With the last leg of our travels taking us through the Indonchinese countries, I spied this book in Kuta and snatched it off the shelf. The story as summarised on the back of the cover told of Mike Langford a photo journalist who became lost in 1970s Khmer Rouge occupied Cambodia, probably dead, and it was left to his friend Ray to find out and if appropriate execute Mike's will and distribute his belongings. In the course of searching for Mike the reader finds thought Mike's own audio diaries and memos from friends, his whole story which takes him from an unfullfilled farm boy in Tasmania, Australia to a successful cameraman.Highways to War, is so named as just prior to the fall of Phnom Penh, the civil war was so close and surrounded the city, journalists could take a taxi on any highway out of the city, take a look at the fighting and come back to The Royal Hotel to type it up. Mike's character (he is based on a couple of real photographers) is hard to fathom. He is a man of few words, but huge empathy. This is his undoing as going into the Indochinese wars, if only armed with a camera, empathy is only going to hold you back. He is also a determined character. With little savings he makes his way to Singapore and lives in self-imposed poverty waiting for a job and in the process almost dying of starvation. The luck he has is he finds friends with consulates and being strategically placed in Asia as the cold war became actual bullets. In the end dropping the neutrality of a camera and picking up a gun.The story from the angle of Australians, gives a new insight into the war in Vietnam and Cambodia. This is not to bash the Americans (that has been done to death), but to bust the myth that the South Vietnamese Army were lazy and corrupt. Mike grew to love the actual people. While there was corruption in the SVA command, the troops were not and had it much worse than Americans. They fought not for ideology (the average SVA wouldn't know what communism/capitalism was), just for love of country. Mike became known as 'Lucky' for taking chances others wouldn't, but also for placing himself with the SVA for long walking tours, living and eating with the troops. Most journalists stayed safe with the Yanks, knowing they could report a quick battle but be back for gin a the hotel in Saigon that evening.Mike and his close colleagues, who also tell their stories, find themselves placed at almost all the major parts of the Indochinese Wars. They walk the Ho Chi Ming Trail, find themselves in the underground tunnels of the Viet Cong. The author has to make a choice with history at the end and places the reporters at the fall of Saigon, at the expense of a the Khmer Rouge's mass clearance of Phnom Pehn. I would have preferred the other, but that would have meant a lot of conjecture as little was known in the west as to that event, Cambodia locked out the world. The other characters provide conversations and therefore debate on the morality of the struggles. The Count is a French citizen of Russian birth who's parents fled the RussianRevolution, he argues eloquently against the tyranny of communism. Ian a Welsh BBC reporter uses his working class roots to argue that Vietnam is a war of liberation from feudal tyranny.In both situations, Vietnam and Cambodia, you see the extremes of what communism threw out at the end of the Indochinese Wars. The North Vietnamese, being the victors, established themselves as working socialism which won not only the war but also a moral victory over the USA. Cambodia, however threw up the Khmer Rouge, a communist collective regime which commited some of the worlds worst autrocities.Its hard to pull back and realise that the book is actually a fiction, but telling a story is sometimes the best way to understand the bigger picture. At the end it has no real message. No jury decision who was right and wrong in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 60s and 70s. The only message that hit home, was the one contribution Mike Langford made to a heated debate with The Count and an SVA officer on ideology. Asked for his opinion, he just stated the people should "just take care of each other".
This is the one of the best novels based on the Vietnam War and the war in Cambodia that I have read. It’s written as an account of the life of a fictional war photojournalist, Mike Langford, an Aussie hops (yes, the grain used to brew beer) farm boy, who disappears inside Cambodia. It provides a fascinating account of political issues, the life of a war correspondence, the hazards of covering military conflicts from the front lines. I especially appreciate the respectful and loving treatment of life in Vietnam and Cambodia and of the heroic qualities and courage of the Vietnamese and Cambodian peoples. By the way, this is written with a politically balanced perspective and, through the dialog of Mike and his friends, covers all perspectives on our Vietnam experience.
Do You like book Highways To A War (1996)?
This is the third of (the late) Christopher Koch's novels I've now read, and he is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. 'Highways to a War' covers similar ground to 'The Year of Living Dangerously', both being fictional examinations of recent political situations in South East Asia, seen through the eyes of foreign correspondents and photographers, but for me this was even better than the earlier book. A superb examination of what leads a person or a country to war, of what makes someone willing to risk their life for a cause, and the very human need to freeze and capture moments of time. Mike Langford, the Tasmanian war photographer who at the start of the novel has gone missing in Khmer Rouge Cambodia, is a fascinating and complex character: seemingly a gilded knight-like figure who acquires the status of legend amongst his peers, he is also somewhat haunted, endlessly seeking to belong. The Vietnam and Cambodia of the 1960s and 70s is vividly realised and Koch's presentation of the political situation is as balanced as that presented by his 'impartial' journalist characters. A masterful novel.
—David
