In a review of another book by Joan Dodion, I said if one was willing to go back and re-read parts of the book that didn’t make much sense, or simply re-read the entire book one might truly realize how great a book it was. The same can be said for her book, “Democracy.” The first fifteen to twenty pages of this book were quite confusing, made especially so by the author switching from first person to third person narrative.
But once this reviewer went back and re-read those pages, I was surprisingly enlightened by the author’s approach. There are other difficult passages throughout the book, but I simply went back and re-read them and understood their importance. Now, this might seem a little too much for a lot of readers and I totally understand.
Yet, for me, the inconvenience was worth the reward, and in the end I loved this book and the craftsmanship and the scope of the book I found fascinating. She deftly connects the political, with the military, and the corruption, and the black market used to peddle drugs and weapons toward the end of the Vietnam war. The characters are somewhat offbeat, but that is how they are able to survive in this devious world and in the professions they have chosen. There are code names for everyone and everything and nothing appears completely transparent. A Fascinating Book
A Curious View 