So much has been written about the Viet Nam era, and now along comes author Tatjana Soli with the evident intention of writing a "great" novel about these times.
The funny thing is that, against all odds, she has succeeded in doing so, at least up to a certain point.
I lived through the Viet Nam era through my teens and into my twenties. Author Soli brings back a lot of memories, though not necessarily good ones; but she captures the spirit of the era with an uncanny accuracy--- and yet as nearly as I can tell (biographical information is sparse) she did not herself live through those days. Her research must have been superb and she must have talked with many a Viet Nam veteran, Viet Nam refugee, and many others besides.
She shows us Viet Nam as it really was, the good and the bad; she shows us American soldiers as they really were: mostly young and scared and far from home, yet capable of great bravery and nobility as well as the base acts associated with soldiers from time immemorial.
This is not an anti-war book per se, although it shows the horrors of war. The perspective of the book is balanced. Viet Nam and the Vietnamese are bathed in the light of realism, just as are Americans. The book asks us to sympathize with the plight of the Vietnamese, and who cannot? Yet we sympathize with the Americans as well as the war grinds on, becoming hopeless and eventually, lost.
Who can forget among those who lived through those days the sight of the Communist flag flying from the American embassy at the fall of Saigon in April, 1975? The author has us live--- or relive-- that infamous day, and much more.
At its core, the story, such as it is, is about an American photo journalist who starts out as a naive and unskilled photographer but who, through time, loses her innocence even as she learns her craft. She has her first love affair with another American photo journalist, this one as cynical as he is seasoned. Her second love affair is with a Vietnamese who has a dark and suspect background, and yet their mutual love redeems them both in the end.
The writing is superb, the imagery masterful, the story-telling excellent. It's just that there really isn't a lot of connected storyline. As mentioned above, author Soli seems deliberately to have set out to write something "great" and storyline is only an incidental tool. The novel is more about Viet Nam itself than it is about the characters in the novel, who could have been selected from any of a myriad of possibilities. While Soli integrates the characters into the novel very well, it is not the characters that make the book come alive: instead, it is the era and the setting. It is very telling that the ending is both rushed and sketchy; after some 360 or so pages of detailed exposition the denouement is wrapped up in under 20 pages of spare prose.
Do I recommend this book? Of course. It is one of the best Viet Nam era novels I've ever come across, maybe even *the* best. Just be aware that if the times are familiar to you, don't expect this to be any easy book to read, especially if you have memories that you would rather not call back. The book takes you to Viet Nam in the 60s and 70s in a very direct, accurate, and uncompromising matter. That, of course, is the book's real genius and the book's strong draw.
