Buffalo Boy and Geronimo [Paperback]

James Janko (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2006

The unique vision in Janko's Buffalo Boy and Geronimo is the depiction of the Vietnam War as seen through the lens of a wounded but resilient nature as a Confucian society still rooted in the earth and the unbroken fabric of ancestors is pitted against a desensitized military high-tech culture. As critic Paul Pines noted, "The forces here that seek to conquer the landscape are those, which by implication, shatter the harmonious fabric of the natural world to create a pathology that is far deeper than the political stakes indicate-one that indeed may determine the future of the entire ecosphere."

The two heroes of the book, Nguyen Luu Mong, the Vietnamese buffalo boy, and Antonio Lucio, the US Chicano medic (Geronimo), both have a deep respect for the natural world, and it is through their eyes that we witness the devastation of the natural world of which they are a part.

Geronimo's unit is engaged in search and destroy missions (one of the villages destroyed is Mong's), and he becomes so appalled by the pain and death inflicted on animals and humans that at one point he abandons his unit and rushes ahead to drive the animals away from an impending firebombing. Eventually he deserts and finds his way back into the jungle.

The young adolescent Mong loses his beloved buffalo in an early firefight and eventually sees his entire village destroyed, the survivors relocating deeper into Viet Cong territory. His is also a love story, and his marriage to Thien at the end of the novel is symbolic of the need for life to continue despite the devastation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A medic during the Vietnam War, Janko makes his novel debut with a look at the war's toll on the country's villagers. Nguyen Luu Mong, a boy just entering adolescence, is caught between growing responsibilities to kin, a boyhood he doesn't want to leave and the harsh realities of foreign invasion. The narrative shifts back and forth between Mong and Antonio Lucio, a medic appalled by the war's senseless destruction of the countryside and of the native ways of life. Janko's writing has a gentle, tactile quality that lends itself well to his frequent use of interior monologue, but the emphasis on description and introspection comes at the expense of plot movement. The story plods along with little direction until the last 90 pages, when the villagers flee an attack and Lucio goes AWOL. That the resolution isn't satisfying feels intentional, but it's also frustrating. (Jan.)
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Review

"...well worth reading, and Janko is an author to watch." -- Hartford Courant

"A beautifully writen first novel about the ugliness of war--in Vietnam and anywhere else." -- Kirkus Review

"A debut that seems to portend more fine work to come...[a] remarkably humanist novel" -- The Los Angeles Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 261 pages
• Publisher: Curbstone Books; First Edition edition (January 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931896194
• ISBN-13: 978-1931896191
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #359,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Individual and the Tribe!, January 27, 2006

By 

Cathy Edgett (Mill Valley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Buffalo Boy and Geronimo (Paperback)

I read James Janko's powerfully gentle and inspiring book "Buffalo Boy and Geronimo" straight through without stopping, except to eat and relieve. Janko brought me into village life. Aware of my senses, I was living in a world of smell and touch, of reverence and spirituality, of survival and belief. In the very beginning, we learn that the Vietnamese call the Vietnam War the American War, and Janko presents a world almost unfathomable in what the US does to this country, Vietnam, and then, Cambodia, and yet, it is not black and white. We are there with the fears of the Americans. They, too, are caught in a trap. And what sustains those who are sustained? The earth, the animals, the plants. Janko is a poet, a spiritual, mystical sage who carries us along in believing and trusting. In this book, I learned what it is like to live in a Vietnamese village, and I learned the power of the individual, the group, the tribe, the village in its need to survive. I learned about honoring ancestors, and I learned it at the deepest levels. Janko brings us into a tribe, a tribe of humanity that includes all nature. This is a masterful book, a must-read book, a book to change your life.

5.0 out of 5 stars the insanity of war, June 30, 2010

By 

M. espinosa "interested reader" (berkeley, california) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Buffalo Boy and Geronimo (Paperback)

In this novel Janko gently delves into the bodies and minds of humans and animals, richly using all the senses to show the fullness of their lives, the beauty of the natural world, and the suffering caused by destruction. In this way he exposes the insanity of war far more effectively than would be possible through a more strident approach.

As I read, I thought of children's war games, with their arbitrary qualities. Why were American soldiers hurling bombs and napalm at peasants, who were wholly involved with cultivating their ancestral land, raising their crops, their animals and their families? The average American "grunt" in the story has no idea why he's fighting. That the Army's attacks on the Viet Cong are to "protect America" is based on logic that is clearly insane.

Janko focuses on the lives of two boys: Hai, Vietnamese, who lives in a village that is being used as a Viet Cong base, and Antonio Lucio, a medic stationed with an American platoon in jungle close to the Cambodian border.

The senseless violence of it all, and the harming of innocent wild creatures, deeply affects Antonio Lucio. When a wounded tiger comes upon them, he feels a mystical sense of bonding with it. The subsequent death of his closest Army buddy drives him to the brink of madness.

Hai, for his part, tries to sacrifice a Viet Cong plot to sacrifice his entire village merely as a show of resistance. However, the experience of fighting for survival with the support of fellow villagers--as well as being in love--gives Hai strength.

Neither Americans nor Vietnamese are depicted as entirely good or evil. Both sides are capable of inhumanity. Through focusing on individual lives, Janko exposes the absurdity and tragedy of war. Yet bursting through the destruction, life in all its beauty and richness continues to bloom.

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that speaks for the voiceless wounded, June 9, 2010

By 

Lynn Gray - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Buffalo Boy and Geronimo (Paperback)

Within the first few pages of Buffalo Boy and Geronimo, I immediately knew I hadn't ever read anything like THIS account of the horrors of the Viet Nam War. What a stunningly beautiful and haunting book. I was reminded, throughout, of the traditional Aboriginals, Navajo and other native peoples, who have the same connection to/reverence for their ancestral lands as the Vietnamese, and to all the life and death they hold. And also their struggles--which are losing power as the elders pass away--to keep their commitment to the Great Spirit and their ancestors to remain on and care for the land.

I can feel the tremendous pain involved in writing this book, and also the peace Mr. Janko found in doing so. Anyone reading this book--and especially anyone who has suffered in a war, as a soldier or civilian, or who has been forced from their homelands--will be healed by it. I offer my heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Janko for speaking not only for the human beings but also the animal people, the plant people and the land that suffered so in this tragedy.