Vietnam Novel Analyzed

[Anonymous]

I read " The Quiet American" by Graham Greene before traveling to Vietnam for a Government and Politics study abroad program. The novel foreshadows and captures the build up of American involvement in Vietnam at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s.

I specifically studied abroad in Vietnam because I wanted to experience and see the "other side" not just the American perspective of a very turbulent and controversial time in U.S. history. When I told people I was going to study abroad in Vietnam, I had many people share their own bias and reservations about the trip. It was amazing to experience a totally different feeling from the Vietnamese once I arrived.

Another good resource that I learned a great deal about was a PBS documentary: My Lai Massacre.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for mentioning this book! One of my students was just saying how she would enjoy reading it and I, unfortunately, had not been aware of the novel. Possibly, the novel could also be read while reading The Things They Carried to compare the effects of war on both sides.

[Anonymous]

I was just reading this thinking it would be a great resource to offer multiple perspectives with The Things They Carried. I also find that this website: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm has a lot of other references for the Vietnam War

[Anonymous]

Thank you for sharing this review of Duong Thu Huong's, "Novel without a Name." I teach a unit on Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" coupled with the film "Apocalypse Now" and this might be another text I should consider including in the unit.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reminder, both are required readings at UC Irvine Vietnam history classes.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

[font='Times New Roman']William Seale, Eastern Illinois University, English professor, reviews and analyzes novels about the North Vietnam Army by Vietnamese authors at:
http://castle.eiu.edu/agora/Mar02/Searleall.022.htm

Recently, a student of mine was trying to research social justice protests in Vietnam. What we kept finding on the web were plenty of hits related to the U.S. Vietnam War, the U.S. protest movement against the war. I started to see how difficult it is to look at an issue from the "other" side; not just U.S. history.

With that in mind, I found a novel that appears on some high schools' reading lists: Duong Thu Huong's Novel without a Name, written in 1990, translated into English in 1995.

Written by a North Vietnamese woman writer, from the point of view of a Viet Cong male solider, the novel portrays the happier times in the country before the American war, as well as combat life.

Some suggest pairing this novel with All Quiet on the Western Front, because they both share the themes of disillusionment with war and the politicians who start it.

Searle's review of Novel Without a Name is the sort of background essay I like to read as I prepare to teach a piece of literature. I wouldn't point students to this site, I would keep it to myself and use it to inspire discussion questions. He offers history, theme, comparisons to other Vietnam dissidents' works,. While he acknowledges some of the book's characters are banal, he values the author's message and the fact that the book was banned as too controversial in its homeland. [/font]
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[font='Times New Roman']For maps about the Vietnam, PBS has a rich site related to the country's history. You have to threat through lots of U.S. recollections, but there are some links to Vietnam leaders.[/font]
[font='Times New Roman']http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/maps/index.html

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edited by egoebel on 4/27/2012
edited by egoebel on 4/27/2012

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