impression: a good scent from a strange mountain.

"I read this now while I am hidden in the storage shack, invisible, socked with sweat like it's that time in saigon between the dry season and the rainy season, and I know my father will be here soon. the lawn mower s over there in the corner and this morning he got up and said that it was going to be hot today, that there were no clouds in the sky and that he was going to have to mow the lawn. when he opens the door, I will let him see me here, and I will ask him to talk to me like in these letters, like when he was so angry with some stranger that he knew what to say."-robert olen butler a good scent from a strange mountain.

the ripping of a culture, a country and the mash up of two will almost defiantly result in a dramatic and perhaps disastrous aftermath.
throw in a war, the russians, the communists, the total opposite upbringing of the westerns and the easterns and you get a very beautiful portrayal of what it would be like, to have to leave you'r home and adapt to a new life along with all the other day to day obstacles one faces.
this book was a representation of the Vietnamese aftermath and how people handeld that, be it the americans or the Vietnamese, yes.
but this is book is about so much more.
it almost never limits its self to the issues of politics rather life at large and how politics can merger it's self within it.
it channels issues of jealousy, infidelity, sexism, racism, couple struggles, understanding ones self and ones place in society.
above all it does it in such a soft little whisper of a way.
its so embalming and sweet, enriching and fulfilling, a very unique experience.
one of the very few books that combines being critically acclaimed, a light read, and a life companion.
olen butler is one of my favorite authors who truly deserved a pulitzer prize for his subtly wonderful work.
"I am nearly one hundred years old, but I can still read a man's face, perhaps better than I ever have. I sit in the overstuffed chair in my living room and I receive these vistors and I want these people, even the dull-witted and insincere ones-  please excuse an old man's ill temper for calling them that- I want them all to be good with one another."