Reviews for The Other Side of Heaven: Post-War Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers

The average rating for The Other Side of Heaven: Post-War Fiction by Vietnamese and American Writers based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-03-05 00:00:00 Anil Narine I still have faith that the original Viet texts are just as poetic as their translated versions because I leaned towards them rather than the foreign veterans' accounts. But that is not by invalidating the classic American take on the Vietnam War, having been beaten by an Asian country whom they underestimated, have led to numerous erasures of sort in history books. Although this collection does not claim to be an encompassing view of what lies on the other side of history, the book provides a more personal approach by focusing on the families affected and left broken by the war. As with most collections, the first few stories and the last ones are stronger in terms of clarity, language, and subjects, while the ones in the middle can seem a bit too neutral and sometimes, vanilla. What is perhaps the best intention of "The Other Side of Heaven" is that it attempts to sustain the memories of the war, no matter how painful it gets and even if most would want it erased from their own beings. It is true that future generations can only learn about progress by not repeating the follies of the past. And some chapters in a nation's history include episodes that have tested human endurance.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-05-12 00:00:00 Todd Burrow Collection can be a little hit and miss but has some gems.