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Title: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories by Robert Olen Butler ISBN: 0-8021-3798-9 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 10 May, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.36 (25 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: You won't believe the writer isn't Vietnamese
Comment: When I first learned that Butler was a Caucasian man living in Louisiana, I was a little reticent about reading the book. As a Chinese immigrant, I have read numerous accounts of the "Asian experience" from the non-Asian perspective. Often times, the writers oversimplify their subjects' feelings and don't have a good sense of the material.
Nothing could be further from the truth about Butler's book. After I read it, I bought numerous copies and sent them to my friends. Butler has an acute understanding of the Vietnamese experience, and in particular, the immigrant experience in the US. How did he know these feelings? How did he get such a good grasp of the culture?
It is a extremely moving book. Several times I had to put the book down because I was so choked up. Butler is an incredible writer. Each chapter is a self-contained short story. Sometimes told from the perspective of a woman, other times a man. In either case, Butler's keen awareness of Vietnamese culture is apparent from the sensitivity of his stories.
Rating: 5
Summary: I loved this book! Funny, poignant - it touched me deeply.
Comment: Even if I had not grown up in Lake Charles, LA and attended the university there, where Mr. Butler teaches, I would have loved this book. Funny thing is, I discovered it quite by accident in a public library in San Francisco! The book is about Vietnamese people in and around Lake Charles. The fact that we have this place in common, not only "brought the stories home" for me, but makes me very proud and happy that a writer of such high caliber so masterfully captured the region's unique essence and that of the Asian immigrant's experience there. My own experience in Lake Charles was very much that of the Asian in this race-conscious Southern state. Each story, however, was not so much about discrimination or racial differences as about personal growth and assimilation. Butler's characters demonstrate that there is no ONE Asian personality just like there is no ONE personality for any other race. The people are believable, the place is certainly real, and the author has done a wonderful job of writing. Thank you, Mr. Butler.
Rating: 5
Summary: Traces in Memory
Comment: 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.
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Title: Martin Dressler : The Tale of an American Dreamer by STEVEN MILLHAUSER ISBN: 0679781277 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 25 March, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Independence Day by RICHARD FORD ISBN: 0679735186 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 May, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri ISBN: 039592720X Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields ISBN: 014023313X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor ISBN: 0375701176 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 29 June, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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