Customer Reviews

The Time in Between

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

 

 

Charles Boatman has spent most of his life haunted by the chaos of the Vietnam War. Enlisting at twenty, but having no real desire to fight, Charles, after almost three decades, is still struggling to win his own private war of salvation. Upon his return from the battle zone, he moves to the isolated mountains of British Columbia, Canada where he builds a home and raises his three children, his eldest daughter Ada, and the twins, Jon and Del, intent to eke out a life living of the land, whilst trying to suppress the demons of his past.

Plagued by nightmares and dreams, the ghosts of the murdered, Charles can never quite exorcise the bloody images of battle, particularly the senseless killing of a young Vietnamese boy on the Han River, whom he shot in a moment of fear. With the exodus of his children, leaving to making their own lives for themselves, Charles feels ancient and unmoored, so on the spur of the moment, he books a ticket to Vietnam, and then cancels it, unsure of what he will find if he goes.

When an old war colleague lends him a book written by a North Vietnamese soldier, Charles is immediately drawn to this young man's harrowing story of survival; the author's brooding photograph and the sadness that seems to hover around and above him intriguing Charles. The story provides Charles' final catalysis, opening up a kinship with something, awakening of the moral forces that have so overwhelmed him. Twenty-eight years after leaving Vietnam as a young soldier, Charles decides to make the return trip, returning to a country that has had such a profound effect on his life.

Charles rebooks a ticket to Hanoi, thinking that in some way he might conclude an event in his life that has consumed and shaped him. However, upon his arrival this aging war veteran abruptly vanishes. It is left to his children, Ada and Jon to pick up the pieces, to travel to Vietnam, to this "perplexing and alien place, where the language was more beautiful because they could not understand it," to find and perhaps recover their missing father.

Whilst Jon travels, seeking out the distraction of men, Ada is left in DaNang, trying to make sense of Charles' story. She meets an officious and unhelpful police inspector, who tells her that her father remains missing, and falls into the company of ex-pat American missionary Jack Doud, and his distracted, inattentive wife, Elaine, both had met Charles, even had dinner with him, and remembered that he had told them he felt "lost." Eventually Ada finds solace in the arms of a Hoang Vu, a disconsolate Vietnamese artist, who has survived the war and survived the hard times after the war, but continues to be plagued by his own ghosts.

A letter found in her father's bag gives Ada a sign that she so desperately needs; it's as though she is connected to her father as his voice lifts and falls away, the message tells of him looking out over the harbor of DaNang and contemplating, with great peace, his own death. Wracked by the guilt and pain, Charles wonders how he can take away the pain of the random shedding of innocent blood.

Charles imagined that by coming back to this place and solving some mystery that he would understand what had happened to him, but although the streets were the same, it was just not the same place, as everything else has vanished. Both father and daughter ache for a connection: Ada thinks about the future and the past and how she feels so detached, whilst Charles ponders the "light and shade" that falls across his own memories, a whole history arriving with absolute clarity and then disappearing.

Bergen writes beautifully of time and place, the story dreamlike, and poetic, espousing the universal themes of love, death, and mourning, as the author transports the reader to this striking and foreign landscape, where western values are seen as an anathema, and where exotic sights, sounds and smells dominate: a man leaning over a pool table, a child crying beside a chicken; a woman sleeping beside her jewelry shop, a boy being beaten by a stick, a man and a fridge on a bicycle.

Bergen offers no easy answers to the chaotic after-effects of war and the journey towards emotional healing, yet he shows how lives can often slip away, undiscovered. His characters "set sail in a particular direction, certain of the route," and then find themselves loose and set adrift. Charles remains paralyzed by his past actions, caught in an emotional dilemma not of his own making. Ada, wise and intelligent beyond her years, aches for her father, the man she has loved more than anyone. Both are wandering, helpless, through a quagmire of painful feelings, hoping against hope, fumbling toward a resolution that often seems impossible. Mike Leonard February 06.

Bergen has managed to take a story and tell it in a simple fashion with complicated characters that you want to keep learning more about.

The more you read the Time in Between, you realise it isn't about the location(s) it takes place in, or the background of the characters, but how you want to find yourself lost in this world where Charles, his children, and other side characters are meandering.

So much of what I have read of late is just hackneyed stock characters going through the motions. It was so pleasing to see real people for once in a novel, who are searching for something inside themselves, instead of just running from scene to scene to plod the story along.

There is nothing here that is also too heavy. From the notes here on Amazon you can already see it is about a former Vietnam Vet, but the book isn't about the war or Charles problems dealing with it. Part of the book takes place in Canada, but that location has nothing to do with the events that take place, the kids could have grown up anywhere. So don't be put off from the fact that Vietnam and Canada are mentioned, you don't have to be familiar with these places to understand the novel, let alone the Vietnam war.

The climax of the novel comes towards the middle if you haven't forseen it already, but Bergen makes you want to keep on reading. There is only the universal theme of moving on with life and the people who you meet along the way, perhaps it is truly "the time in between" that matters. Great read.

The thought-provoking title and liner notes filled me with anticipation as I starting into this book. The writer's style is straight-forward and vivid. He does an ample job of eliciting the characters' feelings and painting layered pictures of their surroundings. However, as the story progressed, I kept expecting to see some lines connect. Charles' eventual suicide, while somewhat expected, appeared almost arbitrary. His inner thoughts were never quite revealed, but maybe that was intended.

Bit characters like Yin (sic) appeared again and again but why? There was never any point to him. I kept expecting him to have some important piece in this puzzle of a tale.

Wan voh (sic) is portrayed as some sort of thoughtful Bhudda-like character, full of wisdom and few words. But he seems more of an aimless alcoholic. And what of the demons he was hiding? We never glimpse much. There was much more character development that could been done, more tied together with the other characters for more cohesiveness.

And the end!? Well it like being sucker punched, all the wind knocked out of you. I'm left asking what is the point of this book? If it is to protray several people's hopelessness and sadness, well I guess it did that. I guess I don't like sitting around hitting my thumb with a hammer either. I think Mr. Bergen could spend a few weeks out in the woods or at least ask his doctor for a different prescription. I'll never read another of this guy's books.

This is a Giller Prize winning book from 2005. I am working my way through the list of past winners. This book to me was middle of the road for a Giller Prize winner. The writing is almost poetic-spare and descriptive. The story is set in British Columbia, Canada and in Vietnam. I liked the settings very much. I found that the book did move me and gave an insight into post traumatic stress. Charles Boatman served in the Vietnam war and then comes to settle in Canada afterwards. He secludes himself high up in the British Columbia mountains, raises three children there, and then decides to go back to Vietnam to try to lay to rest old memories. He seems to disappear once there and so two of his children come to find him, and have to trace his history during the war in order to find him and in order to understand some of the demons that their father had all his post war life. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book. Maybe just a little far off of my preferred genre for me to love it.

This is a very simple story and is very well written.

In a nutshell, it is the story of Charles Boatman, a Viet Nam vet who has raised his children in rural British Columbia after his ex-wife dies. He enjoys a close relationship with the children and loves them very much. He has a particularly close relationship with his eldest daughter, Ada.

Seemingly out of the blue, Charles returns to Viet Nam where he served during the war. He is haunted by his experiences there and a boy that he killed during the war. It is always unclear what Charles is searching for but he is clearly still much affected by the war and carries a great sadnes.

When Charles disappears, his daughter Ada and son Jon, fly to Viet Nam to search for answers. Ada is very motivated to unearth the truth and also to understand her father. Jon is far less interested and is along for the ride while he lives a party life in Danang and later Hanoi.

Ultimately, it is about the effects of war and the relationship between a father and daughter. There is a lot of sadness in the novel and trying to understand the meaning of our lives.

It's a good book though not necessarily for everyone. Like life, many things are not resolved and it's more about the journey than the destination.

There are few gimmicks in the writing and it moves forward in a very linear fashion with some simple flashbacks. It is very narrowly focused on a specific location and specific point in time. This is novel very much about inner journeys.

I liked it but didn't love it. It's a good solid 3 star novel.

I finished this one due to sheer force and will. I struggled not because this is a "sad" story - sadness is definitely an emotion through which readers can connect to stories and characters - but because I knew early on that the sadness wouldn't be transforming and I'd be left with nothing more than the sorrows of the characters. Set primarily in Vietnam, "The Time in Between" is an emotional journey undertaken by a family in search of a fix for the unbearable loneliness and emotional disconnections that are the detritus of war.

Charles is a Vietnam vet who returns from the war emotionally disfigured from his tour of duty. His wife seems to have moved on emotionally and Charles is left to deal with his wartime actions as best he can. Added to the mental challenges that Charles must wrestle with is the role of single parent that is thrust upon him after the sudden death of his wife. Charles survives parenthood and when the children are adults he returns to Vietnam in hopes of reconnecting to the place that's disconnected him from so much of his life. In this regard, the author explores the affects of post traumatic stress on Charles his family and the people of Vietnam.

Although well written and interesting the languid pace of the novel made getting through it a challenge. I must applaud Bergen for his attempt to portray the affects of the Vietnam War on the Vietnam people; however I would have like more exploration from this angle. Overall an o.k. read but I'm not passing it on.

Reminded me of a Graham Greene novel - maybe it was the location. Yes, it's sad and seems to go nowhere - kind of like real life sometimes. However, the author does a great job of creating atmosphere. I thought there would be more closure, there isn't - but, it's still a good read.

Winner of the 2005 Scotiabank Giller prize, The Time in Between is an audiobook novel formerly broadcast on CBC Radio. A tale of the aftermath of the Vietnam War, The Time in Between tells of Charles Boatman as he returns to Vietnam, where he fought nearly thirty years ago as a reluctant and youthful soldier. When he disappears, his daughter Ada and her brother Jon search for him on the streets of DaNang and beyond. As one slim lead after another disappoints both siblings, Ada sinks deeper into hopelessness while Jon becomes enveloped in the urban nightlife to avoid his worst fears. It is Ada who must finally confront and bear the long-kept secret of her father, in this emotional and introspective narrative, aptly read aloud by "Battlestar Galactica" actor Michael Hogan and radio and theatre actress Tricia Collins. 3 CDs, 4 hours, abridged.

I was drawn to the plot of this novel for approximately the first half...it appeared to be heading in a definite direction. Then, when the "initial" principal character committed suicide, the plot changed direction...and I missed it, I guess. The focus of the narrative seemed to get lost and wound up with no particular purpose that I could follow. After a few chapters of this aimless wandering, the book just ended... Maybe that's similar to the haunted lives of some who have seen the horrors of war. I'm still not sure what it was all about.
Jim C.