Uwe Siemon-Netto

Duc 3rd Edition: Triumph of the Absurd: A reporter's love for the abandoned people of Vietnam by Uwe Siemon-Netto is was disappointing for me. There was a political bias towards the right but the author did recognize that atrocities had been committed in the Vietnam war by both sides. And he tried to have balanced point of view. There are few places that he quoted someone third hand and I was not satisfied about the accuracy of the statement. Like the many "Dear John" letters received by American soldiers that turned out to be cruel and punishing.

But my biggest negative criticism is that I was wanting more depth. Listening at home to the constant reporting of the war, I agree with him that there was a strong lack of coverage of the war crimes committed by the North. I would have liked to have him probe the question of why those crimes did not make the news. He did hit on that several times but did not go into any reason why. He did say that the crimes committed by the North were much worse but there were not that much detail. He did tell about the horrible Tet massacre of 5,800 civilians but omits other major ones.

I would have preferred less coverage of his social life and more on the war itself. This is the report of just one reporter, a German reporter. I would like to read more points of view.

I did enjoy reading about his friend, the other Duc, a young boy of the leader of a group of homeless children who bargained for shelter for his group in the author’s car. I was impressed that he taught the other children to read newspapers in Chinese, Vietnamese, English and French. It is too bad that the author lost contact with him.

I received this Advance Reading copy from the publisher as a win from FirstReads but that in no way influenced my thoughts or feelings in this review.… (més)