Phil Klay
Phil Klay
Phil Klayis an American writer and United States Marine officer who won the National Book Award for fiction in 2014 for his first book-length publication, a collection of short stories, Redeployment...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
apart breaking experience language marine poem terms thinking voices waste
When I was in Marine training I memorised 'The Waste Land,' which was a significant experience in terms of really breaking apart language and thinking about how the different voices in that poem function.
civilian mean might terms using
We're so used to using military terminology in civilian speech that we forget those terms might mean something very specific.
fiction troubled
Writing fiction was a way to take the ideas that troubled me or confused me and put them under pressure.
antsy dodge head letting someplace spin
I write in coffee shops, libraries, parks, museums. I get antsy and then get on my bike and go someplace else, letting the ideas spin around in my head as I dodge taxis.
perceived
Pity addresses the perceived suffering, not the whole individual.
casualties civilian coverage outlets
The First Battle of Fallujah was called off in part because of the intensity of non-U.S. media coverage of civilian casualties from outlets like Al Jazeera.
complexity experience favor narratives nuances pity reducing
Pity sidesteps complexity in favor of narratives that we're comfortable with, reducing the nuances of a person's experience to a sound bite.
foreign generally state union
In State of the Union addresses, I always look at the foreign policy and military parts first, which are generally pretty minimal.
arbiter engage experience figure people ultimate work
I think that just because you've been through an experience doesn't make you the ultimate arbiter of what it means. We figure things out; we work things out through the help of other people who can engage with us but also be intelligently critical.
armor donald doubt puncture
I doubt there's anything you could say to Donald Rumsfeld that would puncture the armor of his narcissism.
genuinely interested perspective
It's often difficult to get perspective on your own stories, on your own experiences, without talking them through with someone who is genuinely interested in thinking about them. And that's the key.
served war
I'm not anti-war. I served in a war, and I served proudly. But just or not, necessary or not, war is the industrial-scale slaughter of other humans.