The Sorrow of war: a novel of north vietnam
This book is in a Controlled Release!
1 journaler for this copy...
Picked up from the Little Free Library on Maple Street in Arroyo Grande, CA today.
How many stories have we seen about the Vietnam war? How many feature the North Vietnamese? This is the first I've seen.
It's fiction but I suspect a great deal is based on the author's experience. He was with the 27th Glorious Youth Brigade, which numbered 500 at the start. He was one of ten who survived.
The protagonist is Kien, a young man who joins the army at the beginning of the war and who survives attack after attack. He sees death almost daily while fighting, and returns home with memories of those who did not make it. In a disjointed way, the way memories take us, the book jolts from one incident to another and back to the present.
Kien falls in love as a teenager and cannot forget Phuong through all the long years, ten long years, and he finds her when he returns. But she is changed just as he is. Ultimately Kien spends most of his time in his little room, writing. Did Bao Ninh do the same? Is that how this novel got written?
The book does not speak from a political position. It is not about North Vietnam so much as it is about war itself, and particularly about such a long, bloody war. It is written simply, with restrained emotion, and is powerful because of that.
It's fiction but I suspect a great deal is based on the author's experience. He was with the 27th Glorious Youth Brigade, which numbered 500 at the start. He was one of ten who survived.
The protagonist is Kien, a young man who joins the army at the beginning of the war and who survives attack after attack. He sees death almost daily while fighting, and returns home with memories of those who did not make it. In a disjointed way, the way memories take us, the book jolts from one incident to another and back to the present.
Kien falls in love as a teenager and cannot forget Phuong through all the long years, ten long years, and he finds her when he returns. But she is changed just as he is. Ultimately Kien spends most of his time in his little room, writing. Did Bao Ninh do the same? Is that how this novel got written?
The book does not speak from a political position. It is not about North Vietnam so much as it is about war itself, and particularly about such a long, bloody war. It is written simply, with restrained emotion, and is powerful because of that.
Sent to a paperbackswap member.
