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Meditations in Green Audiobook
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(3.04) - 234 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
One of the greatest Vietnam War novels ever written, by an award-winning writer who experienced it firsthand.
Deployed to Vietnam with the U.S. Army's 1069 Intelligence Group, Spec. 4 James Griffin starts out clear-eyed and hardworking, believing he can glide through the war unharmed. But the kaleidoscope of horrors he experiences gets inside him relentlessly. He gradually collapses and ends up unstrung, in step with the exploding hell around him and waiting for the cataclysm that will bring him home, dead or not.
Griffin survives, but back in the U.S. his battles intensify. Beset by addiction, he takes up meditating on household plants and attempts to adjust to civilian life and beat back the insanity that threatens to overwhelm him.
Meditations in Green is a haunting exploration of the harrowing costs of war and yet-unhealed wounds, "the impact of an experience so devastating that words can hardly contain it" (Walter Kendrick, the New York Times Book Review). Through passages gorgeous, agonizing, and surreal, Stephen Wright paints a searing portrait of a nation driven to the brink by violence and deceit.
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"Brilliant writing! Mordant humor. The Hell and futility of Vietnam is limned devastatingly. It missed 5 stars because it went on an on, long after it had made it points about the Hell and futility of Vietnam."
— Elaine (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“The impact of an experience so devastating that words can hardly contain it.”
— New York Times -
In novel after unsparing novel-each one gorgeous, too, and full of awe- Stephen Wright has emerged as a kind of modern-day Socrates hectoring a complacent citizenry to have a good hard look at its collective delusions. With Processed Cheese, he's written a novel so outrageous and diagnostic of our current ills, it will prove much stronger than hemlock. If you hope to keep up your venality, America, your cruelties, and your death wish, better string this court jester up by his toes.
— Joshua Ferris, author of The Dinner Party -
Processed Cheese does for consumerism what Catch-22 did for war.
— Stephen King, bestselling author of IT and The Shining -
Quite simply an astonishing novel, brilliantly executed and beautifully written. Stephen Wright deserves to be famous and feted for it.
— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution -
This dark and lyrical tale of madness and prophecy speaks uncannily from within its period, in the tradition of heartbroken humor, which America's lapses of faith in its own promise have always evoked in the finest of our storytellers, among whom Stephen Wright here honorably takes his place.
— Thomas Pynchon -
An extravagantly talented novelist. . . . For Wright, America, past and present, is Wonderland, a place of marvels and horrors from which not even the fortunate escape with their heads.
— Laura Miller, The New York Times Book Review -
The Amalgamation Polka (2007)
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An astonishing novel.
— Toni Morrison -
Going Native (1994)
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Mr. Wright's sentences buzz like high-tension wires. I enjoyed reading every word of M31, literally.
— Russell Banks -
"M31 is a devastatingly forceful accomplishment and reestablishes its author as a star of the first magnitude.
— The Washington Post Book World -
Beautiful and terrifying. . . . M31 offers a big, bold look at the American family. It takes us far away and very close to home. . . . Stephen Wright is a . . . bright star in the literary sky.
— San Francisco Chronicle -
M31: A Family Romance (1988)
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The best that any fiction about this war has offered.
— Newsweek -
"Precisely that brutal hallucination we desperately wanted to end.
— Don DeLillo
Meditations in Green Listener Reviews
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" I'm about a third of the way through, and while I admire this book, I am just not in the mood for it now. Another day. "
— Margaret, 1/4/2014 -
" The man writes zero boring sentences. And I felt like I didn't breathe during the last 30 pages of this book. "
— James, 12/15/2013 -
" I read this for a Literature of War class I had in college and I was really impressed and engaged. "
— Stephen, 4/27/2013 -
" Circuitous, but engaging. "
— Joshua, 4/1/2013 -
" Good for LSD-addled Vietnam conflict hi jinx. Not to diminish its scope; really good if you have an interest in that particular American Nightmare. "
— senator, 12/28/2012 -
" A superb brutally honest book. those who glory in war should be forced to read it. "
— Des, 9/12/2012 -
" Incredibly interesting book. Really thought provoking with great concepts. Writing can be all over the place at times, and setting/time period shifts abruptly at times. Overall a good read. "
— Killian, 7/3/2012 -
" Pynchonesque with all that implies but also imbued with the particular horror that the Vietnam war can bring to a book. Probably the one book where I laughed while being horrified. "
— Mark, 6/14/2012
About Stephen Wright
Stephen Wright is a New York–based novelist known for his use of surrealistic imagery and dark comedy. His work has varied from hallucinatory accounts of war, a family drama among UFO cultists, a carnivalesque novel on a serial killer, to a Civil War picaresque. He has taught writing courses at various universities, including Princeton University, Brown University, and the New School.
About Will Collyer
Will Collyer, an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, is a film, television, and stage actor. He has starred in television shows such as Melrose Place, Charmed, CSI: Miami, and Boston Public, as well as numerous films and plays. He holds a BA in theater arts from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television.