Meditations in Green - Hardcover

Stephen Wright

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684180103 ISBN 13: 9780684180106

Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1983

Synopsis

James Griffin finds himself profoundly affected by his experiences in Vietnam as he evolves from a clear-eyed, hard-working soldier to an unstrung, lethargic, and cynical drug addict with profound difficulties in adjusting to civilian life

About this title

From the Publisher

Called "brilliant" by The New York Times Book Review, this is a shocking and bitterly funny look at the dark side of Vietnam unknown to those back home, but all too familiar to every American in country.

The subject of extraordinary critical acclaim, this wonderfully descriptive novel by the author of Going Native brings us Vietnam from the point of view of a soldier very personally affected by the horrors of jungle war. Spec. 4 James Griffin may have left Vietnam, but Vietnam will never leave him. And although the war changed him from a boy into a living kaleidoscope of terror, he nonetheless is driven to relive it endlessly, doing battle with his haunting memories of a brutal war...even at the risk of losing his health, his sanity...and his very soul.

"It has overwhelming impact--the impact of an experience so devastating that words can hardly contain it."--The New York Times Book Review

"Perhaps the best that any fiction about this war has offered."--Newsweek

From the Back Cover

“Takes one’s breath away.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Brilliant, scarifying . . . extravagant, rhapsodic and horrific. . . . It has an overwhelming impact.” —New York Times Book Review

“Precisely that brutal hallucination we desperately wanted to end.” —Don DeLillo

“Profoundly moving . . . . [This] book lingers, hauntingly, in the memory.” —Newsday

“The best that any fiction about this war has offered.” –Newsweek

“Wright evokes a new historical truth about Vietnam . . . vivid with the rapture and terror of apocalypse.” –San Francisco Chronicle

“Unholy brilliance and pain and Catch-22 lunacy.” –Gloria Emerson, author of Winners & Losers: Battles, Retreats, Gains, Losses, and Ruins from the Vietnam War

“Stylistically, Mr. Wright uses short bursts of soaring language between the longer passages of the narrative. He calls his literary riffs ‘meditations’–free flights of imaginative prose. Anyone who has seen the lush foliage of wartime Vietnam–the contrasting bursts of orange flame rising out of the green jungle–will know what an inspired, and accurate, metaphor Mr. Wright has created.” –The New York Times

“Shockingly vivid . . . the raw power of one man’s remembered experiences can still put you away.” –Penthouse

“The first fiction about Vietnam that moved me to pity and tears.” –Richard Elman, National Public Radio

“Possibly the best story yet to come out of the Vietnam War.” –Publishers Weekly

Edition details

• Publisher: Charles Scribner's Sons
• Publication date: 1983
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684180103
• ISBN 13: 9780684180106
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 342