The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” – Albert Einstein

It is with no small amount of trepidation that I attempt to analyze and interpret the 2012 novel, The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers. I find myself wondering if in the very endeavor I am journeying into the murky waters of the morally grey or perhaps even dipping my feet into the morally reprehensible. How can I, who have never experienced war or its ravages attempt to critically analyze the work of one who has? And yet, it is for this very reason that I feel inclined to write on this work for the true power of the novel lies not in its ability to personalize war but rather the characters of whom Powers writes. This personalization occurs despite of and perhaps because of the distance and coldness Powers employs when he writes of war.

Kevin Powers, like Vonnegut and Heller before him survived the horrors of war. It is thus with poignant and poetic intimacy that he describes his experiences. There are things that cannot even be contrived by the most creative of minds unless experienced. Powers writes of soldiers rubbing Tobasco sauce in their eyes to stay awake; of the wordless last moments as life seeps out of a previously breathing, healthy body; of learning important words in Arabic: thank you, you’re welcome, and bomb. These moments are powerful and yet they are not the focus of the narrative. One feels distant from the action despite the brutal, grimy language Powers employs. Rather, the action only serves to focus attention more on the personal emotional journey of the protagonist, Bartle. This is emphasized by one of Bartle’s personal quotes in which he states, “The details of the world in which we live are always secondary to the fact that we must live in them.”

Private Bartle is a soldier, serving in the United States Army. Near the beginning of the novel, he promises the mother of one of his comrades that he will bring her son home safely. From the beginning, the reader knows that he does not succeed as the novel weaves its way through time, place, and storyline in no particular order. We spend a chapter in the heat of battle, only to return for a moment to Bartle’s Virginia home after his return. This lack of chronological order contributes to the personal nature of the story as well. Rather than following a distinct storyline the novel follows Bartle: his thoughts, emotions, and to some extent experiences. As previously stated, this contributes to the power of the novel; we are not interested in the experiences of Bartle but rather, his reactions.

And Bartle’s personal reactions are nothing if not powerful. Bartle’s thoughts dominate most of the novel and it is through him that we learn one of the ultimate casualties of war: innocence. One particularly poignant moment occurs as Bartle takes a quiet moment amidst the rage of war to look at the stars. Says Bartle, “I knew that at least a few of the stars I saw were probably gone already, collapsed into nothing. I felt like I was looking at a lie. But I didn't mind. The world makes liars of us all.” Later on, Bartle admits that he doesn’t wish to die, but merely to fall asleep and never wake up. The power of these statements, however, does not rest merely in the fact that Bartle experienced them, but rather in the fact that they are simply human feelings and thoughts. Although many of us have not experienced war or even its destructive influence, we do understand pain, loss, suffering, and fear. That is the human experience. Through Powers’s surreal, heartrending novel, we come to realize as Bartle puts so eloquently, “All pain is the same. Only the details are different.”

The online comments under reviews of Kevin Powers’s The Yellow Birds are dominated by soldiers or relatives of soldiers expressing their thanks for the novel. Many write that Powers has put into words feeling of theirs that they could not fully comprehend, let alone articulate. One can feel the influence of the novel and the cleansing effect it has exerted on these men and women. Although I do not fit this group, I do believe that the novel is powerful not only for servicemen and women. This is because the human experience is universal and Powers chooses to focus on it. Through focusing on the character rather than the story, Powers is able to show the raw emotion that we all can relate to. It is best said by Bartle, “To understand the world, one’s place in it, is to be always at the risk of drowning.”