A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain [Paperback]

Robert Olen Butler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1993

In a collection of bittersweet stories about Vietnamese expatriates living in the American South, Butler blends Vietnamese folklore and American realities, lyric, dreamlike passages and comic turns, to create a panoramic tapestry of a people struggling to find a balance between their hearts and their hopes.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Vietnam War continues to play itself out in fiction, autobiography, and history books, but no American author has captured the experiences of the Vietnamese themselves--and caught their voices--more tellingly than Robert Olen Butler, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for A Good Scent From a Strange Mountain. The 15 stories collected here, all written in the first person, blend Vietnamese folklore, the terrible, lingering memories of war, American pop culture and family drama. Butler's literary ventriloquism, as he mines the experiences of a people with a great literary tradition of their own, is uncanny; but his talents as a writer of universal truths is what makes this a collection for the ages. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Butler's 15 stories, set in the Vietnamese enclaves of suburban New Orleans, capture the voices of people who have lost their homeland and are trying to adapt to an alien culture. Named by PW as one of the best books of 1992.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (June 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140176640
• ISBN-13: 978-0140176643
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #653,285 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting in storytelling, with an amazing sense of actuality, September 22, 2004

By 

Quy V. Nguyen (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories (Paperback)

I was browsing through Pulitzer Prize winning books when I came upon this book. Admittedly, being a Vietnamese immigrant, I was very skeptical that a white man can ever capture the true experiences of the hardships of coming to America. I was quickly stunned at how some of the stories jumped right out of the pages and poured back into the back of my memories. It didn't seem like I was reading a fictional account of Vietnamese assimilation; it was more than that, it was as if I was reading into the history of my time in America. Most notably of all the stories in the collection is the story of the American soldier trying furiously to bring his Vietnamese wife and daughter to America. As you read through his letters and realize his intentions, you can't help but feel frustrated for this man. It is no surprise that this book was a Pulitzer winner. It is that good.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You won't believe the writer isn't Vietnamese, February 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain (Paperback)

When I first learned that Butler was a Caucasian man living in Louisiana, I was a little reticent about reading the book. As a Chinese immigrant, I have read numerous accounts of the "Asian experience" from the non-Asian perspective. Often times, the writers oversimplify their subjects' feelings and don't have a good sense of the material.

Nothing could be further from the truth about Butler's book. After I read it, I bought numerous copies and sent them to my friends. Butler has an acute understanding of the Vietnamese experience, and in particular, the immigrant experience in the US. How did he know these feelings? How did he get such a good grasp of the culture?

It is a extremely moving book. Several times I had to put the book down because I was so choked up. Butler is an incredible writer. Each chapter is a self-contained short story. Sometimes told from the perspective of a woman, other times a man. In either case, Butler's keen awareness of Vietnamese culture is apparent from the sensitivity of his stories.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb story collection on the essence of the Vietnamese, September 18, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories (Paperback)

In 1993, this book won the Pulitzer - and somehow I'd never heard of it till recently. With great sensitivity, Robert Olen Butler introduces us to the colorful lives of Vietnamese immigrants in Louisiana. This collection of inter-related short stories are told in many different voices: housewives, pregnant woman, a lonely businessman - and we grow to care about each one as a unique individual. Butler's writing in the voice of people of another culture feels so authentic because he served with army intelligence in Vietnam in 1971 and worked as an interpreter to Saigon's mayor.
Terrific collection.