nicholas's Reviews > The Boat

The Boat by Nam Le

by
243683
's review
Jul 02, 08

Read in June, 2008

The Boat is a breathtaking & heartbreaking work of literary genius. Each of Nam Le's stories are a world so completely real & realized that they feel like a living, breathing being. His understanding of human emotions know no boundaries of age, race, country or gender & is only overshadowed by the beauty & mastery of Le's writing. For those who do not read short stories, please do not let that stop you from picking up this book; each story is a novel in itself. The intensity of character & place is so visceral & immediate that you would never know that there is not a continuous narrative from one story to the next. If that is not enough to persuade you then I will say the narrative is held together by history & tragedy, by beauty & perseverance & could be a novel is its own right. Read this book, you will thank me for it later.

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Comments (showing 1-2 of 2) (2 new)

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Trish I also felt Nam Le's writing shows extraordinary promise. I was astonished at the depth and clarity of the prose, at the sense that I was reading someone's soul. Nam Le mentions a couple of places, either interviews or elsewhere that he didn't want to draw only on his experience as a Vietnamese-American. I want to see whatever he writes, anyway he wants to write it. Tell me more.


message 2: by Jim (new) - rated it 4 stars

Jim Amen to that!


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