A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories
by Robert Olen Butler
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Read in November, 2007
So, I actually really liked a lot of these stories, but this book bothered me because all the stories are narrated by Vietnamese or Vietnamese Americans and the author is white. I mean, no one should be confined to only write from the perspective of their race/gender, but I can't really get over this one. I've read other books that do the same thing and haven't though twice about it (although maybe I should have thought twice), but this collection of stories is particularly troubling to me.
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Read in August, 1993
Read this years back, but some of the stories are still with me. I occasionally use "Mr. Green" in my EL classes, and it gets an interesting reaction from my Asian students. I keep meaning to find a used copy; I've checked it out of the library a few times. It's the sort of book I reread. Dipping in and out of the short stories is like visiting another culture. I was reminded of this book while planning an upcoming trip to New Orleans.
I can't help but wonder how these stori...more
I can't help but wonder how these stori...more
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Read in January, 1998
Like all on this site, I'm a voracious reader. In my lifetime I've read thousands of books, including many of the great classics of literature. This book is my absolute favorite book of all time. The first time I read this book, I did it in a sitting. And then I proceeded to read it twice more in a 48 hour span. The prose is first-rate, with imageries that jump off the page. Butler weaves themes and phrases from one part of a story throughout the rest of the story to perfection. This book makes ...more
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Read in May, 2008
recommended to Todd by:
American Library Associationrecommends it for: pho-lovers everywhere
I was going to give this 4 stars, but then flipped back through reacquainting myself with what I've taken so long to complete. So 5, not 4.
Butler treads that bittersweet line of melancholy without desperation and sweetness without saccharine. The stories are all about Vietnamese transplants living in New Orleans: some embracing the plasticwrapped culture around them, and others trying to live their home culture in the midst of another.
I like reading poetry translated to English, beca...more
Butler treads that bittersweet line of melancholy without desperation and sweetness without saccharine. The stories are all about Vietnamese transplants living in New Orleans: some embracing the plasticwrapped culture around them, and others trying to live their home culture in the midst of another.
I like reading poetry translated to English, beca...more
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Read in January, 2006
Robert Olen Butler won a Pulitzer Prize for this collection of short stories. While each story is quite different from the other, one common thread through a few of them is the subject of Vietnamese immigrants who now live in Louisiana. Butler spent time in Vietnam and seems to have a love for the culure. Another nice surprise for me in this book was the longest story. His characters visit the location where a Richard Burton film called "Night of the Iguana" was shot. One rarely h...more
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Read in January, 1993
I love short stories and this collection is outstanding. Yes, it's controversial, because Butler is a white guy writing in Vietnamese voices, but before you dismiss the entire project, consider that Butler is a veteran of both war and matters of the heart, and read the story about a mother talking to her unborn child. Forget he's white. Forget he's a man. Just listen to the narrator and what she has to say. Or, take a look at the story of a Vietnamese-American man who buys one of John Lenno...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
Short Story Readers
I really loved reading this book. I think it is great. The human insight is fantastic. I also don't feel a writer is obligated to be of a certain race or culture to write about it. Most of the stories presented take place well after the Vietnam War and the perspective is is of someone who has immigrated to New Orelans, Louisiana. This ties all the stories together.
I do recommend alternating reading with another collection at the same time as this book can be overwheling.
Enjoy!!
I do recommend alternating reading with another collection at the same time as this book can be overwheling.
Enjoy!!
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Read in January, 2006
recommends it for:
Everyone
Loved this book. A collection of short stories all about Vietnamese now living in New Orleans, but otherwise unconnected. If you only read one story, I'd choose "The American Couple", one of my favorite short stories ever. Touches on the feelings of being disassociated from one's home country, connecting with a new identity/country. The Vietnam war and Vietnam itself remains a constant shadow in the background of each story, but these are war stories. Can you tell I really liked this
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Read in January, 1993
Does Robert Olen Butler indulge in Rousseau-like exoticism of Vietnam? Is he crazy as a loon (see his now-public email to his graduate students concerning his impending divorce from a woman who left him for Ted Turner)? Yes, Yes, and Yes. But, does this book of short stories include some images for the ages, some characters that haunt? Absolutely. He deserved the Pulitzer, even if he never writes another coherent word again. Which, sadly, may be the case.
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
Short Story Lovers
I'm happy that the Pulitzer Committee finds a collection of short stories to be of the same value of one narrative. Because short stories are wonderful. No need to try to recall characters from days or weeks ago, to try to sort through a plot of hundreds of pages, but to just read in 5 to 30 pages a complete world.
These stories are wonderful to read. They are enjoyable little worlds to slip into and explore.
These stories are wonderful to read. They are enjoyable little worlds to slip into and explore.
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Read in October, 2007
I loved this book. It's another great book of stories like "Interpreter of Maladies" that takes on another viewpoint, this one being Vietnamese. ALthough the author is American, he writes with a true compassion and understanding of Vietnamese people and culture. It was a delight to read. Highly recommended. 1993 Pulitzer winner.
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Ini buku yang gue baca waktu masih kuliah, dan bikin gue punya cita2 berkunjung ke Vietnam kalo udah kerja dan punya duit sendiri. Cita2 gue itu kesampaian 10 tahun kemudian. Isinya cerpen2 tentang situasi di masa perang Amerika - Vietnam. Penulisnya - meski bule - menulis dari sudut pandang orang Vietnam. Apa gak keren, tuh!
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Read in May, 2004
recommends it for:
Everyone
This collection of short stories deals with the Vietnamese experience in the US--a friend lent it to me upon learning that I had tried reading this author before, without any great success. Not liking him, or short stories too much, even, I was surprised and caught off guard by the simple poetry in this little book.
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Read in May, 2008
Great book of short stories about Vietnamese in all their forms - making new lives in the US or living in Vietnam. Butler writes with so many voices -a pregnant woman talking to her child, a Vietnamese soldier/ interpreter fascinated with a defector, a Vietnamese woman who won a weeks vacation in Mexico.
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Read in July, 2007
This series of stories are mostly set in the Vietnamese neighborhoods in Louisiana. Butler's stories are almost poetic. As you read each story, a picture of the entire community, but the combined impact of the Vietnam war and immigration to the United States impacts each character differently.
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I am on chapter 4 and didn't really get the point at first - but am now totally into it. Barb gave it to me knowing I have a small fascination with Vietnam and it's people. It is a collection of short stories about the Vietnamese immigration experience to America during and after the war.
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Read in July, 2008
Awesome. Strangely, I began almost every story being really irritated by the style or voice of the narrator, but I got sucked in every time anyway. Some of the stories are a little overly sentimental, but the imagery and details are so good that it doesn't matter. I loved these stories.
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An ejoyable, at times moving, collection of short-stories about post-Vietnam war immigrants living in America. As neither Butler nor myself are Vietnamese American, I have no idea how accurate his snap-shots are, but as stories, if not ethnographies, they work.
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I think these are some of the finest stories I have read about Vietnam- wartime, before and after. Lovely sketches- one of them goes on a bit too long but otherwise they pass too quickly. The last one, which shares the same title as the book is beautiful.
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone
Interesting short story collection. I thought that it would be more about the Vietnam war, but still good. Mostly about the life of Vietnamese in Louisiana post-war, and had some interesting cultural details. A quick read, and it made me feel cultured.
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