Can the Grass Cover All, Book Review Example

The story “I am the Grass” by Daly Walker tells us about time after the war with Vietnam. After it there were left thousands of people who served in army or were involved in military actions, besieged, robbed, raped, homeless and futureless. Vietnamese people suffered, because their country suffered severe losses, many people were killed and many towns and villages were obliterated. Americans were defeated, and it looks like they suffered much less, but that is not true. Nobody knows how long it could take to repair everything after the war. The poem reads “Shove them under and let me work – I am the grass; I cover all” (327-8). Put simply, time heals. Is that true? Or there are things that will never be treated?

The narrator of the story is an ex-soldier, who performs plastic surgery and goes to Vietnam to treat children with the cleft palates. He is a good expert and does his work well; but his mission becomes more complicated when local hospital director Dr. Lieh Viet Dinh asks him to repair his thumb. In the long run the thumb dies and is taken off.

Narrator’s life was not easy. After the war he realized that he had nothing to do with his thoughts and reminiscences of war. Pictures of heads cut off and other nightmarish things followed him and never let him off. He changed several jobs before he found out that it is his commitment to become a doctor. He started to perform plastic surgery as if to cure somebody after that time when he had killed a lot. But even then he realized that problems of women like small breasts and overweight seemed ridiculous in contrast to problems of people who were wounded during the war. Even hippies singing songs about war made his blood boil, because he knew what the real war looked like. The narrator tells about horrors of war, rapes and deaths so easily that it terrifies casual reader. He thinks that there are two personalities inside of him. “One is a family man and a physician who lives a comfortable external life. The other is a war criminal with an atrophied soul. Nothing I do can revive it.” (326-7) His perception of the world in context of war is a problem that cannot be relieved, and that is the first thing that time cannot treat.

In Vietnam, narrator sought to provide relief to some more children suffering from cleft palates and lips. His inner call for saving people and making their lives better looks like a way to apologize.

Vietnamese people looked casual with their peasant life. Even place where had been military base was covered with grass. Simple and poor life resumed, and the narrator noticed it. Dr. Dinh expressed it as “Vietnamese very patient.  <…> Everything comes and goes. Why grasp and cling? Always things will come around again if you give them time. Patience is why we win victory” (329-30). For these people it was a way of living and personal philosophy, and in context of the poem they made the grass grow faster. It was their own will to forget this, though some things would never sink into oblivion. An enormous military base turned into a peaceful grass field, and nothing could prove the past. So, some things, however external, can be healed by time.

Dr. Dinh was one of Vietnamese who suffered during the war. His war memories were even worse than narrator’s, not least his absent thumbs. His story made the veteran feel uncomfortable. And his memories influenced his attitude to Americans, to war, and to suffering. Could these memories and wounds have been healed? Author gives the thought of it by means of the end of the story.

In his attempt to atone the narrator helped children. He even could have slightly changed Dr. Dihn’s attitude to American soldiers. When he proved himself to be a good professional, he was asked to perform an extremely complicated operation – transplantation of the toe instead of one of the thumbs. The operation itself and its prehistory were briefly described in the story. The narrator did not feel anything before the operation. But after it he hoped sincerely that the draft would survive and the toe would replace the normal thumb. Dr. Dinh hoped for the recovery, too. “He seems calm and confident, talking of all the things that will be easier for him to do with his new thumb” (326-7). Dr. Ginh hoped that he could return to normal life and even perform minimal surgeries. Their expectations were full of symbolism; they represent inner willingness to find something good in their relationships, to forget the horrors of war and its wounds.

But in the long run the surgery failed and the thumb was dead. We do not know why it happened. Perhaps, professionalism of the narrator-surgeon was not the matter. In fact, there is the only thing that actually happened. The hope died, leaving nothing but wounds of war and hopelessness.

The whole story is full of emotional and physical suffering. People did suffer from war, and their psyche would never be the same again. May be, there are things that can change to normal and create an impression of reparation. But in the depths of human hearts things will never be the same again.

In my opinion, time can heal some wounds, but not the wounds from the war. Let the grass grow, but human will remember. “In Vietnam danger has always been ubiquitous” … (338) How can a human living forget a war?

Works Cited

Walker,Daly. “I Am The Grass.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8th ed. Boston:Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. 325-38.

Miksanek, Tony “I am The Grass. Annotation” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 285, No. 6, June, 2000: 88-97 <http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=11926>

“Vietnam War Veterans” Vietnam War Sept. 21, 2009 <http://www.vietnam-war.info/veterans/>