Customer Reviews

Good Scent From a Strange Mountain

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

After reading 3 short stories from this book, I had to put it down. Not only were the stories uninteresting, but they had no noticeable point. These stories were also politically correct. I have not read one piece of politically correct literature that I liked. Maybe the author did successfully capture the psyche of a Vietnamese person, but it was still boring. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK IF YOU WANT TO ENJOY AN INTERESTING ACCOUNT OF THE VIETNAM WAR!

fascinated by vietnam? enjoy stories that go nowhere and tell nothing? room for boredom in your life? then this book is for you! i went from story to story hoping for some level of interest to arise, but in succession, only disappoint was met, leaving a trail of wasted time. it would've received one star from me, but i learned about the vietnamese people and their culture, so for that, i give credit. but Lord, how i had to force myself to continue. stories end without a purpose or even hint of closure. its like someone telling me about what they ate for lunch that day...and that's it, end of story. nothing special, they just ate lunch. if this book won the pulitzer prize, i can only imagine how dull the competition must've been that year. if i were on that jury, i'd have voted for no book rather than cheapen the award and vote for this one.

save your time, pick another book to read.

This book is so good, it makes you want to cry. I was hesitant to pick it up at first. For some reason, the subject matter didn't appeal to me (or maybe I thought it didn't apply to me.) But the stories are so good, and so well told, it's beyond words. At the end of a couple of them, I felt like I'd just been punched in the gut. And I mean that in a good way.

The stories contained in this volume explore the aftermath of the Vietnam War from the point of view of the Vietnamese. I found this aspect of the book intriguing. There have been so many books written about the effects of the war from the American point of view, but very few written from the point of view of the Vietnamese.

For me, the overriding emotions in A GOOD SCENE FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN were beauty, tragedy and, most of all, a profound sense of loss. At first, I was a little disappointed that the stories took place in Louisiana rather than in Vietnam, but after reading only a few, I realized that placing the stories (all but two) outside of Vietnam only added to their poignancy. These characters are people who've lost everything, including their own identity. Even though most of them have rebuilt a successful material life, their emotional life consists, for the most part, of memories, and very fragile memories at that.

Robert Olen Butler's prose fits the mood of his stories perfectly. It's lyrical, poetic and ephemeral. It's spare and beautifully melancholic, just as his stories are. Butler resists the urge to tell us "too much" and this lack of detail only adds to the beauty of his narrative.

I loved all of the stories contained in this volume and felt so much empathy with the characters. Even though their experience of tragedy, pain and loss was different from my own, Butler somehow managed to convery the connections all of us share, despite our diversity of culture.

Although I loved the protagonist of the book's final novella, I didn't care for the story, itself. It seemed to lack the depth and beauty of the short stories. This is just personal preference, though, and this novella might end up being your favorite. It is certainly beautifully written.

A GOOD SCENT FROM A STRANGE MOUNTAIN contains stories I'll remember for a long, long time to come and no doubt will visit again and again.

I would give this wonderful collection of short stories more than 5 if I could. A stunning book made even more stunning by the fact that the writer is non-Vietnamese. You would not think as such; so much does Robert Olen Butler totally immerse himself into the trials and tribulations of a Vietnamese living, loving and suffering on the US shores.

The highlight? 'Mr Green'. I never thought I would shed tears after a story about a cantankerous old parrot, but this one did it for me. Wonderful.

In 1993, this book won the Pulitzer - and somehow I'd never heard of it till recently. With great sensitivity, Robert Olen Butler introduces us to the colorful lives of Vietnamese immigrants in Louisiana. This collection of inter-related short stories are told in many different voices: housewives, pregnant woman, a lonely businessman - and we grow to care about each one as a unique individual. Butler's writing in the voice of people of another culture feels so authentic because he served with army intelligence in Vietnam in 1971 and worked as an interpreter to Saigon's mayor.
Terrific collection.

I want to respond the reviewer who complained that the writing was too subtle. That's an interesting complaint! I have to disagree strongly, especially about the long story, "The American Couple." This is long, too long to read when sleepy. But the effect accumulates nicely and is very moving. Butler's writing is often dead-on and creative. He has his lapses. Some of the shorter stories are not great, but the great ones (Mr. Green, Love, and the American Couple) are truly great.

Despite its Pulitzer, this moving little collection of stories has sadly slipped beneath the average readers' radar. Although written by an American who served as a translator during the war in Vietnam, the stories still capture that quintessential Asian flavor. If I had not know otherwise, I would have thought the author was natively Vietnamese. The stories are set in Louisiana, and focus on the fictional lives of Vietnamese-Americans who have left their home behind. Though a few stories were less than stellar, the vast majority conveyed a deep sadness and profound optimism that I found truly enchanting. Don't miss this one!

There are some wonderful stories in this collection, including Love, which is poignant and witty. However, those that take in the form of letters lack cohesive plots, and talks about the same situations (that of American fathers with offspring in Vietnam). I especially dislike the long story American Couple (80 pages) which goes nowhere and is too subtle for my taste (also seems like a ripoff of Heart of Darkness).

Robert Olen Butler was ordered to Vietnam, like several hundred thousand young Americans of his generation. But while he was no stranger to the visceral terrors of that politically, tactically and morally awkward war, Vietnamese culture was not opaque, puzzling and frustrating to him, as it was to most American soldiers. Because of his facility with language, Butler was first assigned to master the complexly musical Vietnamese language, so that he could serve as a translator-liaison between the American military and their South Vietnamese counterparts. Once in Vietnam, Butler used his fluency for a more humane pursuits: When off-duty he went into the streets in civilian garb, conversing with common people in doorways, homes and businesses -- a crucial tutorial in their character, attitudes, history and culture. Butler says that this uncommon access compelled him to "fall in love" with the Vietnamese people and their ancient culture, and that love shines in the remarkable set of stories compiled in "A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain." The unifying aspect of these touching stories, which captured the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, is that each is told in the gentle voice of a Vietnamese dislocated by war and resettled in southern Louisiana, The Vietnam War and its aftermath are addressed in dozens of books, but this compilation offers a unique and revealing perspective on Vietnam for a country still haunted by that doomed, ambiguous war. Poetic without being precious, sentimental without being maudlin, sensitive but far from enervated, these stories are a must-read landmark of literary humanity.