Last week in my ASTU class, we discussed Phil Klay’s short story, “Redeployment,” the first chapter of a multi-narrated book of the same title, which depicts life of American soldiers involved in the Iraq war. Klay writes from the perspective of multiple fictional characters with scattered connections and contributions to the war.
“Redeployment” was heartbreaking to read and has stuck with me since I first read it almost a month ago. I felt as though I gained a greater understanding of the less talked about aspect of being deployed in war; coming home is but another battlefield. One line that has particularly resonated with me was the protagonist’s grim similie: “Getting back feels like getting your first breath after nearly drowning”(Klay 9). For me, this line explains the shock, disorientation, and discomfort that redeployed soldiers would feel upon coming home, rather than the classic movie-scene rendition of blissful reunion that we are so used to seeing. Klay’s writing made me interested to hear more, so I read several interviews of his, and I’d like to highlight the following discussion Klay had with Times magazine editor, Douglas Watson:
Q: Why the first-person point of view for the whole book?
A: I didn’t want the reader looking at these characters from the outside. I wanted them inside those skulls, experiencing the things they were experiencing and seeing the decisions they were making and then living with. There’s also this tradition in war writing of the veteran going to war and then coming back and testifying to the truth of war, right? But I didn’t want one voice coming back and testifying to the truth of war. I wanted 12, and 12 that wouldn’t necessarily agree with each other. I wanted that friction, and also I wanted it to open a space for the reader to engage not just empathetically but also critically with the things the characters are saying and the claims they’re making about their war.
I think that humans are naturally empathetic beings, but sometimes there is a struggle for a person to understand the full weight of a trauma of another. This is why I appreciate Klay’s choice in providing multiple stories for readers to connect with, as there is much more common ground for us to latch on to. I think that Klay made this stylistic choice for all of the right reasons, and the fragmented nature of his short stories speak more about the messy truth of war than a succinct and singular perspective ever could.
Works cited:
Klay, Phil. “Redeployment.” Redeployment. New York: Penguin, 2014. 1-16. Print.
Article retrieved from: http://time.com/3729375/phil-klay-redeploym
