The Boat (Rough-Cut) by Nam Le Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.67 You Save: $20.28 (88%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The Boat (Rough-Cut)
Book Review: Excellent New Voice in Short Fiction
Summary: 4 Stars
I was so enthralled with this volume that I read all the stories in under a day. Nam Le is an impressive new writer w/ a well of talent. I was impressed with how diverse the stories were in terms of setting and characters and yet so thematically similar. I highly suggest this to lovers of good fiction and am guessing there will be more to come from this promising author.Book Review: Exceptional
Summary: 5 Stars
I was unable to read this book straight through. It felt like it would be a terrible injustice to each story not to pause after completing it and simply savor it for awhile. The first story in particular was exquisite. It was ironic and self-referential, painful and authentic.
I was actively disappointed to find out that this was the author's debut collection. Having finished _The Boat_, I wish there were more, and I hope that Nam Le has another set of stories queued up for publication in the near future.
Book Review: Fantastic new viewpoint in fiction
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a challenge to come up with something that feels wholly original as a fiction writer. Mr. Le definitely makes strides toward this in THE BOAT. 100% recommended.Book Review: Is it a boat or a bandwagon?
Summary: 2 Stars
Absurdly overhyped. How is it possible that one book of meandering and generic multi-culti stories should receive so many awards and so much praise? I enjoyed the stories, but was not extraordinarily impressed. I saw him read, and he read the Iowa workshop story, in which he washes the dishes, has sex with his girlfriend, walks past a local and imagines that the guy shoots him in his leg, and on and on, and then to top off this exercise in workshop drivel, he ends the story with his father suddenly revealing that he is a survivor of the My Lai massacre, giving a heartwrenching account of witnessing the murder of his family. From the comments made after the reading, it became apparent that his father was not in fact at My Lai, and that the account is there merely as a final flourish to an otherwise meaningless banal piece. I found Nam Le's blatant exploitation of the suffering of other people as a cheap gimmick for his story pretty shocking.
Book Review: Le's Talented Debut
Summary: 5 Stars
The Boat is a collection of short stories, each one vastly different in substance and style than the other. The writing and visualization is supurb, but like all short stories, the reader picks up in the middle of an ongoing story and ends at a point that doesn't seem quite like the end. Each one of Le's stories could be expanded to be a full length novel. And that's what I hope to see next from this talented writer - a novel that will provide for more than a short read, but character development, background and a well-thought out plot. This book is in the style of Jhumpa Lahiri, but is a much different style and voice. A great debut from Nam Le.