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A review by gorecki
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
3.0
There was some really good writing in this book, I enjoyed Butler's style and tone, most of the stories were moving and beautifully crafted with mostly interesting characters and plots.
However, I did feel that by writing a full book of short stories on the same topic, namely the war in Vietnam and living in the USA as a Vietnamese immigrant after the war, a lot was lost because it felt like repetition. The similarity in the stories' structure and tone of narration gave the whole book a somewhat staggered feeling - like it was starting and stopping over and over with each story. I also didn't always feel quite comfortable with the fact that a white American author tells the stories of Vietnamese post-war immigrants. As a linguist fluent in Vietnamese I'm sure he is well informed and knowledgeable, but still the stories mostly concentrated on the good life the characters had since going to America, which quite literally omitted the difficulties, racism and abuse the Vietnamese have experienced in the States.
Overall, a very nice book, even if my enthusiasm for it was diminishing towards the end.
However, I did feel that by writing a full book of short stories on the same topic, namely the war in Vietnam and living in the USA as a Vietnamese immigrant after the war, a lot was lost because it felt like repetition. The similarity in the stories' structure and tone of narration gave the whole book a somewhat staggered feeling - like it was starting and stopping over and over with each story. I also didn't always feel quite comfortable with the fact that a white American author tells the stories of Vietnamese post-war immigrants. As a linguist fluent in Vietnamese I'm sure he is well informed and knowledgeable, but still the stories mostly concentrated on the good life the characters had since going to America, which quite literally omitted the difficulties, racism and abuse the Vietnamese have experienced in the States.
Overall, a very nice book, even if my enthusiasm for it was diminishing towards the end.