A book about Indochina, to make my mother happy.

April 30, 2008 4:36 PM

My mom wants a book on French Indochina, and I'd like to find a good one for her. Preferably non-fiction, but good fiction with some insight into history and culture would work, too. The exact historical time range is flexible, but she's mostly interested in the area pre-Vietnam War.
posted by bookish to Education (9 answers total)

Well, there's Marguerite Duras' amazing memoir The Lover, which is set in the '30s. Pretty sexy book to give to your mom, though!
posted by Sublimity at 5:19 PM on April 30, 2008

A Dragon Apparent, by Norman Lewis.
posted by Etaoin Shrdlu at 6:28 PM on April 30, 2008

The Quiet American, by Graham Greene. Set in the early 50s in Saigon. A classic.
posted by rtha at 6:39 PM on April 30, 2008

I remember having read several books by Jean Hougron where you felt the humidity, the slowly rotating ceiling fans, the exotism of decaying colonialism and the stirring of vietcong, when the whole place was called Indochine.

Wikipedia says that he wrote 7 books of a series called "La nuit indochinoise": that must be it.
Amazon has some of them, in French and in English.
posted by bru at 8:18 PM on April 30, 2008

Not a book, but Indochine is always worth watching.
posted by IndigoJones at 5:36 AM on May 1, 2008

Before the revolution: the Vietnamese peasants under the French, by Ngo Vinh Long

A dragon apparent: travels in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, by Norman Lewis

Eyewitness in Indo-China, by Joseph R. Starobin

From a Chinese City: In the Heart of Peacetime Vietnam, by Gontran De Poncins (not exactly about French Indochina, but depicts a traditional area of Saigon before the Americans came)

The struggle for Indochina, by Ellen Joy Hammer (the end of the French period)

Vietnamese Tradition on Trial 1920-1945, by David G. Marr

Vietnamese women in society and revolution: I. The French colonial period, by Paul Grace

Also, she might be interested in the Vietnamese national epic:
The Tale of Kieu: A bilingual edition, by Nguyên Du

I second the recommendation for The Quiet American, but Duras' The Lover is so personal and so focused on the love affair I'm not sure how useful it is for this purpose, and the movie Indochine is (from a historical point of view) not very accurate.
posted by languagehat at 8:06 AM on May 1, 2008

I liked The Quiet American, and it does offer a scathing indictment of the politics of the handover from French to American interests, but it's worth noting that some folks criticize its portrayal of the Vietnamese female love interest, who's left (disappointingly, I thought) as almost a total cypher - i.e., you learn very little about who she is and what she's feeling.
posted by mediareport at 8:22 AM on May 1, 2008

The Quicksand War, by Lucien Bodard. In French, Le Enlisment and Le Humiliation. A surreal portrait of Vietnam being lost by the French. Almost an opium-smoker's reverie, written by a journalist. My favorite.
posted by atchafalaya at 4:21 PM on May 1, 2008

Response by poster: The Quiet American was actually what got my mom on this Indochina kick to begin with. So, for anyone else out there looking for a book on the topic, it comes with her recommendations as well. I actually thought about giving her The Lover, because, well, my mom likes sexy stuff-- but, as languagehat mentions, it's really not that focused on the time and place.

I think I'll probably go with A Dragon Apparent, and see how well that suits her. Thank you all for the recommendations; it's really appreciated.
posted by bookish at 6:23 PM on May 2, 2008 [1 favorite]