This distancing is also the fact of a narrative choice that centered on the soldier Billy Lynn, this novel does not take place in Iraq, but in Dallas, Texas; more precisely to Texas Stadium, the day the Dallas Cowboys faced the Chicago Bears, also lultime Day Tour Victory at which sest folded Bravo Company following the battle "of Al-Ansakar channel". Billy Lynn and his fellow survivors, accompanied of a movie producer trying to sell their story to Hollywood, crossed the United States, met with President shook hands and signed autographs because they have committed an act weapons under the eyes of Fox embedded cameras.
Ben Fountain stunt therefore wishes this: the reader is captivated by a story set on a single day, in a flashback (pages where Lynn Billy visits his family) and some souvenirs (what happened to Al Ansakar but the first days of Lynn in Bravo Company and other facts) close, and for a little more than four hundred pages. From these, and there, one could mention the virtuosity of Ben Fountain; this term is not usurped for an author using the wonderfully neologism "onzeseptembre" or managing to make the remainder of the agreed words and heard a thousand times in the brain of Billy Lynn ("being a Bravo, this is living in a state of semi where celebrity lon awash sometimes in the praise and ladulation ").:
"TerrRr
guerrr to terrRr
aarmm destrrr massiiiv
proud, so proud
and
priiiiier
us
and pray
and hope
bless and
rent
one from whom all things
déconnent!
HOOAH! BRAVO "
That's not all: thanks to producer Albert, he manages to induce discrete comparisons Lirak and Vietnam, without heaviness and elegantly. As for the high mass of American football, it is critical occasion dune in good standing of the American way of life, which appears in all its stupidity in the eyes of the soldier Billy Lynn, who lost a close friend in Al Ansakar and therefore sees Increased way the vanity of many things even though the idea to meet with Destinys Child in half, especially Beyoncé, the taps
Capable parents' soffrir tickets for Cowboys games to hundreds of dollars while their son has not even correct coat for winter ", Norm, the multi-billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, through journalists willing to serve as slaves for Billy so he can "write a book about his experiences in Iraq" (which makes the laugh), this is almost all American wildlife crossing the soldier Billy Lynn and Bravo Company, each with his personality each with his desire to stick away or not (is it possible to fall in love dune cheerleader while quon nen has more than forty-eight hours on US soil prior to dembarquer Lirak?), sometimes with tightness near Cornelian (Billy Lynn's sister darranger attempting desertion), and after this observation among other disillusioned "somewhere along the way, America has become a huge shopping center which sest grafted a nation" and a parade of mid time during which the main character "has the impression BE immersed in a fevered dream populated by soldiers, dorchestres and cheerleaders parading surrounded of a whirlwind of bodies collide and rub against each other, fire crackling dartifice and drum rolls accompanying "Go Cowboys", "like a crazy synthesis lAmérique as it sells worldwide.
For his only gift of the observation and his ability to have arranged a narrative taking and smart, we could already celebrate the talent of Ben Fountain; you can add the ability to make his characters speak fairly: the dialogues are perfect, sometimes with dazzling reflections and effects ("You know, maybe this is not that they hate our freedoms, but our fat!") actual impeccable, playing with relevance just detail ("Bravo [] signed tens of Time during the past two weeks, and copies have already been sold on eBay, but whatever"). Not really a war novel, not a "great American novel" Half Time End for Soldier Billy Lynn is a work bastard, one of those, seemingly paradoxically, have a stronger health and elegance racier that many works purebred.