A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Grove Press, New York, NY. I got caught up in the Tabloid Dreams hysteria that gripped my circle of co-workers for three weeks back in 1996, forcing countless unsuspecting Calgarians to buy the collection of short stories. 3% The first time I read this book, I did it in a sitting.
157 global ratings | 133 global reviews
It gives you a lot to think about and I find it fascinating that the writer was a USA male soldier who served in Vietnam but has such a grasp of their culture, and both genders to boot. I thought, "a bad translation." The first 13 stories were like potato chips and I couldn't gobble them down fast enough.
So much for the practical level.
I've recommended this to others interested in this part of our history. Some are set in Vietnam. Short stories are not my favorites (I prefer a long book in which I can wallow) and sort of automatically come with a max of 4 stars. April 5th 2001 See 1 question about A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain…
The stories are lovely and poignant and terribly sad all at the same time. You like Maeve Binchy?
I like to read in bed for a while before falling asleep and this book was a perfect choice.
See all details for A Good Scent from A Strange Mountain: Stories Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2020There's a problem loading this menu right now.After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.Had to buy and read for lit class, i HATED it!!! In general it was an okay collection and I learned a bit about Vietnamese culture, but the stories were not sufficiently different or interesting enough to garner 4 stars.I forgot that I finished this finally.
It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness.Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2013 I didn't throw it, but I definitely didn't like it very much. But I also know that if they were my actual neighbors, how difficult it would be to get to know them well, much as I would like to. At least the climate in Louisiana must be familiar to Vietnamese people.
I've read other books that do the same thing and haven't though twice about it (although maybe I should have thought twice), but this collection of stories is particularly troubling to me. Oddly, the story that had the strongest and most-likely-toLike all on this site, I'm a voracious reader.
While most of the stories center around families who have resettled and rebuilt their lives in the United States after the war, there are also incredibly powerful stories from other perspectives--including the final, haunting story of an ex-American soldier, supposedly "MIA" for nearly twenty years, who has actually been building a new life for himself with a wife and child in a small, coffee and tobacco growing village in Vietnam. On every other level, this book excels beyond my most optimistic expectations. With the French, the Japanese, the Chinese as well as the Americans.
I would like to thank the author, Robert Olen Butler, for introducing me to a people I know nothing about and whom I've only known in a very shallow way through eating at Vietnamese restaurants. Who knew that the tales of Vietnamese individuals living in 1990s Louisiana, USA could be so interesting; or that these stories even exist?
Free shipping and pickup in store on eligible orders. Such artistry to have crammed so much story in so little space without crowding.
This book is very special. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations It's a collection of short stories about Vietnamese immigrants in America. This is one of my favorite books in recent years and one that I will go back and read again and again. Now, more than 20 years after this book was written, I suppose I hungered to read a current perspective, regardless of the War. What a huge challenge it must be for anyone having to leave their country to live in another country, another language, another culture, which couldn't be more different than their own. I understand why this won a Pulitzer. This book is a collection of stories of Vietnamese people who moved to the United States after the war. This is a great book.