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#14. "Why We're in Vietnam"
If the Gothic, as literary critics often note, addresses the oppressive presence of the past, then Stephen King's novella "Why We're in Vietnam" (part of the sequence of interlocking narratives comprising Hearts In Atlantis, but a piece that can be read on its own) definitely qualifies as Gothic fiction. In the year 1999, main character John "Sully" Sullivan heads down to New York City to attend the funeral of fellow Vietnam veteran Dick Pagano, and the occasion dredges up Sully's old wartime memories (the novella opens with the statement: "When someone dies, you think about the past"). Sully's Vietnam experience has scarred him physically, but his psyche seems to have suffered the deepest wounds: over a quarter century after coming home, Sully still sees the apparition of an old Vietnamese woman murdered by another member of his platoon during a near My-Lai-type massacre. Though silent and generally benign, the mamasan has a haunting effect on Sully: "She was a ghost, and his head was the haunted house she lived in."
The figure of the traumatized veteran is certainly not new to war fiction; also, other genre writers before King (e.g., Joe Haldeman, Peter Straub, Jack Cady) have produced Vietnam-inspired narratives of Gothic horror. Still, King manages to break new ground, and "Why We're in Vietnam" proves to be much more than a ghost story. The novella takes an utterly unexpected turn as Sully drives back home to Connecticut following the funeral. While stuck in a traffic jam, he suddenly spies a barrage of consumer products dropping down from the heavens: "all things American fell out of the sky, blitzing I-95 north of Bridgeport with their falling glitter." This is one of the most surreal (and astounding) scenes King has ever written, but the impetus for Sully's bizarre vision is obvious; the fancied bombardment can be traced to a conversation Sully had back at the funeral with his old Lieutenant. Naturally, the two veterans discuss the war, and at one point, Sully poses: "Why were we in Vietnam to begin with?" Lt. Dieffenbaker challenges Sully's use of the past tense, asserting that "we never got out. We never got out of the green. Our generation died there." He then launches into a rant that expounds upon the novella's Mailer-esque title:
"We had an opportunity to change everything. We actually did. Instead we settled for designer jeans, two tickets to Mariah Carey at Radio City Music Hall, frequent-flier miles, James Cameron's Titanic, and retirement portfolios. The only generation even close to us in pure, selfish self-indulgence is the so-called Lost Generation of the twenties, and at least most of them had the decency to stay drunk. We couldn't even do that. Man, we suck.
"[...] You know the price of selling out the future, Sully-John? You can never really leave the past. You can never get over. My thesis is that you're really not in New York at all. You're in the Delta, leaning back against a tree, stoned and rubbing bug-dope on the back of your neck. [...] Everything you think of as 'your later life' is a big fucking pot-bubble. And it's better that way. Vietnam is better. That's why we stay there."There are more twists and turns to the novella than I've covered here in this brief post, but the Lieutenant's speech cuts straight to thematic heart of the narrative: a scathing indictment of an entire generation's missteps and misdeeds. In "Why We're in Vietnam" we once again see that Stephen King is much more than a booga-booga type entertaining the masses with print versions of campfire tales; he is one of the most important writers of 20th (and now 21st) Century American literature.
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