Customer Reviews:
A fair literary work, an excellent portrayal of Viet Nam by the North........2007-09-15
This text does indeed read like a journal. The closing of the book suggests that it is indeed a journalish/novel discovered. I'm left to wonder if the book was written like this on purpose, or if ineed there was a 'discovered memoir.'
That said, it jumps around alot, but encompases the main character's throughout, and therefore shows the lifetime effect of the war.
My father was a front line linguist in the army, and never talks about it. I have a little understanding as to why.
While this text 'humanizes' the North Vietnamese, by all means, as some comments suggest, they were not the helpless victim. Forget not the shameful acts of so-called academia in the poor and hate treatment to our own soldiers upon returning from Nam. Grr!
Not a great literary text, but definately a good journal to give insight into war.
The destiny of war.......2007-05-23
Bao Ninh's only novel is a memorable one. "The Sorrow of War" was originally published in Vietnam in 1991 under the title "The Destiny of Love". Indeed, the book is both a war novel and a love story. The story's protagonist is Kien, a war veteran who served 10 years in the North Vietnamese army. He suffered through a tumultuous separation from his childhood sweetheart early in the war, only to be reunited with her later in life (but earlier in the book).
Many reviewers have pointed out that "The Sorrow of War" is chaotic in its story-telling, that the narration rambles, and the timeline whipsaws the reader from the distant past to the present. All true points. Although the book is a slender 224 pages, the herky-jerky style makes for an unsettling read. But Ninh's approach is highly effective. He conveys the emotional and physical anguish of Kien and those around him poignantly, mimicking in his style the angst of his characters.
Word has it that Bao Ninh has written a second novel, but isn't satisfied enough to publish it. That could well be. The literary success of "The Sorrow of War" won't be easy for him to match, or for any other writer taking on the subject of 20th-century conflict.
A poor translation.......2007-02-25
I throughly enjoyed this book for its premise and plot, and I did not find the jumping in time distracting. Rather, what ruined this book for me was the horrible writing, which was distracting to the point of unreadability. I choose to lay the blame on the fact that this is a translated novel, because I refuse to believe that a real author would do such a poor job getting his ideas across.
The metaphors are often redundant and overly simplified, I recall one gem that went something like, "The darkness was dark like my soul"
This is a fantastic book for its portrayal of the Vietnam War from the Un-American perspective, and it really made me reflect on books and films about Americans struggling to survive in the Vietnamese Jungle. The Vietnamese were struggling too! However, I find the prose too frustrating to ever read the book again.
Depressing and boring some times.......2006-09-26
The author clearly had a lot of terrible experiences during the Vietnam War and tries hard to convey the feeling of depression, sorrow and loss he suffered personally. There are though many jumps in time, back and forward, and the bigger part of the book is not about the war itself but about the women the hero (Kien) loved and lost. The war remains always as a horrible background with only a few glimpses of it, where each one represents the death of Kien's one dear comrade. The text is very well written and with great artistic power but don't expect terrific battle accounts or many things regarding the military life of the PAVN rank and file. The story is a fine piece of literature but not of much historical value for anyone who wants to learn the everyday life of the North Vietnamese soldiers.
It is what it is..........2005-09-29
To say nothing else, this is an interesting book. From a humanitarian standpoint, it is on par with Frank Elkin's diary, "The Heart of a Man," that his widow published after his A-4 was shot down off Oriskany in 1966. That novel is the only other work I have read that compares in what it may accomplish for the reader from an emotional understanding of the immense toll of the Vietnam War.
Yet, The Sorrow of War is different. First published in 1991, the book was a best seller in Vietnam - even though the communist party banned it. In reading the novel, the reason eventually becomes subtly obvious as the glorious struggle is painted in more realistic colors.
The author, Bao Ninh, was born in Hanoi in 1952, and he was one of only ten survivors of the 27th Youth Brigade during the conflict. In 1994, his work received the Independent Foreign fiction award. His fictional story unfolds in the Central Highlands where his main character, Kien, after years at war, is working in a Missing In Action Remains-Gathering Team. After that opening, there are no chapters, there is no coherent timeline, and there is no reference to much of anything but the simplest of human emotions.
At first, The Sorrow of War is strangely un-engaging. Honestly, I considered putting the book down several times early on in my reading. However, Bao Ninh does have something worth saying that is not explicitly spelled out in any of the pages as we aimlessly follow Kien in his memory of the war.
This book is not an easy read. The timeline shifts and changes without warning, and it is up to the reader to get into the head of a man who is severely damaged by the war and its apparent total destruction of his life. But, it is worth the effort.
Kien, a young man from a suburb of Hanoi when American jets first start to hammer Hanoi, eventually fights through the entire conflict to the gates of Saigon in 1975. Along the way, he loses everything - all his friends, his family and the love of his life - which has obviously obsessed and crippled him. In fact, the story is really a love story of sorts within a whirlwind of catastrophic memories of combat. The searing pain that he experiences in that regard seems to cauterize his substantial wounds.
The Sorrow of War is not a political statement or an assessment of right or wrong, who won or lost and why. There is not a single reference or mention of Ho Chi Minh, or any other national leader or commander in the entire book. In fact, Bao Ninh even seems to regard the enemy in a light that is completely dispassionate... almost strikingly familiar. He practically sees the enemy not unlike himself... as he sees all his friends... caught up in a struggle much bigger than sense can explain. It is as though no shred of personal regard for anything remains in this shell of a man.
There is no doubt that the communist party would not look with favor on what Bao Ninh has to say. Although the character Kien is committed to doing his part by joining the war, there is the over-riding fear that he has to go or face punishment. Eventually, he becomes a hardened warrior, accepting of whatever fate comes his way because he does not have any realistic hope of survival. He loses everything - even himself in the process.
Likewise, portrayals of the North Vietnamese Army are not much different than the robotic statements of indoctrination that many have come to associate with communist re-education. In ways, Bao Ninh paints the picture that the whole tragic effort was simply not what the common person was led to believe. Very few of those people are left... except in the memory of Kien, and almost no one enjoys a better life than what existed before the war. Few seem to even be awake in the eyes of man that are fixed in surreal memories of his former life.
In the end, The Sorrow of War is not your typical war novel. In many ways it is different than any other book I have ever read; however, "brilliant" is too complex a word to describe this work. Perhaps it is because the author, Bao Ninh, is from such a foreign culture or because his main character is so damaged, writing being the only way he can cope with life after the war. Consequently, Kien's memories, visions and timelines are jumbled. Additionally, there is no judgment of anything to the point of being almost absent of hatred, which strangely leaves one feeling un-invested in the characters in an equal manner. It is almost as though one is simply observing the main character's thoughts and consequently understanding completely.
The Sorrow of War is not a novel that will allow the reader to get in the head of the enemy to understand anything about the greater Vietnam War. Instead, the book offers something of an account of human suffering from the view of a young grunt caught in a protracted conflict. I cannot recommend this novel to anyone who cannot divorce himself from an appeal to humanity because the book is almost too matter of fact for that. It is just not that simple. Basically, the title says it all, and it is up to the reader to try to figure out what Bao Ninh is saying. I will probably have to read the book a second time to do that myself; however, that should not be too difficult because by the end, I found the Sorrow of War difficult to put down.
John Jay De Bellis
Customer Reviews:
Good Read, Amazing Life.......2005-12-02
I highly recommend this biography for older children (15+) or anyone interested in the early American history. It is about Tecumseh, a Shawnee warrior in the Ohio territory in western America during the period from 1768 to 1812. He was witness to the French and Indian War, the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
The book reads like a colorful novel with plenty of "amplification" notes for extra historical detail. Life was rough in those days for Indians and settlers. There was a lot of distrust on both sides. During this time England, France and America are vying for control of the new world and the various Indian tribes were in the middle of it all. Much of the story takes place in locations familiar to many of us; Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois for example.
It is the story of Tecumseh's amazing life and his efforts to unite native Americans to defend all Indians against the white settlers and their government. It is brutal at times.
The narrative is told from the perspective of the Indian. But I found Eckert to deal pretty evenly with both sides. That was one of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much. Indians and whites both had their fair share good and evil characters. Hope you check it out!
Here is a quote that I really liked:
"So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."
Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation
great book about great man.......2004-04-21
I have a new hero. I recently came across this excellent biography of the great Indian leader Tecumseh, and I'm stunned. First, by Tecumseh. This brilliant warrior and visionary understood that civilization is insatiable, and that one must never make peace with the culture that uses any means necessary to kill the indigenous, and to kill the land. This is a powerful account of necessary resistance to the depredations of the dominant culture.
I'm stunned also by the writing. Allan W. Eckert is an extraordinary writer, and tells Tecumseh's story beautifully and movingly. The book is very hard to put down.
A Masterpiece of Algonquin Historical Writing.......2001-11-21
Eckert's A Sorrow in Our Hearts is nothing short of a masterpiece, and will assuredly stand the test of time, perhaps as no other "Native American" history book before it. I have read many hundreds of books on Algonquin history, and nothing I have seen comes close to A Sorrow In Our Hearts in being fair to the individuals involved. Eckert's portrayal of Tunskwatawa as a misguided opportunist may irritate some, but it holds together as the most credible explanation of how things turned out. I turn to this volume over and over again and it never ceases to amaze me the amount of useful information that it contains. It maintains a high level of historical accuracy without losing the mystical feeling of standing in Tecumseh's presence, seeing the world through his eyes, and the bracing sense of strength, courage and upliftment that those around him must have felt. If there were a sixth star to award this book, I would not hesitate to add it to my review.
I have stood by that battlefield where he died and heard the accounts of his demise and burial from a descendant of those who were there and I sense the greatness of the man, and somehow Eckert has managed to do him justice through a medium that is not always compatible with the Algonquin way, and it makes me feel that sorrow to which he refers. We all must die sooner or later, but Tecumseh was still a young man (younger than I am now) when he died at the battle of the Thames. When I am buried, let them lay me to rest with only a well worn copy of Eckert's A Sorrow In Our Hearts in my hands.
Evan Pritchard
Professor of Native American History, Marist College
author of Native New Yorkers, The Remarkable Legacy of the Algonquin People of New York;
No Word For Time, the Way of the Algonquin People, etc.
One of Eckert's Best.......2001-09-27
"A Sorrow In Our Heart" is definately one of Eckert's best historical novels, right next to "The Frontiersmen" and "Dark and Bloody River". It, of course, tells the story of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who has been hailed by many as the greatest Indian leader of all time. Tecumseh came closer than any other before or after him to saving his people from total destruction by the whites on the eastern frontier in the early 19th century. In the end, Tecumseh's death is not just a loss in the Indians' long struggle against the Americans, it signals the death knell for their way of life, as their defeat in the War of 1812 sealed their fate on the North American continent. A great and a wonderfully entertaining book, history has never been so hard to put down.
EXCELLENT book.......2001-05-19
This is an amazing true story woven expertly by Eckert!
Amazon.com
Ten Thousand Sorrows starts with its young narrator watching her mother's murder; improbably, things go downhill from there. "Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood," Frank McCourt famously wrote in Angela's Ashes. But McCourt's hardscrabble youth looks like a walk in the park compared to the experiences of Elizabeth Kim. The child of an illicit union between a Korean mother and an American father, Kim grows up the object of disgust and contempt in rural Korea. As a honhyol, or mixed-race child, she isn't considered a person at all.
Yet her mother refuses to sell her into servitude, and for that show of compassion she pays with her life. In the harrowing scene that opens the book, Kim watches from a hiding place as her mother--the victim of a so-called honor killing--is hanged from a rafter: "All I could see through the bamboo slats were her bare feet, dangling in midair. I watched those milk-white feet twitch, almost with the rhythm of the Hwagwan-mu dance, and then grow still." Left alone in the world, without so much as a name or date of birth, Kim ends up in an orphanage where she spends hours on end locked in a crib that resembles a cage. Things ought to look up when an American couple adopts her. Instead, one form of abuse merely replaces another, as the pastor and his wife tell Kim that her mother "left her to die in a rice paddy" and immediately take away any toy or pet to which she develops an attachment. Later, Kim escapes into a young marriage (arranged, naturally, by her fundamentalist parents), only to find no refuge there either. Surely there is a special place in hell reserved for her husband, the kind of pathological sadist who becomes aroused only by inflicting pain.
By this point, the reader begins to feel like something of a sadist herself. It's a tribute to Kim's skill as a writer that we can't look away from her pain, even when it might feel more comfortable to do so. True, she does leave her husband, make herself a new life with her daughter, begin a journalism career without benefit of training or degree--all of which demonstrates an amazing tenacity and inner strength. Yet the latter half of the book employs the familiar vocabulary of healing without doing much to convince. Reconciled with her experiences, Kim doesn't necessarily seem to have finished processing them. Her book has all the raw urgency of a call to 911: it feels written for the author's very survival. --Chloe Byrne
Book Description
They called it an "honor killing," but to Elizabeth Kim, the night she watched her grandfather and uncle hang her mother from the wooden rafter in the corner of their small Korean hut, it was cold-blooded murder. Her Omma had committed the sin of lying with an American soldier, and producing not just a bastard but a honhyol--a mixed-race child, considered worth less than nothing.
Left at a Christian orphanage in postwar Seoul like garbage, bleeding and terrified, Kim unwittingly embarked on the next phase of her extraordinary life when she was adopted by a childless Fundamentalist pastor and his wife in the United States. Unfamiliar with Western customs and language, but terrified that she would be sent back to the orphanage, or even killed, Kim trained herself to be the perfect child. But just as her Western features doomed her in Korea, so her Asian features served as a constant reminder that she wasn't good enough for her new, all-white environment.
After escaping her adoptive parents' home, only to find herself in an abusive and controlling marriage, Kim finally made a break for herself by having a daughter and running away with her to a safer haven--something Omma could not do for her.
Unflinching in her narration, Kim tells of her sorrows with a steady and riveting voice, and ultimately transcends them by laying claim to all the joys to which she is entitled.
Download Description
They called it an "honor killing", but to Elizabeth Kim, the night she watched her grandfather and uncle hang her mother from the wooden rafter in the corner of their small Korean hut, it was cold-blooded murder. Her Omma had committed the sin of laying with an American soldier, and producing not just a bastard, but a honhyol -- a mixed-race child, considered worth less than nothing. Dumped at a Christian orphanage in postwar Seoul like garbage, bleeding and terrified, Kim unwittingly embarked on the next phase of her extraordinary life when she was adopted by a childless Fundamentalist pastor and his wife in the United States. Unfamiliar with Western customs and language, but terrified that she would be sent back to the orphanage, or even killed, Kim trained herself to be the perfect child. But just as her Western features doomed her in Korea, so her Asian looks served as a constant reminder that she wasn't good enough for her new all-white environment.
After escaping her adoptive parents' home only to find herself in an abusive and controlling marriage, Kim finally makes a break for herself by having a daughter and running away with her to a safer haven -- something her Omma could not do for her. Unflinching in her narration, Kim tells of her sorrows with a steady and riveting voice, and ultimately transcends them by laying claim to all the joys to which she is entitled.
Customer Reviews:
a piece of work that comes from the heart.......2007-08-27
Sometimes, we don't know what is happening in the other parts of the world. Perhaps, we don't care. It is good to read something that is a true story and hear the story from the person who experienced the occasion personally. I love the way Elizabeth Kim tells the story. She described the situation well. It feels like we were actually there, watching her life being torn by someone else.
an emotionally stirring memoir with value.......2007-08-01
*this review refers to the unabridged audio book.
first of all, it's hard to say what i would've thought had i read this book rather than listening to it. my experience with audio books is limited. elizabeth kim, the author reads it, and i liked the soothing sound of her voice. also, she talks at a nice, relaxed pace--not as fast as some books i've heard. that made it much more enjoyable to me as it was easy to follow the story.
secondly, i started reading a few of the unfavorable reviews and had to stop. i'm also a korean adoptee and if i have any issues with this book, they most definitely do not center on the accuracy of its content. i feel like anyone who questions kim's account or sees it as a misrepresentation of korean culture probably could open their eyes and/or hearts a little bit. either that or take a creative non-fiction writing course because they're missing the meat and potatoes of her work.
if you've been adopted, you're already at the front of the "victim" pack. when you compound that with unloving and abusive environments, the issue can take an extraordinary amount of soul-searching, heartbreak and work to climb out of. and it's usually a very slow journey. kim's memoir depicts this with self-effacing honesty and raw emotion. i don't think the average person can relate to the sum total of the author's horrific experiences, but they'll recognize the themes of control, acceptance, self-discovery and redemption. this is the strength of the work and the best reason to read "ten thousand sorrows." i sobbed during parts, especially where kim talks about feeling unworthy, alone or hopeless. i don't know if that's because of what we have in common or because of the universality of these feelings.
the plot seemed to jump and skip around a bit toward the end, the author's adult years. i don't think it took a lot away from the flow, but i don't know how much i would've noticed it in the book form. all the necessary parts remained intact and the story was ably told regardless. my favorite parts are the author's reflections on poetry, journalism and motherhood--perhaps because they were among the major vehicles for her healing and say so much about the human spirit.
even if you don't personally share elements of kim's story, "ten thousand sorrows" is a worthy read. it's about forgiveness and redemption in the end, not all the suffering and cruelty in its beginning. but it's important to know where you came from to know who you are. kim fully understands this. the book also delves deeply into religious fanaticism, physical and mental abuse, and identity. i thought there were a few glitches here and there, some parts dragged a teeny bit and a few parts seemed to be handled with the same response of the author at the past-time rather than with hindsight and broader perspective. what you get here is completely personal insight with a packed plot. those are the building blocks of a strong memoir. kim covers a lot of ground and generously shares what she learned along the way. it's gutsy, inspiring and admirable.
3 stars from me.......2007-04-14
I was interested to see several reviewers have taken offence to this book , and regard it as a work of fiction.
I myself, having little experience or background of Korean culture and heritage, found the book to be an interesting read.
However as with all books that offer up brutalities of a culture foreign to my own, I am careful not to generalize that this is true of the culture as a whole.
3 stars from me, Ok but not great.
Ten Thousand Sorrows.......2006-04-03
Ten Thousand Sorrows was an overall great book. I wish the author had given some dates throughout the book so we could get more of an idea of when the events were taking place. But then again, dates may not have been important - just the fact that the events happened.
I know some folks don't like this book and gave it a low rating. I didn't like a lot of what I read in Ms. Kim's book but things like she wrote about does happen. Honor killing is a very touchy subject but it does exist. Racism in Korea after the war was there. And the children of Korean women and American Soldiers did not do well. Even in the 1970's there was still a lot of stigma for a Korean woman to marry outside of her race.
I know things have improved somewhat in Korea when it comes to mixed race children, but it wasn't too long ago that mixed race children in Korea had very hard lives.
Ms. Kim wrote a beautifully sad story that gives voice to her pain and also honors the memory of her mother. Maye some of Ms. Kim's writing makes a reader question events in her life (learning English in week for example), but putting aside those details, this is her story and it happened.
Ten Thousand Stars for Ten Thousand Sorrows.......2006-03-16
Anger rises within me when I read negative reviews on Elizabeth Kim's Ten Thousand Sorrows. What motivated me to choose this remarkable book out of the library was the fact that it was about a Korean war orphan. Like Kim, I am a Korean adoptee who did not have a father. I have disabilities that I have to deal with for life, and I know how Kim felt with her share of tough times. Like her, I idolize my birthmother that I never knew. Some complain about how Kim viewed her mother as "perfect with no flaws." Everyone has weaknesses in life, and I'm sure she knows that. But the reader has to realize when Kim was living in Korea, her mother was all she had and they loved each other deeply. The pair was already outsiders in society because there was no father in the family. It was very admirable that they spent the few years they shared together with a very close relationship, instead of adding to their misery and having a unhealthy bond.
This fantastic novel teaches a major lesson-That you shouldn't take for granted the people in your life, because there comes a time where they won't be there anymore. If Kim wants to see her mother as picture perfect, that's totally fine. Unfortunately, her mother was killed by her own brother and father when Kim was about four. There is no record of her birth, name, or anything regarding her mother. People believe Kim didn't include dates because this information isn't real. That she doesn't know any dates is possible. There are adoptees today that are in the same boat.
One can relate to this book if they ever felt isolated, lost, unloved, or a constant victim of throes. If not, then when reading this novel, the reader can step in Kim's shoes and see what real suffering is all about.
This book is a source of inspiration to those who wish to give up on life in difficult times. I find myself flipping through its pages and reading favorite parts. Kim felt suicidal and she got the help she needed and stayed strong, regardless of all the pain. This author is a true fighter. Because of all her suffering, Kim was able to sympathize with others who went through similar hardships. All her struggles gave her a gift in providing knowledge and comfort to those who experienced the same emotional and physical struggles as she did. She also got another reward-her daughter, Leigh who she became very close to.
I believe every word in Ten Thousand Sorrows is true. Some say part of the material was false because they can't believe one can go through so much within thirty years. Those people need a reality check. This is life. I hear a lot about the honor killings: That there was none in Korea. To be honest, I don't know if there was or not, but if Kim made a mistake, that doesn't mean I'll change my positve view on her book. I hear criticisim on the things she wrote about Buddhism, too. This isn't a history textbook. It's a very emotional memoir, and its factual accuracy shouldn't change a person's opinion on whether they like or dislike the book.
I couldn't believe her parents were Christians, and these type of people do exist. Kim's mother and father were unreasonabley strict. They forced their beliefs in a negative way. For instance, they wouldn't allow her to have a nightlight when she was young and afraid of the dark, for they thought she should trust God. Fortuneately, Kim's parents drastically changed over the years. Her father cried one day, confessing he didn't know how to be a great father. Her mother talks to Kim on the phone and calls her darling. She says Kim was the greatest thing that ever happened to her.
Talk about a miracle!
Kim makes a note that she knows her parents had their share of hard times. She knows they only wanted the best for their daughter.
Although I was never abused by my adoptive parents, I know what it's like to be abused because I've gone through so much harassment in school. I know how it feels to have racial remarks being thrown in your face. I know what it's like to be an outcast. I know the strong anger one has when others try to control you, like Kim's husband did. She was put in an arranged marriage by her parents. He wouldn't even let her read! I know how mortifying it is when others read your diary like her parents did. I know how it feels to be depressed and think there's no way out of misery. This is what her book is all about. I'm not writing this out of pity--I'm only trying to show that people can relate to Kim's life. I have great compassion for Kim. She added some beautiful poetry that many people think isn't important and that's "okay" but I loved it. Ten Thousand Sorrows is a real tear-jerker, and it's one of those books that have such a major impact on you, that you'll vividly remember it forever.
If I could, I would give this memoir ten thousand stars-One for each of Kim's sorrows. But sadly, I'm only allowed to give it five.
Elizabeth Kim's book made a difference to me, and after reading her book, I hope it does for you too!
Average customer rating:
- The whole story
- This Book Made Me a Student Of History
- An excellent single volume account of the entire conflict.
- Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow
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Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow
Thomas D. Boettcher
Manufacturer: Little Brown and Company
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Customer Reviews:
The whole story.......2005-08-09
i certainly cannot improve on the review done by the man from Camp Lejeune, so be sure to read that review. I have not read Stanley Karnow's book on Vietnam although I found his Pulitzer-Prize-winning book In Our Image, on the Phillipines exceptionally good. My only complaint about this book is that it is hard to read straight through since the sidebars don't end on the same page and so sometimes one is reading a sidebar and when finishing it has to go back and find out where one left on in the main text. But if one wants a balanced view of the conflict--probably more critical of the war than some enthusiasts for it--this is the book to read.
This Book Made Me a Student Of History.......2005-06-19
When I was in 11th grade (1987), somehow I came across a copy of this book. At that time I wasn't an avid reader (or a lover or history), but this book made me one. It was extremely engaging and a worthwhile read. Boettcher hits it on the head, and I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
An excellent single volume account of the entire conflict........2005-02-11
An indispensable book that effectively and efficiently covers the entirety of the Vietnam conflict, from its roots in French colonialism to the aftermath of the war up to, and including, the time of the book's publication (1983). Although Mr. Boettcher provides some very interesting, informative, and moving original material concerning the experiences and insights of some junior officers who actually served in Vietnam, most of the information presented in the book has previously been published in the many books he cites. Each of those works, however long each may be, looks at a fairly limited topic (e.g., Bernard Fall's work on Dien Bien Phu, Hell in a Very Small Place) or time period (e.g., David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, which focuses primarily on the early to mid-60s). Mr. Boettcher used the best sources available to assemble a coherent picture of the roots, growth, and aftermath of the conflict. The author does an outstanding job of distilling each work to its essence and using it in the way that best contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the issues. Having read a majority of the sources he cites, I was impressed how faithful he was to not only the content of those sources, but also to their context.
Content-wise, the most similar book I have seen is Stanley Karnow's Vietnam. One of the biggest differences between the two books, however, is Mr. Boettcher's extensive use of photo illustrations and sidebars. These devices make the book more accessible to those who have not read extensively on the matter. But the extra material is not there merely for entertainment or diversion, it serves like highly informative and readable footnotes. The sidebars add another layer to the story and the author's judicious use of photos proves the adage about each picture being worth a thousand words.
Unlike most of the other prominent historians of the war, the author has a rare perspective, having served in Vietnam as a young air force officer during 1968 and 1969. At the hands of another writer, that background could have been a constraint, turning the book into a love song to himself or a hate letter to those he felt let him down, but Mr. Boettcher is largely invisible throughout the book. My feeling was that Mr. Boettcher did not write this book about himself, but he may have written it for himself. Like many of his generation, he entered a service academy in the early 1960s with the calls to service of JFK ringing in his ears. The world was very different when he reported to Vietnam four years later after much of the U.S. had turned against the war. Rather than the enthusiastic volunteers who had fought in the early years (such as the troopers in LGen Hal Moore's We Were Soldiers Once, and Young), the war was increasingly being fought by conscripts who questioned the Johnson and Nixon administrations' conduct of the war and whose primary focus was understandably on self-preservation. This book goes a long way towards answering questions that veterans such as Mr. Boettcher must have had upon their return, e.g., why were we there, how did we get there, what went wrong, and how can we avoid the same mistakes in the future?
Despite his personal involvement with the conflict, the author never demonstrates any personal agenda. Unlike the approach of others, Mr. Boettcher does not overly demonize or glorify anyone. He demonstrates a notable respect for the parties involved and an understanding of the forces that affected them. The result is an unusually nuanced picture. We are not given a drama of heroes and villains, but a tragedy of generally decent, intelligent, and well-intentioned people making choices that are only clearly bad here in hindsight. In many respects, that is the most unfortunate aspect of the whole matter; based on the people involved, their strongly-held beliefs, the assumptions they made, and the constraints they operated under, it was almost inevitable that events would play out as they did. Hopefully, Mr. Boettcher's book can help us identify when, in the future, we are making similar errors of thought and action.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone and everyone, regardless whether this is their first or fiftieth book on Vietnam. The book is well-researched and exceedingly well-written. I enjoyed this author's work very much. I read that his other book (on the U.S. military from 1945-53) will soon be republished under the title Harry Truman and the Military: How the Early Cold War Years and Korea Reshaped the U.S. Military, and I look forward to getting a copy of it.
Vietnam: The Valor and the Sorrow.......2002-01-15
Those who intend to read only one book about Vietnam should read this one. The author covers this disaster with a unique insight into the flawed decision-making processes of otherwise intelligent bureaucrats who failed to understand the complexity of the situation. War games prior to our massive air campaign had predicted the eventual tragic outcome, yet the results were completely ignored. A combat commander (which I was) usually sees a war from an entirely different perspective than that of government-employed theorists. The theorists may dismiss their mistakes as an investment in the learning process about a problem. The commander is left to count his dead, and write the letters to their families.
Book Description
The Dutch, through the directors of the West India Company, purchased Manhattan Island in 1625. They had come to the New World as traders, not expecting to assume responsibility as the sovereign possessor of a conquered New Netherland. They did not intend to make war on the natives peoples around Manhattan Island but they did; they did not intend to help destroy native cultures but they did; they intended to be overseas the tolerant, pluralistic, and antimilitaristic people they thought themselves to be--and in so many respects were--at home, but they were not.
For the Dutch intruders, establishing a settled presence away from the homeland meant the destabilization of the adventurers' values and self-regard. They found that the initially peaceful encounters with the indigenous people soon took on the alarming overtones of an insurgency as the influx of the Dutch led to a complete upheaval and eventual disintegration of the social and political worlds of the natives.
How are the Dutch to be judged? Donna Merwick, in The Shame and the Sorrow, asks this question. She points to a betrayal both of their own values and of the native peoples. She also directs us to the self-delusion of hegemonic control. Her work belongs alongside the best of today's postcolonial studies in the description of cross-cultural violence and subtle questioning of the nature of writing its history.
Customer Reviews:
Examines the violence that took place between Dutch traders and Native Americans in the wake of Dutch purchase.......2006-09-20
The Shame And The Sorrow: Dutch-American Encounters In New Netherland examines the violence that took place between Dutch traders and Native Americans in the wake of Dutch purchase, through the directors of the West India Company, of Manhattan Island in 1625. Chapters examine the original intentions of the Dutch, which were to profit as fur traders and uphold tolerant, pluralistic, and "anti-militarian" values; yet somehow, these high intentions were crushed through an insurgency and a struggle that summarily crushed the social and political worlds of the native inhabitants. Why did the violence begin and escalate, and how are the Dutch to be judged? Expert researcher Donna Merwick (Senior Fellow, University of Melbourne) explores complicated issues of cultural entanglement, cross-colonizations, and human atrocity in this thoughtful history, sparsely illustrated with black-and-white maps and images.
Book Description
The morning of September 17, 1862, dawned peacefully in the farming community of Sharpsburg, Maryland. But this day would be like no other in American history. The quiet would soon be shattered by an all-day assault that would become the bloodiest single day of the Civil War, with more than 27,000 casualties.
Antietam: Day of Courage and Sorrow tells the story of the cruelest battle of the War Between the States. Meet the Union soldier who foiled General Robert E. Lee's strategy by finding his secret plans wrapped around cigars. Explore how President Abraham Lincoln used the battle as a means to free those in slavery in the South. Discover why, even though the battle was considered a draw, Antietam proved to be a turning point of the Civil War.
Book Description
On the morning after Kristallnacht, Toby Sonneman’s father walked through broken glass to apply for the visa that saved him from the fate of so many during the Third Reich. In examining her own family history, the author discovered the similarities between the fate of the Jews and the Gypsies in the Holocaust, both peoples selected on racial grounds for extermination by the Nazis.
She traveled with an American Gypsy survivor to Munich, where she stayed with the formidable Rosa Mettbach. This is the story of Rosa and other members of an extended family who survived the Holocaust.
Shared Sorrows tells the story of a Gypsy family against the backdrop of a Jewish one, detailing and examining their shared sufferings under the Nazis.
My father brought a spool of thread with him from Germany when he came to America in 1939. And another spool of thread, one in my imagination, unwinds slowly and unpredictably, sometimes fraying or tangling. It's a thin and delicate thread that leads me to the Gypsies, to the family that I meet in Germany, the country of so many tangled memories and emotions. And as I talk to them and I listen, following the threads of their stories backwards in time to the 1930s and 40s and before, their memories start to become mine as well.
Customer Reviews:
The courage of conscience.......2002-11-19
Shared Sorrows is a breath-taking, exquisite book. Sonneman's quest begins as a personal one, revealing her courage in asking what happened to the Gypsies in the Holocaust, as she had earlier understood her own Jewish family's fate. I was awed by her conscience and courage in listening and recording the heart-rending replies. The truthful, brutal answers left tear stains on more than one page as I read. But Sonneman's reporter's voice and writer's heart were precisely what allowed me to face all that she heard. She brings her readers into a universe of unspeakable memories because we must all remember. And she shows us that we must honor these memories because the universe is still capable of love and luck and -- always -- conscience. It is a powerful and important book no reader will soon forget.
Finding Meaning in Memories.......2002-11-14
Shared Sorrows weaves the history of the Nazi persecution of Gypsies into a families' personal narratives, recounted in a manner as gripping as any novel. Rosa Mettbach, the main character, tells a story of nearly-unspeakable injustice and personal courage. She escapes from the Nazis four times, each time punished more harshly yet surviving several concentration camps. Sonneman evokes shockingly rich memories of the sounds of the camps, the smells of burning flesh, the ash constantly in the air, of awakening each morning with lice swarming about one's head.
What makes this book more than a horror story is its humanism. Rosa the heroine is also a chain-smoking grandmother who indulges in her own prejudices. The author decribes in mouth-watering detail the pastries she and Rosa eat while awaiting the right time for an interview. Sonneman examines the complexity of her own reaction upon visiting places her Jewish family was forced to leave and meeting Germans who stayed. The people living in the town of Dachau must have heard and smelled something of what was going on in the concentration camp at the edge of town. Were they complicit or just paralyzed with fear? One is left pondering not just a remarkable oral history, but human nature itself.
Product Description
Edited by Pat Frisella and Cicely Buckley, and published by the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, the anthology features more than 250 poems that consider war and peace both now and throughout our history.
Customer Reviews:
Trying to make sense out of actions that often defy logic or sense........2007-03-31
This timely anthology is about war viewed through the eyes of 127 poets. The poems cover wars from the Peloponnesian War to 9/11 and the current events in Iraq. It is not, as I originally thought, a polemic against war but rather "...a view of the world in conflict through the eyes of poets." Contributors include Pulitzer Prize winner Maxine Kumin; numerous state Poet Laureates; war veterans including World War II, Vietnam and Iraq; a 16 year old girl killed by a suicide bomber; Palestinians; and a host of other writers including a newly translated poem by Chaucer. This is a thoughtful, bittersweet effort by writers of all stripes trying to make sense out of actions that often defy logic or sense. A fine example of the quality available through small presses.
Book Description
A classic novel in the tradition of The Tin Drum, The Sorrow of Belgium is a searing, scathingly funny portrait of a wartime Belgium and one boy's coming of age-emotionally, sexually, and politically. Epic in scope, by turns hilarious and elegiac, The Sorrow of Belgium is the masterwork of one of the world's greatest contemporary authors.
Customer Reviews:
Two-Books-in-One.......2007-09-14
My rating of four stars reflects the fact that I give five stars to the first part and three to the last part. The first third of the book is a beautiful, heartbreaking story of one schoolboy's love for his male friend. However many schoolboy romances there are, we can always use more of them. On the other hand, the last two-thirds of the book gives us an overlong mishmash of interactions between largely uninteresting characters (with some notable exceptions, such as the boy who earns a little money by sharing his body with a man in the neighborhood). I do recommend the book overall, but understand that you may find it a real slog getting to the end.
What can you say?.......2004-09-26
I don't understand why all these Flemish Belgians review 'The Sorrow of Belgium' here at Amazon, just to say that it is a bad book. Probably they haven't read it. Or they had to read it or some other novel, play, piece of poetry by Claus at school, and disliked it at that time. One thing is for sure : they don't have the slightest insight in this book, or in any of Claus' work. Maybe they disagree with Claus' vision on Belgium, Catholicism, etc. To dislike Claus is only possible when you don't understand him. The Flemish reviewers just want to spit their frustration (call it : their ignorance) on the internet... It's silly.
The book isn't only the story of a childhood, a Bildungsroman, a war novel, a depiction of Belgian society during World War II, a postmodern novel with a procession of intertextual references to the Bible, Classical Mythology, Shakespeare, Jacob van Maerlant, Dante, Hölderlin, Gezelle, etc. It is a stilistic masterwork as well. Full of wit. Fabulous imaginery. Poetic. This is the work of a genuine writer, one out of many.
Too read Claus is to read a piece of art. He can only be compared to the greatest writers of all time : Joyce, Proust, Mann, Tolstoy, Borges, Ibsen, Pasolini... What can you say when you have finished 'The Sorrow of Belgium'? Maybe that you are stunned?
To long to be good..........2004-07-29
Just before the Big War, Louis Seynaeve is still a boy of eleven years. He grows up in the nunnery in Haarbeke, also known as the Reformatory. Together with his friends Dondeyne, Byttebier and Vlieghe he forms the secret society The Four Apostles. Later their club is reinforced by the new guy Goosens. Their main vocation is to get a hold of 'forbidden books'. One day father and grandfather Seynaeve visit Louis to bring him bad news: Louis' mother fell from the stairs and is taken to the hospital. The truth is that she is pregnant and that any moment now she can give birth to a brother that will upset the easy life Louis was living.
Like so many authors who were adolescent during the Second World War, Hugo Claus is gifted with a relentless urge to get in touch with what happened during his youth. The Sorrow of Belgium is clearly the culmination point of war drama in the works of this Belgian author. Claus does not narrate the heroic deeds of the soldiers, but paints a colorful canvas of life under repression. Simple factory workers and storekeepers are trying to make the best out of things, but more often than not they fall into despair and misery. All this makes great prose as seen through the eyes of the child, Louis Seynaeve.
But then something strange happens. In the middle of the book Hugo Claus decides to changes style completely. Instead of the steady sequential narrative of the first part, the reader gets a mishmash of impressions. The few storylines that are developed die in a pool of chaos. Suddenly the story stops making sense and starts flirting with utter boredom. It is clear that the main theme is collaboration and the blindness of people under repression, but nowhere is this given any reason of existence between the fragmental, pointless descriptions of the adventures of mostly flat characters.
It is incomprehensible why such a potentially great novel was ruined by the desire of Clause to write a novel of more that 700 pages. It would have been great it he had skipped the last 400 pages. A pity.
over the top.......2002-10-07
I never understood why 'The Sorrow of Belgium/Het verdriet van België' created such a fuzz in the Dutch language community (Flanders + The Netherlands). Possibly, the fact that it was a 'must reed' in school, makes that I'm not that overwhelmed by it.
Mind you, it certainly isn't a bad novel, but (from my point of view) it isn't the highlight of twentieth-century Dutch literature that some people say it is. It does help to understand the Flemish feelings towards 'higher authorities' (like Belgium, like the (catholic) church), and maybe (given the correct interpretation of the whole background regarding the German occupation of Belgium during WWII) it can give this novell an universal angle.
I would like to point out that Hugo Claus is a much better poet than he is a novellist. If he'll ever get the Nobel Prize (for the last ten years his name is mentionned), it should be for his poetry, which is (without any exeption) extraordinary and amazing. Obvious problem: it's easier to translate a novell than a poem...
somewhat disappointing.......2002-03-25
I review this book reluctantly because I read it over 11 years ago. Frankly there is little that I remember about except two things. The first is that there is an hilarious part on pre-pubescent boys sharing their misconceptions about girls. The second thing I remember about it is my disappointment that the book lacked what I was looking for. I had fairly close relatives in The Netherlands during WWII and some of the stories I heard from them (and others) gave me a totally different picture from what I found in Claus's book. From them I got a sense of being occupied by a sinister enemy. Clandestine meetings, people being hauled off to forced labor, and a sense of fear were among the impressions that I was left with. From "The Sorrow of Belgium" I got a sense of life somewhat altered but still pretty much like normal. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps the residents of Belgium experienced a different life than my relatives. Perhaps my relatives embellished their tales of woe. Perhaps I only heard what was interesting to me when my great aunts and uncles shared their experiences with me. All I can say is, this comfortable life style caught me by surprise and left me disappointed. I have read a number of books by European authors trying to get a sense of life in Hitler's Europe. Maybe I have already found it in "The Sorrow of Belgium" but just don't realize it. If so, I'm disappointed in Belgium.
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