The Boat

De: Nam Le

Narrado por: James Yaegashi

A stunningly inventive, deeply moving fiction debut: stories that take us from the slums of Colombia to the streets of Tehran; from New York City to Iowa City; from a tiny fishing village in Australia to a foundering vessel in the South China Sea, in a masterly display of literary virtuosity and feeling.

In the magnificent opening story, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice", a young writer is urged by his friends to mine his father's experiences in Vietnam - and what seems at first a satire of turning one's life into literary commerce becomes a transcendent exploration of homeland and the ties between father and son. "Cartagena" provides a visceral glimpse of life in Colombia as it enters the mind of a 14-year-old hit man facing the ultimate test. In "Meeting Elise", an aging New York painter mourns his body's decline as he prepares to meet his daughter on the eve of her Carnegie Hall debut. And with graceful symmetry, the final, title story returns to Vietnam, to a fishing trawler crowded with refugees, where a young woman's bond with a mother and her small son forces both women to a shattering decision.

Brilliant, daring, and demonstrating a jaw-dropping versatility of voice and point of view, The Boat is an extraordinary work of fiction that takes us to the heart of what it means to be human, and announces a writer of astonishing gifts.

©2008 Nam Le (P)2009 Recorded Books, LLC

Growth in main characters, protagonists

Although impressed by author’s scope of perspective and all encompassing writing skills, as chapters the challenging continuity of short stories overwhelmed this reader.

well-crafted, wears literary aspirations on sleeve

If you like literary short stories, this is a well-crafted collection. Le does an impressive job of getting inside the minds of his diverse characters -- a teenage hitman in Colombia, a young girl in World War II Japan, a 30something American woman visiting a friend in Tehran -- and making the realities they live in feel convincing. The pieces drew me in more through the moment-to-moment evocativeness of the language than the plots or the characters, and Le's efforts to be lyrical sometimes felt a little forced, but, for the most part, he writes with impressive maturity for an author so young. The pieces touch on themes like loneliness, obligation, mortality, and the sacrifices that people make that end up setting them apart from others.

I recommend The Boat in its audiobook form: short stories like these are meant for being read aloud, and each voice actor does a fine job, his or her accent and intonation fitting the location and mood of the piece perfectly. I look forward to experiencing Le's first novel, if he writes one -- he has an undeniable talent for viewpoint and texture.

Well Done

guess I am not a short story listener. I wish they'd put a longer break at the end of the story.