Jon Ronson- The Men Who Stare At Goats

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Picador

Jon Ronson

2004

“Most goat-related military activity is still highly classified.”

I'm back, feeling strangely guilty about the fact I haven't published anything on my blog that nobody reads in about ten days, which is odd when I remember I used to go months and months without writing anything. Maybe one of the key goals of this blog in the first place, trying to increase my awful writing productivity, is finally getting there. Unfortunately this probably isn't going to be a very long one, simply because there isn't much I found interesting about The Men Who Stare At Goats. I'm not going to completely attack it, but it's barely any more than a two star book thanks to fundamental problems with the set up. Hey look, one paragraph down.

I picked this book up off the shelf at the Oxfam charity book shop (my favourite bookstore in the world) based on my desire to put a bit more non-fiction in my life, and also because I'd seen the loosely-adapted film version (starring George Clooney, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and Ewan McGregor, which is pretty impressive) a few years ago. Although I didn't particularly enjoy it, the premise lodged itself in my brain rather solidly. Respected journalist and non-fiction writer Jon Ronson is one of many to use the period following 9/11 as book material, but rather than settling on the typically serious tone of 'Bush is bad, mmkay', looks at the far more esoterical, quirky, and alternative-reader friendly subject of paranormal abilities, and their application within the US military. Let me quickly say now that this book is probably a conspiracy theorist's dream.

Ronson approaches the task through numerous, numerous interviews with a wide variety of people (many of whom seemed interchangeable to me), presented presumably in a chronological fashion. These interviews form the basis for essentially everything Ronson uncovers and concludes from his studies, and offer him further research ammunition to continue with. The majority of everything he discusses originates from the mind of a man named Jim Channon, who, in the 1960's, attempted to convince his military superiors to adopt and experiment with strange New Age concepts, with the ultimate fantastical goal of doing amazing things like walking through walls or, as in the title, killing goats by looking at them. Ronson follows the progression of his ideas, their apparent final rejection, and then their theorised (by Ronson) rebirth in the midst of the second gulf war.

A goat, yesterday.

All of this as a premise sounds like a great idea for a book, but in reality there are a couple of glaring flaws that heavily damaged my enjoyment of it. Ronson is a good writer, writing in that recognisable, newspaper journalist style that I encountered in War Reporting for Cowards, for example. He presents himself as a likable, incongruous reporter conversing with some equally likable but most likely insane subjects, but does so in such a fashion as to resemble a work of fiction. His characters and conversations are so unrealistically charismatic and quirky that it's difficult to fully invest in what they're saying. This, mind you, wouldn't be so much of a problem by itself if it weren't for the second major flaw in the book; it's virtually all second hand storytelling. Every crazy story, every over the top character and every cynical presentation of the authorities is entirely derived from (admittedly extended) conversations with crazy people. 

I think Ronson himself recognises this, which is why he chose the more dramatic, cinematic conversation style, and also why he tries very, very hard to make his own connection between events and ideas. This is fair enough, and logically done, but again a lack of definitive proof or even realistic evidence means that it all essentially means nothing. Earlier on in the book I found his collection of stories and personalities interesting and appealing, full of charisma and promises of further revelations, but as the book went on I became more and more disillusioned by the lack of real progress. Three quarters of the way through I actually wanted to give up, but my commitment to this bottom-rung blog of randomness pulled me through. Plus, Jon Ronson is a legitimately talented writer who had a good idea for a book, but I can only imagine that researching this topic was a fool's errand. Even if you do assume that the things he talks about are true, it was obviously going to be practically impossible for him to gather secret evidence presumably kept secret by one of the most powerful organisations in the world. I wouldn't rule out reading something else by Ronson, but I'm not in any rush.