SOME SPOILERS
Although I love this novel, it’s not my favorite Ward Moore novel. That honor goes to Greener Than
You Think (1947). But let me point out some things I love about BTJ.
Like Hodge, I love history. BTJ succeeded in whisking me from one fictional present-day to another, and both of them seem very real, but especially the second one.
The events that take place in both contemporary times and space are meticulously documented by protagonist Hodge. I don’t much like Hodge, and I guess that I’m not supposed to. The narrator in GTYT (Greener Than You Think, Moore’s masterpiece) is even more difficult to like; in fact, Albert Weener is impossible to like but easy to despise.
The absence of humor in BTJ makes it a harder book to read, or enjoy, than GTYT, a book so packed with sardonic humor that I can only compare it to Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. But Weener is no Yossarian. Hodge doesn’t have a chance to rise to the level of those two characters.
I am only able to barely care about Hodge, the content of his character, and his affect on the other people in his life. On second reading I still wonder why his friends bother with him at all. It’ll take me a few more readings, I suppose, to see Hodge in a better light.
Frankly, I really want to talk about Albert Weener and Greener Than You Think, but I’m waiting for Audible to bring the novel to the airwaves. I’ve requested it for at least a decade, but I understand that more than wishing is required.
It’d be a brilliant opportunity for voice actors, I can promise you that.