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What others are saying about this book is that this book is a MUST read book because this book puts a face on those nameless NVA soldiers who died in what the Vietnamese call, " The American War." Others are saying that this book jumps around a lot but some people doesn't find that a distraction. As other's say, it is a book of love and war but one of the saddest story ever told.
Some study questions can be:
1) Explain what you believe the author means by "the sorrow of war."
2) Put yourself in Ninh's shoes, would you choose a different title name or keep it? 3) Describe your reaction to the main character/author's attitude towards the Americans.
4) Do you find the main character, Kien, sympathetic? 5) Why did Kien join the army? Why did he continue to fight? 6) Do you believe the author had a girl friend similar to Phuong, or is this character in the novel a symbol/metaphor for something else? Or both? Explain. 7) What about the book particularly moved you, why?
After reading "Good Form," I felt very awkward because I really thought that this whole time, some stories can be very true about being in the war. In a way I still want to finish this noval even though I feel like I shouldn't since some of it is fiction. Eventually, his thoughts, stories and this noval is somewhat fiction so it makes me not fully understand of whats the truth and whats not. So, chapter helped me realize that it decresed my understanding because he threw out a lot of mix words that flipped my understandings to this noval.
The difference between " happening-truth" and "story-truth" is that happening-truth is when something happened and it really did happen. Story-truth is what others saw and heard, words in stories can be reverse to make the story seem true.
" What stories can do, I guess, is make things present."
I n this chapter, Rat Kiley is talking or telling a story about how this guy sends money to his girlfriend to fly her over to Chu Lai. When she arrived, she had on white culottes and this sexy pink sweater.
That big-boned blonde was Mary Anne Bell. When she first arrived she seemed tired and somewhat lost, but she smiled. The war, the land and the mystery intrigued her. She was a very curious girl who wants to know about every little detail that happens around there. So, she asked her boyfrien, Mark Fossie to take her down to the village at the foot of the hill. He told her it was way too dangerous but she kept after him anyways. She said she wanted to get a feel for how people lived, what the smells and customs were. But it did not impress her that the VC owned the place.
What I liked about this chapter is that it explained to the readers that a girl came over to Chu Lai and picked up on things quick which makes me feel, or others feel that what guys can do, girls can too. I think that this part of the book, the author was probably trying to tell us that girls can go into combat and learn as fast as the guys do. The author shows this affections to the readers by the way how he wrote about Mary Anne Bell.
The way how I see it, Mary Anne Bell's affection to war is that she doesn't really know what's dangrous and whats not. She makes it seem like she so comfortable and like she's at home while she was in Chu Lai. This story is probably in this book because it's explaining about how all girls is so curious about war and that they should have a chance to experience it.
One quotation from the book is: Mark Fossie says on page 94,
"Thing is, you just got to want it enough."
" The necessities of condoms and gunshots, six miles from from in this little village on the Batangan Peninsula."This combined text is from the book on page 85, the poem " The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" and from my first journal entry which I had to list of all the things the soldiers carried in the first chapter. This book is relevant today because of the war in Iraq. I personally want to read farther into this book because I am someone who is looking into going into the Navy; for which I want to know what they do at war. Unfortunately, the Navy barely goes on land unlike the soldiers in this book. this book is relevant today because teens and most people is curious about what they do at war, how's the feeling of war, and what to carry during war. I mean, maybe not to others but I think that people today is curious about this war in Iraq. So, this book is relevant today!
