No Matter How Much You Promise . . .: A Symphonic Novel [Hardcover] Review

This is the most personal review I've ever written, and I'm somewhat embarrassed, but I don't think I care, because I can't talk about this book "objectively" anyway -- whatever that means.It has changed my life and will haunt me for a long time!The context is important to my reaction, but first . . .
Other reviewers are all over the place, and that's fine.I love differences of opinion.One talks about contrivance, and I don't see it.(Is Cliff really supposed to go after Fawn on his own?Doesn't calling 911 make better sense?)One talks about lack of control in style and structure, and I'm not convinced.Pop Butterworth's closing scene is a stupendous aria in rondo form, equal to Mozart's "Deh, perdono," no less.Think about it!OK, I grant this novel MAY have problems here and there, but that's not exactly what it's about.Here's a comparison, one I can't validate.People who read Russian tell me that Dostoyevsky is an awkward stylist, clumsy and sloppy in many places.And I treasure elegance and polish.How I admire James and Herzmanovsky-Orlando for those qualities.How I babble with delight at Wallace Stevens and Lampedusa.But isn't there a sheer overwhelming greatness about Dostoyevsky that more than compensates?That said, I don't think Yunque is sloppy or clumsy.I can't find anything wrong beyond a couple of minor points.
Anyway, I never thought I would wail and sob like a baby, ever again.For God's sake, I'm 61 years old!Thank God I was alone when I read what really happened to Billy in Vietnam, especially the circumstances under which his memory is activated.I felt like Macbeth -- "I have supped full of horrors" -- but oh man, what a scene.It was totally earned; every part of this novel makes a contribution, nothing is expendable, everything supports the four-movement structure, and I think I can prove it.I was absolutely shattered, broken to pieces and put together again in a way that makes me understand and accept life better.Any other criticism feels like a picayune quibble compared to the staggering success of weaving together all these themes on an emotional level hardly ever to be experienced.A great, great achievement.
I teach literature and hold it sacred that characters in fiction should never be treated as if they were real people.Still, these characters have so much "realness" it will always make me ache that Elsa, Lurleen, the children, and everyone who cared about Billy will never be able to know what a true hero he was in Vietnam, how completely he really was his father's son, how he achieved in the moral sphere the breakthrough he was once afraid to make in the artistic realm.
I read this novel while on retreat at a Cistercian monastery deep in the Vienna Woods.The concentration I was able to give it heightened the whole experience, as did moments during my week there.The day I finished Yunque's novel, I went to the evening service of Compline.It's all about the music, too -- at the end of Compline, the monks put out all the lights except for one candle and sing that magnificent hymn of pain and comfort crying out in the dark, the "Salve Regina," voices soaring in heartbreaking melisma.The snow was falling, the wind was going through the pine trees, and the music had me weeping like a baby again.I hope nobody saw me.
I've always known that pain is part of the deal and that joy means nothing except for the pain.Yet this book brought alive that truth as I have never felt it before.Here's what I'm risking now -- I've read novels before that blew me away, only to wonder on a second reading what I thought I saw.Maybe someday I'll be of a totally different opinion.But here and now, I will give Yunque and this book a shoutout like I've never given before.A great work!Do not miss this one, but be brave!

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