tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2252880197262898711.post2080766401016605240..comments2023-03-30T00:26:13.100+09:00Comments on Paper Planes From the Aerie: The Good, the Bad, and the BeautifulSean Miles Lotmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17000281914946185231noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2252880197262898711.post-20504590714066697662010-10-31T02:06:30.196+09:002010-10-31T02:06:30.196+09:00I waited to comment on this because I saw you revi...I waited to comment on this because I saw you reviewing it here the day I bought it. <br /><br />You say "But this isn’t quite about politics or platoons as it is about personalities, dreams, and God."<br /><br />I say all those things are just aspects of people and the whole thing, well, it's just Johnson's attempt at talking about people. Put a person in this circumstance and see what happens. <br /><br />The semi-peripheral Houston brothers are deadbeat drunks, during war or peacetime, wherever you put them. Sure it changes them some, but basically Johnson is saying that people don't change, even under the most inhumane of circumstances. Is this a borderline Hobbesian view? Who knows.<br /><br />While I agree in that occasionally Johnson meanders, you are correct in saying that so too does his subject. I think he hit the poetic prose nail on the head with this passage:<br /><br />"The girl leaned against him and touched her fingers lightly to his chest hair. The desert nights dipped well below fifty Fahrenheit, but Bill Houston went bare-skinned under a black leather jacket. His name on the street was Leather Bill. The rest of his wardrobe were jeans and boots wrecked by the abrasions of life." 1970 p.615Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com