An attempt at grappling with a multi-generational ripple of war. Recursive, not a cogent argument but series of scathing observations trying and failing to make any sense of it.

Repeatedly brought to mind my dad. He came home, packed his war away in a box and shoved it in the closet, refusing to let it define him. He had that choice, and took it. I remember as a boy having to carefully wake him up after school (he worked nights), if you shook him awake he would drag you under the bed, seeking cover in those waking moments.

We didn't get any smarter, continuing further ripples in other ponds since. ( )

I have broken my rule about not giving ratings to books that I don't finish.

I never finished this book and not due to any fault of the book. It is a truly dense, passionate book that I just could not give myself to at that time. It is serious and not shallow or superficial. It forces you to concentrate of what is being said. If you do not give it your full attention than you cannot follow what is happening in the page. To me it felt like a full on essay about the war and its effects on both Vietnam and the world. About how the American really lost that war but have won it every day since.

It is full of things that you don’t know but should. Like the The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in the Washington that lists every name of every American fallen soldier. It is 150 yards long. If the Vietnamese did something similar their wall would be 9 miles long. Information like that is devastating not only because of the scale of it but also because it is unknown.

I am sorry Viet Thanh Nguyen I feel that I could not do justice to what you have given us and in that I feel a lesser person.
( )

I'm a bit behind in picking up this award-winning book, but it certainly wasn't to late for a reading. This is the kind of book that I'd like read portions again. This is also a book that has a plethora of other author references forcing my "to read" shelf to grow beyond my capacities. A great introduction to a topic that I didn't have much knowledge of, what the author calls the "industry of memory." What's involved in memory-making, what is just memory, and how peace requires the taking over the industry of memory. It's one to share. ( )

This was a sluggish read for me. The language kept settling into bland assertions about the war and its aftermath, assertions that I found to be both self-evident, and overly verbose. The tone altered from intimate writing to academic writing, with little warning. Also I think you get away with writing sentences that begin with words like: "The Vietnamese in America understood that..." only if you're writing a sociological study, and only if you have actually interviewed enough individuals in the group known as "Vietnamese in America" that you can say for sure what it is that they understand, rather than just speculating and homogenizing their understandings. There are so many generalized notions in the book that it felt shallow.

Here is the rest of the passage that begins with: "The Vietnamese in America..":

"The Vietnamese in America understood that strength and profit came in the concentration of their numbers. Thus, like other new arrivals, they gathered themselves defensively into ethnic enclave, subaltern suburb, and strategic hamlet, those emergent landscapes of he American dream, distinct from the sidelined ghetto, barrio, and reservation of the American nightmare."

These sentences are a representative example of Nguyen's writing throughout, and frankly I have a lot of trouble with this kind of writing. Not just that "the Vietnamese in America" homogenizes this group, but also, just how much of this sentence makes actual sense, anyway? Just what difference is there between an ethnic enclave and a sidelined ghetto to make one "American Dream" and the other "American Nightmare"? Maybe Nguyen is asserting that Vietnamese immigrants chose to live in segregated neighborhoods, and other ethnic groups are victims of segregation forced upon them? Or? And although "ghetto" and "barrio" and "reservation" are ethnically coded in contemporary American English, and do call to mind a specific kind of community, just what defines "ethnic enclave," "subaltern suburb," "strategic hamlet," and "emergent landscape?" Are those real categories of community, or just something Nguyen made up to balance the sentence? What the heck makes some of these community types a definitive part of the "American Dream" and the others "American Nightmare?"

If Nguyen had been in my English class I would have handed this book back for a rewrite, marked "fuzzy thinking." ( )

This is a great book about the perspectives of war, immigration and the dominance of American culture. Since the author is a Vietnamese American citizen the war in Viet Nam is a primary focus. Might I point out that in Viet Nam they call it the American War. This is the essence of the thesis that America with its powerful media forces including television and movies are the chief interpreters of wars to the rest of the world. All countries selectively forget cruel things they did in the past and play up the stories that portray themselves in a good light offering excuses for their atrocities.(No movies on the My Lai massacre) A very informative and thought provoking book. ( )