Customer Reviews

Cambodian Interlude: Inside the United Nations' 1993 Election

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"Tom Riddle is fresh, simple, honest and always goes straight to the point. Unlike other books published about Cambodia, Cambodian Interlude is an inside publication with humorous details of the UNTAC. The book is read easily, like a best seller novel, but it is more than that. In fact, Riddle takes you very deeply indoor of the election process of 1993. He mixes with perfection a truly love account, the Vietnamese prostitutes and the city of Phnom Penh emerging from the tragedy and isolation. Highly recommended for somebody who wants to know more about Cambodia in a non academic way. Impossible to get bored".

Guillermo García, author of Norodom Sihanouk y el Hermano Número Zero: la tragedia de Kampuchea Democrática.

A friend recommended this book to me. Looking at the cover and its title I thought it might be a dry and serious dull book. What could be exciting about an election in Cambodia? But I finished the book in 3 afternoons. What an interesting and engaging book! I couldn't put the book down once I picked it up, and I couldn't wait to get back to it when I had to stop to do some housework. To my surprise, it turned out to be a page turner. I liked the author's self-deprecating humor and his keen observation of the people in Cambodia. One learned about the culture, religion, history, and of course the political chaos through his humorous description. The author's motorcycle taxi ride accident was terrible but hilarious.

I think this book can be made into a good movie because it has all the movie elements: adventure in an exotic country, politics, Khmer Rouge, danger, and a heart broken love affair. Reading the book I couldn't help wonder if the story was actually true. Imagine my surprise, after a little detective work and communication with the publisher, to learn that it is in fact all true. I highly recommend this book!

Riddle offers an inside perspective into the chaos of Cambodia at this critical juncture in history. As far as I know, all that he wrote was true. As a minor character in the story, slightly disguised, I was able to see some of the same world that Tom Riddle saw while I was working at another humanitarian relief agency in Cambodia. Riddle examines the very nature of reality as he probes this isolated peasant society, plagued by war induced poverty and destruction, and overlaid with the sudden arrival of a weakly organized UN military and technical support force of around 20,000 people from many different countries.

Riddle taps into many different realities as he looks at the worlds of a myriad of different characters trying to make sense out of the chaos they are experiencing. It is offset with his own ironic humor, personal life crises, and the participant-observer perspective.

The idealism of the United Nations is a paradox of its inefficiency, political agendas, and bureaucracy. You get an international version of "Catch 22" in this book. The career bureaucrat is offset by the author as the naive idealist. The brave young Cambodian woman recovering from war and life in a refugee camp is struggling to help her family survive and save her country. She is offset by the romantic notions of the author, hopelessly in love with her. Peaceful interludes of Cambodian life are interspersed with violence and disarray. The oppressed Cambodian society seeking to find itself is continuously falling back on the international community and even the traditionally adversarial Vietnamese population for energy and direction.

This nonfiction account of social chaos reads like a lighthearted Franz Kafka. It transcends the war journalist's perspective that is our usual source of information about social crises such as these. As a participant-observer in life's international fast lane, the author is able to bring unusual insight into unusual life experience. Whether you seek information about Cambodia, the United Nations, the impact of war, a good adventure story, or a cross cultural perspective on human relationships, you will find this fascinating reading.

I really liked this book, and I'm not just saying this cuz Tom is my friend (and he ain't paying me to say this either.) He has a good wit that makes this a very enjoyable book to read. Perhaps one day an independent film-maker will make this into a movie - it could and should happen. Aloha.

This is one amazing book. While we heard about the UN-sponsored Cambodian election, maybe getting a sound byte every once in a while, who knew what was really going on there? Well, Tom Riddle knew, as he was in the thick of it. This book is an amazing look at the election from the inside, the directors, the workers, the problems, the people. The author of course, is in the middle of his life also, of which falling in love with a Cambodian woman is only one of the noteworthy events. And it's through these trials and tribulations that we get our clearest look at the Cambodia we never knew, beyond the tourist traps, the Hollywood movies and the evening news footage. The diplomats can give you the sanitized version, but if you want the real story, here's what REALLY happened.

This is the hitherto untold story of what really went on when the U.N. tried to manage free elections in Cambodia. Told with Riddle's salacious wit, the story staggers with all-too-human predictability from quagmire to quagmire, only to bring us to an exhilarating climax. The U.N. operation turns out to be a great human achievement in spite of itself, and the author comes to some sort of understanding with the women of various colors, shapes, and sizes who seem to drape themselves in every doorway of the book, and to offer more significant challenges to life and limb than the less-than-airworthy helicopters, the guerrilla-infested jungles, the AIDS-infected U.N. soldiers, and the inept American diplomats all put together. More important, however, is the glimpse into the real lives and experience of the Cambodian people, whom Riddle portrays with depth and profound sympathy. What a read!