Bookshelf

Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevesky

Date Started:

August 28th 2024

Date Finished:

August 31st 2024

Enjoyability:

Would I Recommend?:

× Review

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The Sorrow of War - Bao Ninh

Date Started:

July 10th 2024

Date Finished:

August 15th 2024

Enjoyability:

Yeah, I enjoyed it :)

Would I Recommend?:

For anyone interested in the Vietnam war, but wants a different perspective, yes. Any Vietnamese, diaspora or otherwise, yeah.

× Review

The Sorrow of War offers an often rare perspective of the so-called Vietnam War, as it is commonly known in the West. In Vietnam, however, this war is known by a different name. The American War.

Through the eyes of Kien, a soldier in the North Vietnamese army, the book follows him through the stages of the lead-up, the aftermath and through the events itself of the war in a nonlinear narrative, often calling back to his harrowing memories in times of peace.

Each character that appears, comes as a deeply flawed human being and the struggles that the war has put them through. Throughout the book there is a feeling of nihilistic angst steeped into every page that Bao Ninh has written. Even in the celebrations once the war had ended, for the main character, the party ended long ago. More than just a war story, this book is a story of lost love and lost lives.

In the west and particularly America, in many depictions of the Vietnam war the Vietnamese are dehumanised while the American soldier is lionised. Even in the least jingoistic movies, the Vietnamese are rarely more than victims of the tragic soldier.

In The Sorrow of War, America is a forethought, most American soldiers have long since went home and all that remains is the bloody and bitterful battle between the North and the South.