Shawn Towner reviewed The good soldiers by David Finkel
Review of 'The good soldiers' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
I'd heard such good things about The Good Soldiers and I'd been on the library's waiting list for it for so long that I was probably setting myself up for disappointment. And disappointed I was. The Good Soldiers is a book about an incredibly interesting topic: an Army infantry battalion assigned to Baghdad during the surge. Unfortunately, the book reads too much like a series of AP wire reports than a cohesive work. Maybe I've just been spoiled by all the good literary non-fiction that I get from my subscriptions to McSweeney's and the Believer, but I found The Good Soldier a relentlessly dull read. Which is a shame, considering the events described in the book provide an insight into the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians that most news reports, even long-form stuff, just doesn't manage to equal. If The Good Soliders had been published as a series …
I'd heard such good things about The Good Soldiers and I'd been on the library's waiting list for it for so long that I was probably setting myself up for disappointment. And disappointed I was. The Good Soldiers is a book about an incredibly interesting topic: an Army infantry battalion assigned to Baghdad during the surge. Unfortunately, the book reads too much like a series of AP wire reports than a cohesive work. Maybe I've just been spoiled by all the good literary non-fiction that I get from my subscriptions to McSweeney's and the Believer, but I found The Good Soldier a relentlessly dull read. Which is a shame, considering the events described in the book provide an insight into the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians that most news reports, even long-form stuff, just doesn't manage to equal. If The Good Soliders had been published as a series of articles, it would have been fantastic. When read straight through, however, it leaves a lot to be desired. I'm interested to see how The End of Major Combat Operations (included with McSweeney's 34 compares.
