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Ch. 9: Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong

#57: Nov. - Dec. 2008 (Fiction)
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giselle

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There is no Vietnamese voice
realiz wrote:

The chapter where Tim shoots the soldier very much showed us the vietnamese as real people, with feelings, dreams, families, and hopes just as the Americans. I have not finished the book yet, but I have so far not got the feeling that this book is racist. Yes, racism existed there when this happened, but we are seeing the folly of it through this book. The Americans should not have been there, did not belong there, it was futile and damaging to all, it made not sense, this message is not racist.
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Yes, this incident does portray the Vietnamese as real people, no question, and Tim's feelings are obviously genuine, but it stops short of giving them any real voice. The perspective of this incident is Tim's and the other soldiers. I think this is deliberate on O'Brien's part.

For comparison, does Lolita have a voice? I think that is deliberate on the author's part too. We are forced to see almost everything through Humbert's eyes and this heightens the perception of Humbert's control and his portrayal of Lolita and the other characters.

I'm not suggesting that Tim is racist or that the book is racist. I'm suggesting that projection of American (and Soviet) colonialism is inferred by the way the book is written, in particular, by the narrators perspective. I think O'Brien is trying to shed light on this colonialism and within that colonialism are racist views. The book itself is not racist, actually on the contrary, O'Brien's message exposes colonialism/racism for what it is and I find it particularly interesting for that reason.
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realiz

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I'm suggesting that projection of American (and Soviet) colonialism is inferred by the way the book is written, in particular, by the narrators perspective. I think O'Brien is trying to shed light on this colonialism and within that colonialism are racist views.
I think I am really missing something in this book as I have read it much more on an individual basis and the men themselves affected by the war rather on a bigger political statement on colonialism or imperialism (by the way...what is the difference, as I thought that the term would be imperialism rather than colonialism). Maybe I'd better do some rereading.
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giselle

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I think this book is worth rereading, I'm going to reread a few sections, including this chapter, because the personal story is compelling and i have missed some of this.

Perhaps the hallmark of a great novel is that it can be read in different ways, with different interpretations, recognizing different layers, and viewed through different lenses. your lens, the personal story, is just as valid as the wider political story, which is my lens, although i recognize the personal story too.

there is a tremendous personal story here but i think there is also a wider political commentary. maybe i see it this way because, as the Vietnam war was ending in the early 1970's this was an issue that caught my attention, so i pick up O'Brien's emphasis on politics. i remember reading about it in Time and Newsweek magazines and seeing pictures on TV that shocked that "young me". until then, i had no idea that people or countries could do bloodthirsty stuff like this. later in the 70's we followed other stories, like the Watergate wiretapping , which taught us that one should never believe what politicians say .... thank you Richard Nixon.

O'Brien's genius, i think, goes beyond this ... beyond the standard narrative technique, to metanarrative. he writes about telling the story, the story of the story (how to tell a war story), he writes about truth in a world influenced by postmodernism where absolute standards disappear and subjectivity rules. one doesn't have to agree with this postmodern worldview, but i think O'Brien does an admirable job of leaving behind the constraints of the modernist narrative and explores some new turf.

on colonialism and imperialism, yes one could use the latter term. i prefer the former though .. because colonialism captures the basic mentality that prevailed at the time, principally the projection of the values of the colonizer onto the colonized. imperialism, including combat over territory and domination of countries like vietnam stemmed from that basic colonialistic attitude. i think this terminology is just a matter of preference.
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realiz

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I'm going to move my reply to the final chapter of the book because I have finished it now and we seem to be discussing the the whole story now.
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Although it's a very intriguing tale, I don't think the story about Mary Anne is true.
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