Snow and Willows

I'm slogging my way through "Snow"...no there hasn't been a giant climatic shift so that there is a Blizzard in September in Orlando.  I'm slogging my way through the depressing drifts of Orhan Pamuk's novel "Snow" for book group.  I WILL finish it! I WILL finish it!

But I did LOVE Sacred Willow.  one of my favorite books of the last 5 years...it IS long..but its worth it.  A fascinating portrait of 4 generations of a Vietnamese family that stretches from the traditional "mandarin" culture of northern Vietnam, thourgh French occupation, the Vietnamese war, the aftermath and to life in the US.  It deals with Vietnam War from many sides (as her family was divided physically and ideologically by the war.  Mai Elliott writes well, lived much of the story, and conducted extensive interviews in later years to flesh out the stories of all her relatives who were separated by time, distance, and sometime ideology over the years.  It is one of the clearest explanation of what happened in Vietnam  to the people (north and south) during the years leading up to and during the war.  Told on a personal level it illuminates the experiences of the country as a whole.  I highly recommend this book. Although it is a BIG book...I read it in less than a week because I couldn't put it down. I was a teenager during the last stages of the war and remember only the "headlines"  and photographic portraits...this book has greatly helped illuminate what was really going on.