War Porn concludes in an act of chilling brutality, a distillation of Mr. Scranton’s vision of the American misadventure in Iraq and a fitting end to one of the best and most disturbing war novels in years.
War Porn offers a view of the American military unlike anything else written about Iraq or Afghanistan ... fighting is peripheral to the story. Instead, Scranton chooses to focus on the struggle for humanity that comes in quiet moments ... Scranton resists the temptation to deliver a redemptive or sympathetic moment for soldiers who misbehave or suffer humiliation ... at times Scranton’s Iraqi characters seem unable to speak without using a parable or sharing sage bits of wisdom. But Qasim’s story is critical to the book’s universe and delivers a crushing payout in the end ... an undeniably courageous book.
[Scranton has a] keen reportorial eye and [a] Michael Herr-like gift for conveying the surreal feel of modern war ... the novel is at its most persuasive not when Mr. Scranton is laboriously trying to illustrate his arguments but when he trusts his own myriad gifts as a storyteller.
Ignorant American man-children wreaking havoc both at home and abroad: is this all War Porn is? Not at all, thankfully. Nestled in the book’s center is a kind of novella about an Iraqi professor named Qasim. He’s a genuine character, torn between professional and personal responsibility. His thread is by far the most humane part of the book, and this seems by design. After dismantling those homefront and combat tropes, Scranton maps out this new path into the subject ... It’s a different kind of Iraq War novel, for sure, but it’s not just that. It’s an expression of Scranton’s philosophy about telling new, different stories as a means of survival.
War Porn isn’t easy to comprehend, but it isn’t easy to put down either ... Scranton, both in this new book and in his nonfiction calls on readers to own up to the choices they’ve made, to the history we share — to care for each other and refuse to draw artificial lines. There is enough to fracture us — war, the changing climate, death.
Scranton’s connections between the storylines are tight and significant, making the overall plotting of the novel a compelling and veritable achievement. War Porn doesn’t break any new ground with its political statements or in bringing war’s ugliness to light, but it does raise interesting questions about the nature of those who demand and those who supply; those who watch, and those who put on the show ... The reception to War Porn will likely be polarizing. For anyone who picks up War Porn to fill their desire for war stories, Scranton has made absolutely sure that no reader makes it to the end without paying the price.
Roy Scranton’s Iraq War-themed novel War Porn is vile and reprehensible. It viciously insults veterans of every stripe and concludes with no character’s salvation, no hint of redemption. The book is brilliant in its repellent execution. War Porn gives no comfort, and readers of Iraq and Afghanistan-related fiction deserve no easily digested narratives of tragic heroes ... War Porn is unforgiving at all turns, and when the plotlines finally intersect and the connections all established, readers are left only the fraud of their own emotions—we want things to work out, for at least somebody. They don’t.
