Bao Ninh

The Vietnam War...the disillusion of a young couple in the brutality they encounter.
It's not a straightforward narrative...there are disjointed first person accounts of events experienced, then later accounts of their author- middle aged, a writer and a rather lost soul, still defined by the War, working on his memoir...and finally Bao Ninh himself (one assumes), crafting a narrative from the random pages he's acquired...

I can't say it hugely grabbed me , though it's an important account of a hideous time.… (más)

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12978305

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.… (más)