Customer Reviews

The Innocent

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Robert Taylor's The Innocent is truly a stunning novel. That it is his first published novel makes his achievement all the more significant. Although the story is told in the first person by an intelligence officer stationed in Vietman during the darkest days of that conflct, and although his story is also about his love for a beautiful young Vietnamese man, the novel is more than a book about being gay in the Army or about the Vietnam war. Because Robert Taylor writes from the soul, and because he draws on the wellsprings of the deepest human sensitivities, the novel draws the reader into self-examination of what it means to be human in an inhumane world and what love means when the value of human life and deep personal relationships are turned upside down by rigid stereotypes and human cruelty. This is not escapist pap. Be prepared to have to think, to feel deeply, perhaps to be challenged in some of your most private and intimate assumptions about your own life and values.

Fairchild was kind of a lame guy wasn't he? Did I believe it? Hell yes! The entire book seemed very real to me. I am a United States Navy Man stationed in Asia (8 years) and I connected right away with the characters. I felt some of the character generalizations were over done. The whole story was great, but it was told with no passion. Where was the sweat? Where was the gut-renching neausiating fear? Where was the teeth-grinding nostril flaring sex? Why did the affair end so suddenly? None of the relationships were ever fully developed. Frustrating...

What a marvelous job weaving the Vietnamese history in with the story. That was smooth and impressive. The whole story seemed well structured and very controlled. Too controlled. Almost like reading an outline.

I can't wait to read Taylor's next work. I think if he lets loose a little we are in for a rush.

Captain Matthew Fairchild is assigned to Army Headquarters in Saigon, where he works in army intelligence, he does a good job and impresses his superiors, that is until his conscience starts to influence his actions, soon he finds himself no longer the golden boy.

That Matthew is gay, and has by a fluke circumnavigated the system that should have prevented him securing his job in intelligence, in no way affects his efficiency, but it is something, that if discovered, can be used against him, by friend or foe. So by embarking on a love affair with a beautiful young Vietnamese busboy he is taking a great risk.

The Innocent is an eye-opening story about the US Army in Vietnam, written by someone who served there as a Captain in 1967. It reveals the hypocrisy and betrayals deemed necessary by those in charge in order to achieve their aim, and aim that Taylor progressively challenges in his novel.

Taylor also gives us an insight into the Vietnamese people, and their long and battered history, the history of a proud people with a great respect for learning, for the past and tradition, but a people corrupted by Western influences and impositions.

The Innocent is well written, with well formed characters. Matthew's affair is touchingly described, and his dilemma of conscience convincing. The outcome, while not conclusive, is positive and satisfying.

Although some may consider this book gay literature, it is much, much more than that. It is also a thoughtful and sensitive examination of our role in Vietnam. Its insights may disturb you, may even make you angry, but you will learn from it. And you will be moved. The ending is absolutely perfect.

This first novel is a very well written story that follows a gay man's experiences in Vietnam. I thought that this book would be the same old story about gays in the military but it offers a very unique perspective. Through the eyes of Matthew Fairchild, an office administrator in the Vietnam War, we are eloquently lead through the war from a gay man's experiences. His affair with a young Vietnamese boy is tenderly rendered but it is only secondary to other significant aspects of the war such as physical endurance, death, and the culture of the Vietnamese people. I highly recommend this book.

Interesting the variability of the preceding reviews.

Personally, I like this first novel very much, could connect with the narrator easily, could empathize with his situation, and, to my surprise, found his broken-english narrative for Nanh, the Vietnamese lover, to be natural and non-condescending. I have few qualifications for rating this book on the basis of verisimilitude other than that my own partner is Vietnamese/Chinese. I found Nanh's mother's views on Vietnamese history far from didactic (although being so would not be a sin) and fascinating. It has made me want to look into it further. (Wish I could connect with my "mother-in-law" so intimately.) And the conclusion was gritty, somewhat unsatisfying (as it must have been for the protagonist), and thoroughly believable.

I read it, by the way, in a single sitting: couldn't put it down. I will read it again.

Robert Taylor's remarkable first novel is one of the best gay novels - hell, best novels -- to come out of the Vietnam disaster. Read today, against the background of another political debacle, it's like deja vu all over again.

Hats off to Robert Taylor for an amazingly well-written account of not only gays in the military but also the Vietnamese society, culture and people in realistic terms. This book will surely make many of us cry as it reveals so much of our identity as a people and as a country.

That this is the author's first published work of ficton is painfully obvious from the beginning. Not only could I not feel anything for the main character (told in first person), but there was very little to like in anyone in the book (or dislike for that matter). Even though the main character has affairs with various characters and one in particular, there just seems to be a lack of emotion. The story seemed to go nowhere, and nowhere fast. It meandered here to there, at times focusing on the War, at times on relationships, etc., etc. I would recommend that this author take some time out and read a good gay novel - like "Dream Boy."

Robert Taylor's first novel, The Innocent, based on his 1967 experiences with the US Army in Vietnam is a clear if rather late explanation of "Why the US lost in Vietnam." The racial sexual politics are unsettlingly stereotypical.
Perhaps there were intelligence officers sent out and who delivered the messages inconceivable and therefore rejected to the behind-the-lines brass. It seems all too neat and didactic, especially the lecture from Nanh's mother on the history of the Vietnamese outwaiting conquerors, and the steadily unfolding insight into the narrator's Texas background, official intransigence, and Vietnamese dignity. Those who think a less-leashed military would have won will use the homosexuality to dismiss the argument, and most of those sympathetic to interracial homosexual relationships probably already know why the ARVN lost despite massive US military backup.