist es eine der Erkenntnisse, die sich dem Leser während und nach der Lektüre des Buchs aufdrängen. Klay erzählt in den ersten beiden Abschnitten seines Romans aus der jeweils subjektiven Perspektive von vier Protagonisten über einen Zeitraum von nahezu 30 Jahren. So lernen wir diese Hauptprotagonisten der Erzählung und ihre jeweiligen Lebensgeschichten kennen und einzuschätzen.
Abel berichtet von seiner Kindheit, dem Mord an seiner Familie – und seines Dorfes – im kolumbianischen Grenzgebiet zu Venezuela zum Ende der 80er Jahre. Er erzählt, wie er in die Hände einer der vielen konkurrierenden Gruppen – Narcos, Paramilitärs, offizielles Militär, Guerilla – fiel und sich dort hochdiente. Die Amerikanerin Lisette ihrerseits berichtet von ihren Einsätzen als Journalistin in Afghanistan und Irak ab 2001, sie erzählt aber auch von der Entfremdung von ihrer Heimat, dem ländlichen Pennsylvania, von ihrer Familie, und davon, wie sie, wie so viele Kriegsreporter, nach und nach dem Reiz der Gefahr verfällt und anfängt, sich immer wildere Begründungen zu liefern, weshalb sie wieder und wieder in Kriegsgebiete zurückkehrt und meint, von dort berichten zu müssen – auch, wenn es in der Heimat niemanden mehr zu interessieren scheint. Mason ist ein amerikanischer Militärangehöriger, der sich seine ersten Meriten ebenfalls in den Kriegen in Folge von 9/11 erworben hat, mittlerweile aber – älter und in der Hierarchie des Militärs aufgestiegen – in Kolumbien Dienst tut, wo er zur Ausbildung der kolumbianischen Special Forces beiträgt, die im Kampf gegen die Drogenkartelle zum Einsatz kommen sollen. Juan Pablo ist Masons Verbindungsmann beim kolumbianischen Militär. Er ist ein Hund des Krieges, ein Mann, der den Krieg liebt und für notwendig hält, vor allem in Gesellschaften wie denen Südamerikas, die keine demokratische Tradition haben und seiner Meinung nach mit Gewalt zusammengehalten werden müssen.
Im letzten, dem längsten Abschnitt des Buches, laufen die Geschichten dieser vier Menschen – und etlicher Nebenfiguren – in Kolumbien zusammen. Es sind die Jahre 2016/17, die Volksbefragung zum Friedensabkommen mit der FARC, der bestimmenden kolumbianischen Guerillatruppe, die sich als sozialrevolutionär verstand, steht bevor. In diesem Umfeld versucht jede Gruppe und Gruppierung, versuchen die Militärs, die Polizei, zu der es in Konkurrenz steht, versuchen NGOs, die Amerikaner und die Politik ihr jeweils eigenes Süppchen zu kochen, um sich ihr jeweiliges Stück vom Kuchen zu sichern, den Kolumbien in ihren Augen darstellt. Die Situation spitzt sich zu, als Lisette von einer eher marginalen lokalen Gruppe entführt wird, die sie für eine CIA-Agentin hält und das fragile Gleichgewicht, das gerade in dieser Region des Landes herrscht, massiv gefährden, nicht zuletzt dadurch, weil sie die Aufmerksamkeit von Kräften auf sich und die Region lenken, weil sie empfindlich die Verhandlungen lokaler Gangster und ehemaliger Guerillas stören.
Klay beschreibt gerade diese oft undurchschaubaren politischen Zusammenhänge ebenso, wie er ganz konkret von Kampfeinsätzen und vor allem – nahezu unerträglich – von der Gewalt erzählt, die all diese Menschen auf die eine oder andere Art über das Leben sehr, sehr vieler anderer bringen und welche sie meist auch selbst ertragen haben. Phil Klay diente selbst lange Jahre als Marine, u.a. war er im Irak eingesetzt. So sind vor allem seine Beschreibungen und die Betrachtungen, die er vornehmlich Lisette hinsichtlich des amerikanischen Einsatzes im Nahen Osten und in Afghanistan treffen lässt, eigener Anschauung und eigenen Erfahrungen geschuldet. Nun gibt es natürlich etliche Bücher – Sachbücher wie Belletristik, Erfahrungsberichte und politische wie soziale Analysen – von ehemaligen Soldaten, Offizieren, Scharfschützen und Ortskräften in- und außerhalb der USA. Selten allerdings sind diese Autoren wirklich befähigt, Literatur zu verfassen. Schlimmstenfalls kommt Kitsch dabei heraus. So zu beobachten bei einem Werk wie DIE WEITE LEERE von J. Todd Scott, der zwar jede Menge Erfahrung als Ranger an der amerikanisch-mexikanischen Grenze haben mag, deshalb aber noch lange keinen guten Krimi über illegale Einwanderung und die Härten des Lebens der Grenzkontrolleure hinbekommt.
Das ist bei Phil Klay definitiv anders. Nach seinem Debüt – der Kurzgeschichtensammlung WIR ERSCHOSSEN AUCH HUNDE (REDEPLOYMENT; 2014) – bereits hochgelobt und als neue Stimme am amerikanischen Literaturhimmel gefeiert, verglichen mit Hemingway, Conrad oder Remarque, konnte er für DEN STURM ERNTEN allerhöchste Meriten einheimsen, u.a. wurde das Buch von Barack Obama zu seinem „Book of the year“ ernannt. Und das Lob ist berechtigt. Sicher, man muß sich grundlegend für das Thema interessieren, muß in Kauf nehmen, mit einer Menge technischer Details, gerade was Waffen und Waffensysteme betrifft, behelligt zu werden und muß vor allem – das sei wirklich noch einmal explizit erwähnt – in den ersten beiden Abschnitten des Textes teils unerträgliche Gewaltbeschreibungen ertragen. Dabei gehört Klay aber keinesfalls zu denen, die offiziell behaupten, gegen die Gewalt anzuschreiben, ihr und ihrer Darstellung hinterrücks aber erliegen und ihre heimliche Faszination daran kaum verbergen können. Eher sachlich beschreibt Klay Momente solch entgrenzter menschlicher Brutalität, daß gelegentlich der Eindruck entsteht, hier schreibt ein Traumatisierter, einer, der selbst fassungslos vor dem Phänomen steht, daß er ihm nur mit äußerster Nüchternheit begegnen kann.
Klays wirkliche Stärke liegt aber woanders. Es sind zum einen die Figuren, die er durchweg glaubwürdig gestaltet und denen er, manchmal vielleicht etwas zu vereinfacht, eine jeweils eigene Stimme verleiht. Das gelingt – naturgemäß? – vor allem bei den Amerikanern sehr gut. Zwar liegt der Fokus dieser Figuren auf den Einsätzen im Ausland, also auf ihrem Beruf, doch kann Klay sowohl Lisette als auch Mason mit genug individueller Geschichte ausstatten, um sie lebensnah zu gestalten. Wir begreifen, weshalb Lisette immer gieriger auf immer gefährlichere Einsätze wird, bis es sie beinah erwischt; aber wir begreifen auch, wie ein Mann wie Mason, ein nachdenklicher Mensch, spätestens nach der Geburt der eigenen Tochter vorsichtiger wird und froh ist, aus den gefährlichen – ihn aber auch faszinierenden – Einsätzen in Irak und Afghanistan mit einem vermeintlich leichteren Auftrag nach Südamerika geschickt zu werden, wo er schlicht ein Ausbilder ist. Später, als er als hochrangiger Offizier zurückkehrt, ist er längst ein situierter Militär, der selbst keine gefährlichen Einsätze mehr zu bestehen hat, sondern bestehen lässt.
Bei den südamerikanischen Figuren sieht es etwas anders aus. Sowohl Abel als auch Juan Pablo, aber auch etliche Nebenfiguren, wie die junge Luisa oder der Bandenchef Jefferson, wirken häufig medialen Vorbildern nachempfunden. Sie wurden offensichtlich der beeindruckend langen Liste von Werken entlehnt, die Klay zu Rate gezogen hat, um den kolumbianischen Teil seiner Erzählung wahrheitsgetreu zu rekonstruieren. Dennoch kann man auch an diese Charaktere glauben. Gerade Juan Pablo nimmt eine zentrale Funktion im Text ein, da er einen unverstellt männlichen Blick auf das Wesen der Gewalt, des Krieges, des Konflikts, bietet, der letztlich auch der wesentliche ist, um das Buch zu verstehen. Die Trauer zu verstehen, die dem Text zugrunde liegt. Abel hingegen markiert exemplarisch genau den Übergang vom Opfer zum Täter. Ihm entgegengestellt ist Luisa. Beide stammen aus demselben Dorf, beide sind Opfer von Gewalt geworden. Doch während Abel die Gewalt anzunehmen scheint – ob aus Angst oder aus Faszination, sei dahingestellt – geht Luisa den entschieden gegenteiligen Weg. Sie heuert bei einem Universitätsprogramm an, welches maßgeblich daran arbeitet, zum gesellschaftlichen Ausgleich beizutragen, indem es u.a. Vergebung einfordert. Ähnlich der südafrikanischen „Wahrheitskommission“, die nach dem Ende der Apartheid eingesetzt wurde, um die tiefgreifenden Wunden und Gräben der Gesellschaft durch Dialog und Austausch zu verarbeiten. Dazu gehört in Luisas Fall aber auch, genau jene Männer in Rehabilitationsprogrammen unterzubringen, denen sie einst zuschauen musste, wie sie ihren Vater öffentlich auf dem Dorfplatz mit einer Kettensäge hinrichteten.
Zum Kern des Buchs dringt man aber nur über die Figur des Juan Pablo vor. Einer Militärdynastie entstammend, war er, wie einst sein als es opportun erschien in Ungnade gefallener Vater, in seiner Vergangenheit an etlichen Gräueltaten beteiligt. Taten, von denen er nicht unbedingt will, daß seine Tochter Valencia davon erfährt. Juan Pablo macht allerdings keinen Hehl daraus, daß er jede einzelne Tat, jedes Massaker, jede Folterung, jeden Mord in seinem spezifischen Kontext nach wie vor für gerechtfertigt hält. Wie viele Militärs, ist auch er strikter Gegner des Friedensabkommens mit der FARC und zudem daran interessiert, gewisse Kompetenzen von der Polizei zum Militär zu ziehen, was ihm die Möglichkeit böte, Kommandounternehmen gegen die Drogenbanden anzuordnen, die definitiv nicht den ausgehandelten Bedingungen eines Friedensvertrags gerecht würden. Klay driftet nicht in Machoklischees von südamerikanischen Amigos ab, vielmehr lässt er Juan Pablo als einen gebildeten, konservativen, aber auch bis zum Zynismus ehrlichen und aufgeklärten Mann auftreten. Der hält auch keine großen Reden, doch in einigen zentralen Monolog- wie Dialogstellen können wir erahnen, daß er durchaus einem Soldatenethos anhängt, daß er den Krieg als männliches Ausdrucksmittel, die Gewalt als Mittel zur Kommunikation betrachtet.
Und genau diese Sichtweise, die Mason und vor allem Jefferson, aber in einem tiefgründigeren Bezug auch Lisette bestätigen, ist es, was den Grundton des Romans, seine Melodie, das Thema bestimmen. Abel und Luisa hingegen stehen für genau all jene, die in jedem Krieg untergehen, weil sie als unbedeutend, als Kanonenfutter oder Kollateralschaden betrachtet werden. Opfer und Täter zugleich, ambivalente Figuren, die gegen die Dämonen und die Leere im eigenen ausgebrannten Ich ankämpfen müssen und letztlich immer verlieren. Gleich, ob sie überleben oder einen gewaltsamen Tod finden. Sie sind die Figuren, die auf den abstrakten Schachbrettern der Mächtigen hin und her geschoben werden, deren individuelles Leben im Grunde niemanden interessieren, austauschbare Zahlen in endlosen Zahlenkolonnen. Erst recht, wenn sie keine Amerikaner sind. Wobei „Amerikaner“ durch „Briten“ oder „Deutsche“ ersetzt werden kann. Deren Leben zählt, wie der Einsatz und der der Aufwand, der betrieben wird, beweisen, als Lisette im Dschungel verschwindet, ein lebendes Pfand, ein Verhandlungsgegenstand in einem letztlich politischen Konflikt. Eine weitere weibliche Figur, in einem von Grund auf männlichem Spiel.
Solange aber Männer wie Juan Pablo den Krieg für eine Tugend halten, Männer wie Diego, ein ehemaliger U.S.-Soldat und Gelegenheitsliebhaber von Lisette, den Krieg hingegen als Einnahmequelle betrachten, weil sie als moderne Söldner für sehr gutes Geld dort arbeiten, wo man sie hinbeordert, und solange Männer wie Abel, aber auch Frauen wie Luisa und Alma, die für ihren Mut, über die Verbindungen einzelner Gruppen und deren Taten auszusagen, auf grausame Art bestraft wird, den Krieg als einen natürlichen Zustand hinnehmen, solange wird es Kriege geben. Das Sein bestimmt das Bewußtsein? Ja, das stimmt schon. Aber es ist auch ein Wechselspiel, denn das Bewußtsein projiziert das empfundene Dasein auch in die Realität zurück – und beeinflusst sie. Und Männer wie Juan Pablo, aber auch Mason, sind diejenigen, die das Spiel vollkommen durchschauen, ihm jedoch metaphysische Dimensionen zuschreiben und es so, völlig bewußt und unter Berücksichtigung aller Schrecken, die das beinhaltet, weitertreiben. Der Originaltitel MISSIONARIES verweist doppelbödig auf diese Metaphysik des Krieges. Missionen, den Begriff kann man auf eine militärische Mission beziehen, jedoch hat er eben auch einen religiösen Aspekt, denn das, was da im Namen der Demokratie in allen möglichen Kontinenten getrieben wird, wird allzu oft als demokratische oder als Friedensmission angepriesen. Missionen im höheren Auftrag, gleich ob sakraler oder profaner Natur.
Mason nimmt dabei allerdings noch einmal eine Sonderrolle ein. Denn er repräsentiert einen Typus Amerikaner, der zwar auch längst zu einem Klischee geronnen ist, dennoch aber nach wie vor auch eine Wahrheit vermittelt. Es ist der Typus des Opportunisten. Die CIA, das ist heute weitestgehend belegt, war gerade in Südamerika nie zimperlich. In „Amerikas Hinterhof“, wie der südamerikanische Kontinent gern abfällig tituliert wird, sorgte man gern rechtzeitig für klare Verhältnisse. Und während man in Europa noch die Musterdemokratie BRD aufbaute, mißachtete man in Südamerika schon in den 50er Jahren (im Grunde schon lange zuvor, nimmt man die diversen Handelskriege zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts hinzu, die oft sehr heiß wurden) alle demokratischen Gepflogenheiten und machte sich früh daran, nicht genehme Regierungen zu destabilisieren oder gleich zu stürzen.
Der viel gepriesene „War on Drugs“, den schon Nancy Reagan Mitte der 80er Jahre ausgerufen hatte, wurde mit ähnlich dreckigen Mitteln geführt und Klay führt exemplarisch vor, wie sich die USA bei allen solchen Operationen – anfangs auch in Vietnam, worauf im Buch mehrfach und in unterschiedlichen Kontexten Bezug genommen wird – lokale Gruppen zunutze machten, Unfrieden stifteten, Keile in Gesellschaften trieben und vorhandene Konflikte bewußt anheizten und verstärkten. Nur, um ihre Hände im Zweifelsfall in Unschuld zu waschen. Groß- oder Supermacht-Gehabe. Und genau diesen Habitus strahlt der ach so zivilisierte, durch die Geburt seiner Tochter, wenn nicht geläuterte, dann aber schon zu höherer Einsicht gelangte Mason aus. Er bleibt im Hintergrund und kennt doch alle Mechanismen und Techniken, um amerikanische Interessen – und sei es auch nur das Leben einer an sich uninteressanten Journalistin – durchzusetzen.
Klay verwebt all diese Ebenen, die verschiedenen und teils sehr unterschiedlichen Kontexte, äußerst geschickt. Sprachlich kann er überzeugen (Dank der Leistung des Übersetzers Hannes Meyer auch im Deutschen gut zu verfolgen), in der Differenzierung und der Ambivalenz, welcher er den Leser aussetzt und es ihm damit nicht leicht macht, manchmal sogar unerträglich schwer, zeigt sich die literarische Klasse dieses Autors. Er urteilt nicht, sondern er überlässt es seinen Lesern, Schlüsse aus dem Geschilderten zu ziehen. Er ist auch erstaunlich wenig manipulativ in der Figurenzeichnung. Klay ist oft rein deskriptiv, lässt die Figuren dann aber reflektieren, was sie in ihrem jeweiligen Ausschnitt der Wirklichkeit des Krieges wahrnehmen. Und lässt sie daraus ihre Schlüsse ziehen. Dies auch in den Widersprüchen, in denen sie zueinander stehen, denen sie aber auch oft immanent unterliegen, nachvollziehen und sogar verstehen zu können, ist das Verdienst dieses wirklich klugen Buchs über den Krieg. Zugleich ist es aber auch seine größte Zumutung an das Publikum.
Dennoch möchte man eine solche Betrachtung natürlich zurückweisen – und stellt, beschäftigt man sich mit den kulturellen Zeugnissen zum Krieg, gleich ob Literatur, Theater, Lyrik oder Film – fest, daß das Thema meist aber Männer interessiert und fasziniert. Sie scheinen nun einmal die treibende Kraft hinter kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen zu sein. Und folgt man einigen der wesentlichen literarischen Publikationen der letzten Jahre, die sich mit dem Thema beschäftigen, sind es letztlich eben auch Männer, die den Krieg als Möglichkeit politischer Konfliktlösung, aber auch als ein persönliches Bewährungsfeld betrachten. Immer noch – und immer wieder.
Es ist dies auch einr der zentralen Erkenntnisse eines Werks wie Phil Klays DEN STURM ERNTEN (MISSIONARIES,2020; Dt: 2021). Oder, besser gesagt, ist es eine der Erkenntnisse, die sich dem Leser während und nach der Lektüre des Buchs aufdrängen. Klay erzählt in den ersten beiden Abschnitten seines Romans aus der jeweils subjektiven Perspektive von vier Protagonisten über einen Zeitraum von nahezu 30 Jahren. So lernen wir diese Hauptprotagonisten der Erzählung und ihre jeweiligen Lebensgeschichten kennen und einzuschätzen.
Abel berichtet von seiner Kindheit, dem Mord an seiner Familie – und seines Dorfes – im kolumbianischen Grenzgebiet zu Venezuela zum Ende der 80er Jahre. Er erzählt, wie er in die Hände einer der vielen konkurrierenden Gruppen – Narcos, Paramilitärs, offizielles Militär, Guerilla – fiel und sich dort hochdiente. Die Amerikanerin Lisette ihrerseits berichtet von ihren Einsätzen als Journalistin in Afghanistan und Irak ab 2001, sie erzählt aber auch von der Entfremdung von ihrer Heimat, dem ländlichen Pennsylvania, von ihrer Familie, und davon, wie sie, wie so viele Kriegsreporter, nach und nach dem Reiz der Gefahr verfällt und anfängt, sich immer wildere Begründungen zu liefern, weshalb sie wieder und wieder in Kriegsgebiete zurückkehrt und meint, von dort berichten zu müssen – auch, wenn es in der Heimat niemanden mehr zu interessieren scheint. Mason ist ein amerikanischer Militärangehöriger, der sich seine ersten Meriten ebenfalls in den Kriegen in Folge von 9/11 erworben hat, mittlerweile aber – älter und in der Hierarchie des Militärs aufgestiegen – in Kolumbien Dienst tut, wo er zur Ausbildung der kolumbianischen Special Forces beiträgt, die im Kampf gegen die Drogenkartelle zum Einsatz kommen sollen. Juan Pablo ist Masons Verbindungsmann beim kolumbianischen Militär. Er ist ein Hund des Krieges, ein Mann, der den Krieg liebt und für notwendig hält, vor allem in Gesellschaften wie denen Südamerikas, die keine demokratische Tradition haben und seiner Meinung nach mit Gewalt zusammengehalten werden müssen.
Im letzten, dem längsten Abschnitt des Buches, laufen die Geschichten dieser vier Menschen – und etlicher Nebenfiguren – in Kolumbien zusammen. Es sind die Jahre 2016/17, die Volksbefragung zum Friedensabkommen mit der FARC, der bestimmenden kolumbianischen Guerillatruppe, die sich als sozialrevolutionär verstand, steht bevor. In diesem Umfeld versucht jede Gruppe und Gruppierung, versuchen die Militärs, die Polizei, zu der es in Konkurrenz steht, versuchen NGOs, die Amerikaner und die Politik ihr jeweils eigenes Süppchen zu kochen, um sich ihr jeweiliges Stück vom Kuchen zu sichern, den Kolumbien in ihren Augen darstellt. Die Situation spitzt sich zu, als Lisette von einer eher marginalen lokalen Gruppe entführt wird, die sie für eine CIA-Agentin hält und das fragile Gleichgewicht, das gerade in dieser Region des Landes herrscht, massiv gefährden, nicht zuletzt dadurch, weil sie die Aufmerksamkeit von Kräften auf sich und die Region lenken, weil sie empfindlich die Verhandlungen lokaler Gangster und ehemaliger Guerillas stören.
Klay beschreibt gerade diese oft undurchschaubaren politischen Zusammenhänge ebenso, wie er ganz konkret von Kampfeinsätzen und vor allem – nahezu unerträglich – von der Gewalt erzählt, die all diese Menschen auf die eine oder andere Art über das Leben sehr, sehr vieler anderer bringen und welche sie meist auch selbst ertragen haben. Phil Klay diente selbst lange Jahre als Marine, u.a. war er im Irak eingesetzt. So sind vor allem seine Beschreibungen und die Betrachtungen, die er vornehmlich Lisette hinsichtlich des amerikanischen Einsatzes im Nahen Osten und in Afghanistan treffen lässt, eigener Anschauung und eigenen Erfahrungen geschuldet. Nun gibt es natürlich etliche Bücher – Sachbücher wie Belletristik, Erfahrungsberichte und politische wie soziale Analysen – von ehemaligen Soldaten, Offizieren, Scharfschützen und Ortskräften in- und außerhalb der USA. Selten allerdings sind diese Autoren wirklich befähigt, Literatur zu verfassen. Schlimmstenfalls kommt Kitsch dabei heraus. So zu beobachten bei einem Werk wie DIE WEITE LEERE von J. Todd Scott, der zwar jede Menge Erfahrung als Ranger an der amerikanisch-mexikanischen Grenze haben mag, deshalb aber noch lange keinen guten Krimi über illegale Einwanderung und die Härten des Lebens der Grenzkontrolleure hinbekommt.
Das ist bei Phil Klay definitiv anders. Nach seinem Debüt – der Kurzgeschichtensammlung WIR ERSCHOSSEN AUCH HUNDE (REDEPLOYMENT; 2014) – bereits hochgelobt und als neue Stimme am amerikanischen Literaturhimmel gefeiert, verglichen mit Hemingway, Conrad oder Remarque, konnte er für DEN STURM ERNTEN allerhöchste Meriten einheimsen, u.a. wurde das Buch von Barack Obama zu seinem „Book of the year“ ernannt. Und das Lob ist berechtigt. Sicher, man muß sich grundlegend für das Thema interessieren, muß in Kauf nehmen, mit einer Menge technischer Details, gerade was Waffen und Waffensysteme betrifft, behelligt zu werden und muß vor allem – das sei wirklich noch einmal explizit erwähnt – in den ersten beiden Abschnitten des Textes teils unerträgliche Gewaltbeschreibungen ertragen. Dabei gehört Klay aber keinesfalls zu denen, die offiziell behaupten, gegen die Gewalt anzuschreiben, ihr und ihrer Darstellung hinterrücks aber erliegen und ihre heimliche Faszination daran kaum verbergen können. Eher sachlich beschreibt Klay Momente solch entgrenzter menschlicher Brutalität, daß gelegentlich der Eindruck entsteht, hier schreibt ein Traumatisierter, einer, der selbst fassungslos vor dem Phänomen steht, daß er ihm nur mit äußerster Nüchternheit begegnen kann.
Klays wirkliche Stärke liegt aber woanders. Es sind zum einen die Figuren, die er durchweg glaubwürdig gestaltet und denen er, manchmal vielleicht etwas zu vereinfacht, eine jeweils eigene Stimme verleiht. Das gelingt – naturgemäß? – vor allem bei den Amerikanern sehr gut. Zwar liegt der Fokus dieser Figuren auf den Einsätzen im Ausland, also auf ihrem Beruf, doch kann Klay sowohl Lisette als auch Mason mit genug individueller Geschichte ausstatten, um sie lebensnah zu gestalten. Wir begreifen, weshalb Lisette immer gieriger auf immer gefährlichere Einsätze wird, bis es sie beinah erwischt; aber wir begreifen auch, wie ein Mann wie Mason, ein nachdenklicher Mensch, spätestens nach der Geburt der eigenen Tochter vorsichtiger wird und froh ist, aus den gefährlichen – ihn aber auch faszinierenden – Einsätzen in Irak und Afghanistan mit einem vermeintlich leichteren Auftrag nach Südamerika geschickt zu werden, wo er schlicht ein Ausbilder ist. Später, als er als hochrangiger Offizier zurückkehrt, ist er längst ein situierter Militär, der selbst keine gefährlichen Einsätze mehr zu bestehen hat, sondern bestehen lässt.
Bei den südamerikanischen Figuren sieht es etwas anders aus. Sowohl Abel als auch Juan Pablo, aber auch etliche Nebenfiguren, wie die junge Luisa oder der Bandenchef Jefferson, wirken häufig medialen Vorbildern nachempfunden. Sie wurden offensichtlich der beeindruckend langen Liste von Werken entlehnt, die Klay zu Rate gezogen hat, um den kolumbianischen Teil seiner Erzählung wahrheitsgetreu zu rekonstruieren. Dennoch kann man auch an diese Charaktere glauben. Gerade Juan Pablo nimmt eine zentrale Funktion im Text ein, da er einen unverstellt männlichen Blick auf das Wesen der Gewalt, des Krieges, des Konflikts, bietet, der letztlich auch der wesentliche ist, um das Buch zu verstehen. Die Trauer zu verstehen, die dem Text zugrunde liegt. Abel hingegen markiert exemplarisch genau den Übergang vom Opfer zum Täter. Ihm entgegengestellt ist Luisa. Beide stammen aus demselben Dorf, beide sind Opfer von Gewalt geworden. Doch während Abel die Gewalt anzunehmen scheint – ob aus Angst oder aus Faszination, sei dahingestellt – geht Luisa den entschieden gegenteiligen Weg. Sie heuert bei einem Universitätsprogramm an, welches maßgeblich daran arbeitet, zum gesellschaftlichen Ausgleich beizutragen, indem es u.a. Vergebung einfordert. Ähnlich der südafrikanischen „Wahrheitskommission“, die nach dem Ende der Apartheid eingesetzt wurde, um die tiefgreifenden Wunden und Gräben der Gesellschaft durch Dialog und Austausch zu verarbeiten. Dazu gehört in Luisas Fall aber auch, genau jene Männer in Rehabilitationsprogrammen unterzubringen, denen sie einst zuschauen musste, wie sie ihren Vater öffentlich auf dem Dorfplatz mit einer Kettensäge hinrichteten.
Zum Kern des Buchs dringt man aber nur über die Figur des Juan Pablo vor. Einer Militärdynastie entstammend, war er, wie einst sein als es opportun erschien in Ungnade gefallener Vater, in seiner Vergangenheit an etlichen Gräueltaten beteiligt. Taten, von denen er nicht unbedingt will, daß seine Tochter Valencia davon erfährt. Juan Pablo macht allerdings keinen Hehl daraus, daß er jede einzelne Tat, jedes Massaker, jede Folterung, jeden Mord in seinem spezifischen Kontext nach wie vor für gerechtfertigt hält. Wie viele Militärs, ist auch er strikter Gegner des Friedensabkommens mit der FARC und zudem daran interessiert, gewisse Kompetenzen von der Polizei zum Militär zu ziehen, was ihm die Möglichkeit böte, Kommandounternehmen gegen die Drogenbanden anzuordnen, die definitiv nicht den ausgehandelten Bedingungen eines Friedensvertrags gerecht würden. Klay driftet nicht in Machoklischees von südamerikanischen Amigos ab, vielmehr lässt er Juan Pablo als einen gebildeten, konservativen, aber auch bis zum Zynismus ehrlichen und aufgeklärten Mann auftreten. Der hält auch keine großen Reden, doch in einigen zentralen Monolog- wie Dialogstellen können wir erahnen, daß er durchaus einem Soldatenethos anhängt, daß er den Krieg als männliches Ausdrucksmittel, die Gewalt als Mittel zur Kommunikation betrachtet.
Und genau diese Sichtweise, die Mason und vor allem Jefferson, aber in einem tiefgründigeren Bezug auch Lisette bestätigen, ist es, was den Grundton des Romans, seine Melodie, das Thema bestimmen. Abel und Luisa hingegen stehen für genau all jene, die in jedem Krieg untergehen, weil sie als unbedeutend, als Kanonenfutter oder Kollateralschaden betrachtet werden. Opfer und Täter zugleich, ambivalente Figuren, die gegen die Dämonen und die Leere im eigenen ausgebrannten Ich ankämpfen müssen und letztlich immer verlieren. Gleich, ob sie überleben oder einen gewaltsamen Tod finden. Sie sind die Figuren, die auf den abstrakten Schachbrettern der Mächtigen hin und her geschoben werden, deren individuelles Leben im Grunde niemanden interessieren, austauschbare Zahlen in endlosen Zahlenkolonnen. Erst recht, wenn sie keine Amerikaner sind. Wobei „Amerikaner“ durch „Briten“ oder „Deutsche“ ersetzt werden kann. Deren Leben zählt, wie der Einsatz und der der Aufwand, der betrieben wird, beweisen, als Lisette im Dschungel verschwindet, ein lebendes Pfand, ein Verhandlungsgegenstand in einem letztlich politischen Konflikt. Eine weitere weibliche Figur, in einem von Grund auf männlichem Spiel.
Solange aber Männer wie Juan Pablo den Krieg für eine Tugend halten, Männer wie Diego, ein ehemaliger U.S.-Soldat und Gelegenheitsliebhaber von Lisette, den Krieg hingegen als Einnahmequelle betrachten, weil sie als moderne Söldner für sehr gutes Geld dort arbeiten, wo man sie hinbeordert, und solange Männer wie Abel, aber auch Frauen wie Luisa und Alma, die für ihren Mut, über die Verbindungen einzelner Gruppen und deren Taten auszusagen, auf grausame Art bestraft wird, den Krieg als einen natürlichen Zustand hinnehmen, solange wird es Kriege geben. Das Sein bestimmt das Bewußtsein? Ja, das stimmt schon. Aber es ist auch ein Wechselspiel, denn das Bewußtsein projiziert das empfundene Dasein auch in die Realität zurück – und beeinflusst sie. Und Männer wie Juan Pablo, aber auch Mason, sind diejenigen, die das Spiel vollkommen durchschauen, ihm jedoch metaphysische Dimensionen zuschreiben und es so, völlig bewußt und unter Berücksichtigung aller Schrecken, die das beinhaltet, weitertreiben. Der Originaltitel MISSIONARIES verweist doppelbödig auf diese Metaphysik des Krieges. Missionen, den Begriff kann man auf eine militärische Mission beziehen, jedoch hat er eben auch einen religiösen Aspekt, denn das, was da im Namen der Demokratie in allen möglichen Kontinenten getrieben wird, wird allzu oft als demokratische oder als Friedensmission angepriesen. Missionen im höheren Auftrag, gleich ob sakraler oder profaner Natur.
Mason nimmt dabei allerdings noch einmal eine Sonderrolle ein. Denn er repräsentiert einen Typus Amerikaner, der zwar auch längst zu einem Klischee geronnen ist, dennoch aber nach wie vor auch eine Wahrheit vermittelt. Es ist der Typus des Opportunisten. Die CIA, das ist heute weitestgehend belegt, war gerade in Südamerika nie zimperlich. In „Amerikas Hinterhof“, wie der südamerikanische Kontinent gern abfällig tituliert wird, sorgte man gern rechtzeitig für klare Verhältnisse. Und während man in Europa noch die Musterdemokratie BRD aufbaute, mißachtete man in Südamerika schon in den 50er Jahren (im Grunde schon lange zuvor, nimmt man die diversen Handelskriege zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts hinzu, die oft sehr heiß wurden) alle demokratischen Gepflogenheiten und machte sich früh daran, nicht genehme Regierungen zu destabilisieren oder gleich zu stürzen.
Der viel gepriesene „War on Drugs“, den schon Nancy Reagan Mitte der 80er Jahre ausgerufen hatte, wurde mit ähnlich dreckigen Mitteln geführt und Klay führt exemplarisch vor, wie sich die USA bei allen solchen Operationen – anfangs auch in Vietnam, worauf im Buch mehrfach und in unterschiedlichen Kontexten Bezug genommen wird – lokale Gruppen zunutze machten, Unfrieden stifteten, Keile in Gesellschaften trieben und vorhandene Konflikte bewußt anheizten und verstärkten. Nur, um ihre Hände im Zweifelsfall in Unschuld zu waschen. Groß- oder Supermacht-Gehabe. Und genau diesen Habitus strahlt der ach so zivilisierte, durch die Geburt seiner Tochter, wenn nicht geläuterte, dann aber schon zu höherer Einsicht gelangte Mason aus. Er bleibt im Hintergrund und kennt doch alle Mechanismen und Techniken, um amerikanische Interessen – und sei es auch nur das Leben einer an sich uninteressanten Journalistin – durchzusetzen.
Klay verwebt all diese Ebenen, die verschiedenen und teils sehr unterschiedlichen Kontexte, äußerst geschickt. Sprachlich kann er überzeugen (Dank der Leistung des Übersetzers Hannes Meyer auch im Deutschen gut zu verfolgen), in der Differenzierung und der Ambivalenz, welcher er den Leser aussetzt und es ihm damit nicht leicht macht, manchmal sogar unerträglich schwer, zeigt sich die literarische Klasse dieses Autors. Er urteilt nicht, sondern er überlässt es seinen Lesern, Schlüsse aus dem Geschilderten zu ziehen. Er ist auch erstaunlich wenig manipulativ in der Figurenzeichnung. Klay ist oft rein deskriptiv, lässt die Figuren dann aber reflektieren, was sie in ihrem jeweiligen Ausschnitt der Wirklichkeit des Krieges wahrnehmen. Und lässt sie daraus ihre Schlüsse ziehen. Dies auch in den Widersprüchen, in denen sie zueinander stehen, denen sie aber auch oft immanent unterliegen, nachvollziehen und sogar verstehen zu können, ist das Verdienst dieses wirklich klugen Buchs über den Krieg. Zugleich ist es aber auch seine größte Zumutung an das Publikum.
March 5, 2021
Missionaries is a unique and fulfulling novel by Phil Klay, who is quickly showing himself to be one of the most promising talents of his generation. The novel straddles the narratives of four varying nationalities, genders and perspectives. While Klay’s portrayal of these backgrounds are somewhat cliched and not particularly inspired, what made the novel surpass the flimsiness of its premise was Klay’s portrayal of war - clearly built off of something he has lived through - and then his depth of insight. Some of his reflections on the sound of language or the meaning of life have real insight to them.
Unfortunately the level of depth required for the dramas of his plots were not well summoned, but I appreciated the ambition, and the willingness to write outside of his comfort zone.
Unfortunately the level of depth required for the dramas of his plots were not well summoned, but I appreciated the ambition, and the willingness to write outside of his comfort zone.
June 26, 2021
Phil Klay’s landmark novel Missionaries offers haunting glimpses into the implementation of modern war in regions as distant from one another as those of Iraq and Afghanistan to those of Colombia and Venezuela. His equally engrossing and profound narrative weaves together four storylines with an array of individuals from those who have decision-making influence to initiative war, to those who cover and report the chaos of war, to those who fight on the frontlines of war, and to those who suffer and become the victims of the unrestrained violence of war.
We see Abel, a Colombian native, as he suffers terrible loss in his country’s rural towns and how he then becomes a combatant in a militia before trying to redirect his life towards normalcy. We see Lisette, a daring reporter, as she delivers up correspondence in Afghanistan before she sets her journalistic sights on Colombia’s villages and towns ravished by the narco and drug lords. We see Mason, an Army medic, as he endures the rigors of combat, and then we see him as a veteran working for the U.S. government as a consultant to the Colombian military. And we see Juan Pablo, a lieutenant colonel in the Colombian special forces, and how he is responsible for tracking down narco targets and strategizing operations.
Klay had me invested in the lives of each of these major characters, and he does a remarkable job at giving us access to their struggles. We experience their range of emotions from fear to courage, from grief to hope, and we share in the most traumatic and intimate of their experiences. In addition, the scope of Klay’s narrative does not cling exclusively to the major players. He allows us to feel the dread and despair of civilians in vulnerable locales from the Middle East to South America. He likewise offers insight into the minds of the characters as they become more and more entwined in the madness of modern warfare. Moreover, Klay has the ability to provide a frightening window into the cold-blooded desensitization of criminals and terrorists as they carry out unspeakable acts of cruelty for revenge, power, money, and sometimes for no specific reason, except that they can.
The epic nature of Klay’s novel is rife with psychological details and philosophical passages, but he skillfully maintains a constant degree of suspense that had my blood chilled as the storylines inched forward to where the four major characters’ paths began to intersect. Missionaries is an essential novel for understanding our wanton era, and Klay bears witness to scenes of unflinching brutality and carnage, but mostly he offers an intense look at the modern world’s struggles against acts of inhumanity. In giving us the authenticity of war from multiple viewpoints, Klay enables us to see who we are and where we are headed in our unfolding history of violence.
After winning the National Book Award for his debut story collection Redeployment, I hope Missionaries also receives significant attention from the Pulitzer, Booker, and other award committees. Klay’s novel is the most original and ingenious piece of fiction I’ve read since Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer in 2015, and it’s just as spectacular and engaging in its epic breadth as Julie Orringer’s The Flight Portfolio from 2019. I can hardly wait to see where Klay’s vision takes him with his next project.
We see Abel, a Colombian native, as he suffers terrible loss in his country’s rural towns and how he then becomes a combatant in a militia before trying to redirect his life towards normalcy. We see Lisette, a daring reporter, as she delivers up correspondence in Afghanistan before she sets her journalistic sights on Colombia’s villages and towns ravished by the narco and drug lords. We see Mason, an Army medic, as he endures the rigors of combat, and then we see him as a veteran working for the U.S. government as a consultant to the Colombian military. And we see Juan Pablo, a lieutenant colonel in the Colombian special forces, and how he is responsible for tracking down narco targets and strategizing operations.
Klay had me invested in the lives of each of these major characters, and he does a remarkable job at giving us access to their struggles. We experience their range of emotions from fear to courage, from grief to hope, and we share in the most traumatic and intimate of their experiences. In addition, the scope of Klay’s narrative does not cling exclusively to the major players. He allows us to feel the dread and despair of civilians in vulnerable locales from the Middle East to South America. He likewise offers insight into the minds of the characters as they become more and more entwined in the madness of modern warfare. Moreover, Klay has the ability to provide a frightening window into the cold-blooded desensitization of criminals and terrorists as they carry out unspeakable acts of cruelty for revenge, power, money, and sometimes for no specific reason, except that they can.
The epic nature of Klay’s novel is rife with psychological details and philosophical passages, but he skillfully maintains a constant degree of suspense that had my blood chilled as the storylines inched forward to where the four major characters’ paths began to intersect. Missionaries is an essential novel for understanding our wanton era, and Klay bears witness to scenes of unflinching brutality and carnage, but mostly he offers an intense look at the modern world’s struggles against acts of inhumanity. In giving us the authenticity of war from multiple viewpoints, Klay enables us to see who we are and where we are headed in our unfolding history of violence.
After winning the National Book Award for his debut story collection Redeployment, I hope Missionaries also receives significant attention from the Pulitzer, Booker, and other award committees. Klay’s novel is the most original and ingenious piece of fiction I’ve read since Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer in 2015, and it’s just as spectacular and engaging in its epic breadth as Julie Orringer’s The Flight Portfolio from 2019. I can hardly wait to see where Klay’s vision takes him with his next project.
November 14, 2020
As I approach my 79th birthday, I am contentedly relinquishing my status as a born finisher of books. After struggling through 172 pages of Phil Klay’s first novel, MISSIONARIES, I’m giving up and moving on to hopefully more rewarding offerings.
I agree with readers who find Lisette the most engaging of the novel’s characters, but even she is not fully convincing. Other characters are so thinly drawn that as they returned I could barely remember who they were.
As further obfuscation for readers, Klay frequently and without explanation uses military terms that are unfamiliar to most civilians and Spanish terms that even my Cuban-born, Spanish-speaking partner couldn’t clarify for me.
Goodbye, Phil Klay. Here I come, Graham Swift. (If Swift’s new one is even half as good as his LAST ORDERS, that will be fine.)
I agree with readers who find Lisette the most engaging of the novel’s characters, but even she is not fully convincing. Other characters are so thinly drawn that as they returned I could barely remember who they were.
As further obfuscation for readers, Klay frequently and without explanation uses military terms that are unfamiliar to most civilians and Spanish terms that even my Cuban-born, Spanish-speaking partner couldn’t clarify for me.
Goodbye, Phil Klay. Here I come, Graham Swift. (If Swift’s new one is even half as good as his LAST ORDERS, that will be fine.)
February 27, 2021
5.0 — This novel is just superb. It is far too good to rush into reviewing. So cogitative measures must be undertaken . Review to come...
What a novel!
What a novel!
![Profile Image for laurel [the suspected bibliophile].](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/users/1645808644i/7494844._UX200_CR0,6,200,200_.jpg)
Shelved as 'dnf'
July 28, 2022DNF at 10%
Not feeling it at all cuz I'm in a sluuuuuuuuuuump.
Not feeling it at all cuz I'm in a sluuuuuuuuuuump.
January 15, 2024
Viewpoints of modern military / political conflicts from the perspective of four very different people.
Quite graphic with a plethora of overdone profanity.
Quite graphic with a plethora of overdone profanity.
January 1, 2022
Phil Klay’s MISSIONARIES is a hell of an interesting read, though it often works better on a nonfiction rather than on a literary level. Let me explain.
Klay is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and the author of REDEPLOYMENT, a collection about veterans that earned enormous accolades. MISSIONARIES is a fairly ambitious followup, the result of six years of research. In this novel, a war reporter in Afghanistan, war veterans turned military contractors, narcos, paramilitaries, and intelligence officers in Colombia evaluate, experience, and try to counter the endless cycle of violence and drug trafficking.
The story contains a great deal of fascinating information, written with authority and flair and backed by solid research. It has a documentary feel to it at some points, a brooding SICARIO feel at other points. I love how Klay doesn’t posit easy answers or inject a moral narrative. He just tells you how it is, and how it is is very, very complicated. For me, this is where the novel really shines, in how it holds up for inspection a slice of the War on Drugs as an element of an endless, cyclical global war. This is my favorite kind of fiction, where I learn something without feeling like I’m in school, and where I’m exposed to engaging and interesting ideas, of which MISSIONARIES has plenty.
Where the novel works less for me is there are a lot of characters, and despite connections here and there, they don’t really tie together until deep into the last act. I don’t mind a sprawling story, but it needs to tie together thematically early on and eventually through the plot, ideally sooner than near the end. MISSIONARIES has a theme, though I’m not sure what it is other than the War on Drugs became the War on Terror and is now one unending global war, often fought outside the news headlines, and often pitting elites against the poor. Each of the characters is in one way or another an elite playing their part in the game, and we never see them face any real moral dilemmas about the dirty game they’re playing. And the way everything ties together, with a central conflict that doesn’t reveal itself until the last act and then gets resolved pretty quickly and without much fuss, makes this novel more a powerful snapshot of people and ideas than a tightly coherent narrative.
So overall, a 5 for ideas and good storytelling at the ground level, more a 4 for characters and the way the story comes together. In short, I liked it a lot for its positive qualities, and I’m gonna check out his REDEPLOYMENT.
Klay is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and the author of REDEPLOYMENT, a collection about veterans that earned enormous accolades. MISSIONARIES is a fairly ambitious followup, the result of six years of research. In this novel, a war reporter in Afghanistan, war veterans turned military contractors, narcos, paramilitaries, and intelligence officers in Colombia evaluate, experience, and try to counter the endless cycle of violence and drug trafficking.
The story contains a great deal of fascinating information, written with authority and flair and backed by solid research. It has a documentary feel to it at some points, a brooding SICARIO feel at other points. I love how Klay doesn’t posit easy answers or inject a moral narrative. He just tells you how it is, and how it is is very, very complicated. For me, this is where the novel really shines, in how it holds up for inspection a slice of the War on Drugs as an element of an endless, cyclical global war. This is my favorite kind of fiction, where I learn something without feeling like I’m in school, and where I’m exposed to engaging and interesting ideas, of which MISSIONARIES has plenty.
Where the novel works less for me is there are a lot of characters, and despite connections here and there, they don’t really tie together until deep into the last act. I don’t mind a sprawling story, but it needs to tie together thematically early on and eventually through the plot, ideally sooner than near the end. MISSIONARIES has a theme, though I’m not sure what it is other than the War on Drugs became the War on Terror and is now one unending global war, often fought outside the news headlines, and often pitting elites against the poor. Each of the characters is in one way or another an elite playing their part in the game, and we never see them face any real moral dilemmas about the dirty game they’re playing. And the way everything ties together, with a central conflict that doesn’t reveal itself until the last act and then gets resolved pretty quickly and without much fuss, makes this novel more a powerful snapshot of people and ideas than a tightly coherent narrative.
So overall, a 5 for ideas and good storytelling at the ground level, more a 4 for characters and the way the story comes together. In short, I liked it a lot for its positive qualities, and I’m gonna check out his REDEPLOYMENT.
August 23, 2020
There are all sorts of missionaries in this excellent novel. The first are a group of Americans who build a school in a rural Colombian town to teach reading, math, and about a personal Jesus. When the guerilla came, followed by the paracos, they vanished. Killed? Fled? The other missionaries are those. of justice, technology, survival, all of which leave the people of Santander del Norte terrified and praying for the missionary who brings peace, no matter what that means.
Colombia is the "good war," one where there is belief that good is conquoring evil. For journalist Lisette, weary of covering the hopeless war in Afganistan, it doesn't turn out to be that way. Nor for Mason, an army medic in Afganistan who becomes a liaison with the Colombian special forces. His Colombian counterpart, Juan Pablo, faces reality with a pragmatic attitude, but none of them is on the front line as solidly as Abel, whose family was slaughtered by one faction and ends up serving that same group.
The first sections of the book that include Mason are too full of acronyms, like some kind of deadly secret boys' club. It makes it hard for non-military readers to be part of the story. This distancing from the reader may be intentional, with the endless fighting and death deflected in an alphabet soup. This dehumanizing way of waging war has spread across the globe, and no one knows this better than Mason.
As with any novel with several points of view, you'll be more invested in some than others. This is true of "Missionaries." But all of these points of view are needed to make the story complete. It's a devastating tale, worth telling.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for access to this title.
4.5 stars.
``Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader
Colombia is the "good war," one where there is belief that good is conquoring evil. For journalist Lisette, weary of covering the hopeless war in Afganistan, it doesn't turn out to be that way. Nor for Mason, an army medic in Afganistan who becomes a liaison with the Colombian special forces. His Colombian counterpart, Juan Pablo, faces reality with a pragmatic attitude, but none of them is on the front line as solidly as Abel, whose family was slaughtered by one faction and ends up serving that same group.
The first sections of the book that include Mason are too full of acronyms, like some kind of deadly secret boys' club. It makes it hard for non-military readers to be part of the story. This distancing from the reader may be intentional, with the endless fighting and death deflected in an alphabet soup. This dehumanizing way of waging war has spread across the globe, and no one knows this better than Mason.
As with any novel with several points of view, you'll be more invested in some than others. This is true of "Missionaries." But all of these points of view are needed to make the story complete. It's a devastating tale, worth telling.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for access to this title.
4.5 stars.
``Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader
October 24, 2020
I'm a man. (In case that matters to you.) Like most men, I've never been in combat. And like some men, I've long wondered if I'd be able to survive it. So I read war novels and watch war movies hoping some of the ambient testosterone will deliver a shot of vicarious heroism.
Well, I'm stupid. I am nothing like the men who live for battle. That's not a judgment on anyone, it's just a fact, and the rigorously researched, perfectly paced, and dauntingly disciplined "Missionaries" makes it obvious.
Phil Klay wrote "Redeployment," one of the best books of the 2010's, and has delivered an early contender for the best book of the 2020's. The plot is funnel-shaped, opening with a broad exploration of the main characters' origin stories and tapering to a single military incident. Your average novelist would start with a teaser to keep the reader invested through all the exposition. Mr. Klay is too confident for that kind of trickery. Plus, he's not writing a thriller, he's writing an almost journalistic account of how modern "war" is fought. I'm justifying the quotes because Mr. Klay demonstrates how modern warfare bears no resemblance to the wholesale slaughter so popular through the mid-20th century. Thanks to the advance of technology and the professionalization of both military and paramilitary personnel, war is now as targeted and invasive as viral marketing. But it's as deadly as it ever was.
Well, I'm stupid. I am nothing like the men who live for battle. That's not a judgment on anyone, it's just a fact, and the rigorously researched, perfectly paced, and dauntingly disciplined "Missionaries" makes it obvious.
Phil Klay wrote "Redeployment," one of the best books of the 2010's, and has delivered an early contender for the best book of the 2020's. The plot is funnel-shaped, opening with a broad exploration of the main characters' origin stories and tapering to a single military incident. Your average novelist would start with a teaser to keep the reader invested through all the exposition. Mr. Klay is too confident for that kind of trickery. Plus, he's not writing a thriller, he's writing an almost journalistic account of how modern "war" is fought. I'm justifying the quotes because Mr. Klay demonstrates how modern warfare bears no resemblance to the wholesale slaughter so popular through the mid-20th century. Thanks to the advance of technology and the professionalization of both military and paramilitary personnel, war is now as targeted and invasive as viral marketing. But it's as deadly as it ever was.
November 6, 2020
I tried. I loved Redeployed. I read it twice. It is one of my favorite books. A difficult read, but so worth it. This one...not so much. I got to the halfway mark and realized there is nothing here to keep my interest. There are flashes of ulta-violence (the chainsaw incident will forever be engraved in my memory) followed by long stretches of unrelenting boredom. Characters that are sleepwalking through their lives. Maybe that's his point, but, as a friend once said, "I don't have time for that. I live on a coast."
September 21, 2020
I will write at greater length about this book elsewhere—suffice it to say here that the book is marvelous and ought to be read by anyone who loves a great story. Very glad to have had an opportunity to read it, and I think other readers—especially those who share my aesthetics and sensibilities—will feel similarly.
November 20, 2020
Good intentions, commitment to accuracy, and not much finesse.
July 9, 2021
Great read! The mess of the form really matches the mess of the theme
February 28, 2022
Decent book. Lots of actors, bizarrely confusing. Hard to get through due to dizzying number of characters. Interesting despite this, but very niche.
October 8, 2021
Der Marine-Veteran Phil Klay schreibt in seinem Roman „Den Sturm ernten“ mit schrecklicher Authentizität über den Krieg im kolumbianischen Dschungel. Er schreibt von Journalisten, US-Special-Forces, Patrioten und Paramilitärs, welche das Schicksal eines Landes mitbestimmen, dessen Fundament längst nicht mehr steht.
„Ein Mensch entsteht, wenn sich all diese Spiegelungen um einen Körper versammeln. Aber was passiert, wenn einem jeder dieser Menschen einer nach dem anderen genommen wird? Der Mensch stirbt. Und Knochen und Fleisch existieren weiter, wandeln auf Erden, als gäbe es den Menschen noch…“
„Den Sturm ernten“ ist ein beschreibender Roman, der oft innehält, um den Zweck des Krieges und durch ich ausgelöste Traumata zu hinterfragen. Gleichzeitig bleibt es aber eine hervorragend konstruierte Erzählung, wenn auch nicht ganz eine "perfekt konstruierte Maschine", wie Mason einen militärischen Überfall beschreibt.
„Aus Freunden werden Feinde, aus Gesundheit wird Krankheit, aus Reichturm wird Ruin. Aber wir beide, wir werden im Chaos einen kleinen Ort der Ordnung schaffen. Und an diesem kleinen Ort werden wir Raum für menschliche Gefühle haben, vielleicht grausame, vielleicht zärtliche, voller Streit oder unendlicher Wärme, doch wichtiger als die Natur der Liebe ist der Raum, den wir dafür geschaffen haben.“
Mit Hilfe der Fiktion will Klay den Lesern das System der Terrorismusbekämpfung nahebringen, das das US-Militär entwickelt und in die ganze Welt exportiert hat, von Kolumbien, wo ein Grossteil des Romans spielt, bis zum Nahen Osten. „Den Sturm ernten“ ist das Porträt eines gigantischen, durchlässigen und scheinbar missionslosen Krieges und als solches selbst gigantisch und wandelbar, auch wenn Klay sein Ziel nie aus den Augen verliert. Infolgedessen ist die grösste Stärke des Romans auch seine grösste Schwäche: Er versucht, so allumfassend zu sein wie sein Thema.
„Ein Mensch entsteht, wenn sich all diese Spiegelungen um einen Körper versammeln. Aber was passiert, wenn einem jeder dieser Menschen einer nach dem anderen genommen wird? Der Mensch stirbt. Und Knochen und Fleisch existieren weiter, wandeln auf Erden, als gäbe es den Menschen noch…“
„Den Sturm ernten“ ist ein beschreibender Roman, der oft innehält, um den Zweck des Krieges und durch ich ausgelöste Traumata zu hinterfragen. Gleichzeitig bleibt es aber eine hervorragend konstruierte Erzählung, wenn auch nicht ganz eine "perfekt konstruierte Maschine", wie Mason einen militärischen Überfall beschreibt.
„Aus Freunden werden Feinde, aus Gesundheit wird Krankheit, aus Reichturm wird Ruin. Aber wir beide, wir werden im Chaos einen kleinen Ort der Ordnung schaffen. Und an diesem kleinen Ort werden wir Raum für menschliche Gefühle haben, vielleicht grausame, vielleicht zärtliche, voller Streit oder unendlicher Wärme, doch wichtiger als die Natur der Liebe ist der Raum, den wir dafür geschaffen haben.“
Mit Hilfe der Fiktion will Klay den Lesern das System der Terrorismusbekämpfung nahebringen, das das US-Militär entwickelt und in die ganze Welt exportiert hat, von Kolumbien, wo ein Grossteil des Romans spielt, bis zum Nahen Osten. „Den Sturm ernten“ ist das Porträt eines gigantischen, durchlässigen und scheinbar missionslosen Krieges und als solches selbst gigantisch und wandelbar, auch wenn Klay sein Ziel nie aus den Augen verliert. Infolgedessen ist die grösste Stärke des Romans auch seine grösste Schwäche: Er versucht, so allumfassend zu sein wie sein Thema.
October 22, 2020
Paul Klay has followed on from the success of his short story collection, Redeployment - the recipient of the National Book Award for Fiction, and lauded by none other than Barack Obama - with a debut novel entitled Missionaries. Klay himself is a veteran of the US Marine Corps, and served in Iraq.
Missionaries is a work which encompasses relatively modern-day history, moving from the mid-1980s to almost the present day, with much of the action set in the mid-2010s. The conflicts which it covers relatively briefly include the highly contested wars between America and Iraq, and America and Afghanistan respectively, and the consequences left in their wake. The action then moves to Colombia, where violence perpetuated by narcos and guerrillas is rife, affecting the lives of so many citizens. In Colombia, 'the US has partnered with the local government to stamp out a vicious civil war and keep the predatory narco gangs at bay.'
The novel takes four protagonists as its focus - a US Special Forces medic named Mason; foreign correspondent Lisette; Colombian coca farmer Abel; and Juan Pablo. Each chapter focuses on a different individual.
At the novel's beginning, we are introduced to Abel, in a chapter which quickly spans his entire childhood. He has grown up in the shadow of conflict, between guerrillas and paracos. When he is just eight, his father tells him: '"When men with guns ask for something, there are no favors. You only obey."' Abel reflects: 'To talk about this part of my life is to talk about another person, like a person in a story, a boy with a father and mother and three sisters; one pretty, one smart, and one mean... Most people think that a person is whatever you see before you, walking around in bone and meat and blood, but that is an idiocy. Bone and meat and blood just exists, but to exist is not to live, and bone and meat and blood alone is not a person.'
We meet Lisette in 2015. She is living in Kabul, one of just a handful of special correspondents still remaining in Afghanistan's capital city. She comments: 'When I first came here, I was full of rage at the indifference most people back home showed to the death of Afghans. All these human beings, suffering, dying, and fighting... These days the thought will sometimes run through my head as I lie in bed, trying to sleep: I am broken, I am broken, and I do not know how I will ever fix this whole I've carved into my soul.'
The first section of Missionaries follows Abel and Lisette, and the second Mason and Juan Pablo. We meander in and out of their stories, each of which is suffused with a great deal of violence. The violent scenes and occurrences kept wrenching me out of the story, and quickly become so commonplace in the narrative that they lost the majority of their power. Klay's prose is to the point, largely quite matter-of-fact, and his stories move along at a steady pace. There is an urgency to the novel, but more in terms of the violence which is perpetuated throughout.
Klay undertook six years of research before embarking on Missionaries, which he carried out in both the United States and Colombia. The ultimate aim of the novel is to examine 'the globalization of violence through the interlocking stories of four characters and the conflicts that define their lives.' He does set the scenery well, and understands what it is like to live in a culture of fear, as all of his characters do. Missionaries is undoubtedly intelligent in what it divulges, and Klay's research is far-reaching. Whilst the author offers a lot of topics of interest, however, I felt as though these were never quite collated.
I do not feel as if the resolutions offered were highly satisfying; neither were the ways in which the individual stories come together. There seems to be a lack of overall cohesion, and the novel reads more like a collection of loosely connected stories about four characters from different walks of life. The novel's structure is often rather too slack.
I did not find Lisette's narrative voice at all convincing. As the only female protagonist, I imagined that her point of view would be written rather differently to the three male perspectives; however, this was not the case. I do not feel as though there was enough distinction between the different characters, and the initial interest which I held for each of them waned quite quickly. Each of the narrative voices also held a curious detachment, as though Klay did not want his readers to become overly absorbed in any of the individual stories.
The novel is advertised as a great choice for fans of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, which I very much enjoyed, and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, which I very much did not. I was keen to see whether Missionaries would appeal to me as a reader, but it sadly did not capture my attention at all. I was never absorbed in the story, and largely felt quite indifferent to it, which is obviously not the author's intention. Whilst I am sure that Missionaries will find a large audience who admire it, it did not work for me on several levels as a reader.
Missionaries is a work which encompasses relatively modern-day history, moving from the mid-1980s to almost the present day, with much of the action set in the mid-2010s. The conflicts which it covers relatively briefly include the highly contested wars between America and Iraq, and America and Afghanistan respectively, and the consequences left in their wake. The action then moves to Colombia, where violence perpetuated by narcos and guerrillas is rife, affecting the lives of so many citizens. In Colombia, 'the US has partnered with the local government to stamp out a vicious civil war and keep the predatory narco gangs at bay.'
The novel takes four protagonists as its focus - a US Special Forces medic named Mason; foreign correspondent Lisette; Colombian coca farmer Abel; and Juan Pablo. Each chapter focuses on a different individual.
At the novel's beginning, we are introduced to Abel, in a chapter which quickly spans his entire childhood. He has grown up in the shadow of conflict, between guerrillas and paracos. When he is just eight, his father tells him: '"When men with guns ask for something, there are no favors. You only obey."' Abel reflects: 'To talk about this part of my life is to talk about another person, like a person in a story, a boy with a father and mother and three sisters; one pretty, one smart, and one mean... Most people think that a person is whatever you see before you, walking around in bone and meat and blood, but that is an idiocy. Bone and meat and blood just exists, but to exist is not to live, and bone and meat and blood alone is not a person.'
We meet Lisette in 2015. She is living in Kabul, one of just a handful of special correspondents still remaining in Afghanistan's capital city. She comments: 'When I first came here, I was full of rage at the indifference most people back home showed to the death of Afghans. All these human beings, suffering, dying, and fighting... These days the thought will sometimes run through my head as I lie in bed, trying to sleep: I am broken, I am broken, and I do not know how I will ever fix this whole I've carved into my soul.'
The first section of Missionaries follows Abel and Lisette, and the second Mason and Juan Pablo. We meander in and out of their stories, each of which is suffused with a great deal of violence. The violent scenes and occurrences kept wrenching me out of the story, and quickly become so commonplace in the narrative that they lost the majority of their power. Klay's prose is to the point, largely quite matter-of-fact, and his stories move along at a steady pace. There is an urgency to the novel, but more in terms of the violence which is perpetuated throughout.
Klay undertook six years of research before embarking on Missionaries, which he carried out in both the United States and Colombia. The ultimate aim of the novel is to examine 'the globalization of violence through the interlocking stories of four characters and the conflicts that define their lives.' He does set the scenery well, and understands what it is like to live in a culture of fear, as all of his characters do. Missionaries is undoubtedly intelligent in what it divulges, and Klay's research is far-reaching. Whilst the author offers a lot of topics of interest, however, I felt as though these were never quite collated.
I do not feel as if the resolutions offered were highly satisfying; neither were the ways in which the individual stories come together. There seems to be a lack of overall cohesion, and the novel reads more like a collection of loosely connected stories about four characters from different walks of life. The novel's structure is often rather too slack.
I did not find Lisette's narrative voice at all convincing. As the only female protagonist, I imagined that her point of view would be written rather differently to the three male perspectives; however, this was not the case. I do not feel as though there was enough distinction between the different characters, and the initial interest which I held for each of them waned quite quickly. Each of the narrative voices also held a curious detachment, as though Klay did not want his readers to become overly absorbed in any of the individual stories.
The novel is advertised as a great choice for fans of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, which I very much enjoyed, and Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, which I very much did not. I was keen to see whether Missionaries would appeal to me as a reader, but it sadly did not capture my attention at all. I was never absorbed in the story, and largely felt quite indifferent to it, which is obviously not the author's intention. Whilst I am sure that Missionaries will find a large audience who admire it, it did not work for me on several levels as a reader.
December 15, 2021
Phil Klay has written *the* great work of literature about American empire. He's breathlessly spanned the breadth of all of its bloodiest frontiers — Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Yemen — while writing amazing human-scale stories. I will write a lengthier review in due time.
April 18, 2021
The novel appears to be well researched, and the interweaving of the plotlines of the various protagonists is skillful. Each of the featured characters is developed well enough to be an individual rather than a type, but not in such detail as to bog down the progress of the action.
The themes are woven into the narrative without being either pedantic or pedestrian, and those themes are developed to deliver a powerful impact.
Highly recommended.
The themes are woven into the narrative without being either pedantic or pedestrian, and those themes are developed to deliver a powerful impact.
Highly recommended.
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