The Innocent

Rating:
Summary: A rarely seen book of true revelations...
Review: As first novels go, this one is a peach, somewhat marred only by a kind of preachiness (made evident in a long expository passage about Vietnam's history) intended to bring uninformed readers up to speed on that country's complex and twisted history. What The Innocent is really about is a young intelligence officer's coming of age, an awakening triggered by both the Army and its presence in Vietnam. The parallel that is struck, and the author pulls it off, is between the guy's sexual and political awakenings, neither of which are handled either in salacious or stereotypical fashion. Indeed, there is a kind of sweetness about the novel's narrator that lends this work an unusual believability. Different, oh my yes, and promising.

Rating:
Summary: Very Moving
Review: Interesting the variability of the preceding reviews.

Personally, I like this first novel very much, could connect with the narrator easily, could empathize with his situation, and, to my surprise, found his broken-english narrative for Nanh, the Vietnamese lover, to be natural and non-condescending. I have few qualifications for rating this book on the basis of verisimilitude other than that my own partner is Vietnamese/Chinese. I found Nanh's mother's views on Vietnamese history far from didactic (although being so would not be a sin) and fascinating. It has made me want to look into it further. (Wish I could connect with my "mother-in-law" so intimately.) And the conclusion was gritty, somewhat unsatisfying (as it must have been for the protagonist), and thoroughly believable.

I read it, by the way, in a single sitting: couldn't put it down. I will read it again.

Rating:
Summary: Well-intentioned bludgeon
Review: Robert Taylor's first novel, The Innocent, based on his 1967 experiences with the US Army in Vietnam is a clear if rather late explanation of "Why the US lost in Vietnam." The racial sexual politics are unsettlingly stereotypical.
Perhaps there were intelligence officers sent out and who delivered the messages inconceivable and therefore rejected to the behind-the-lines brass. It seems all too neat and didactic, especially the lecture from Nanh's mother on the history of the Vietnamese outwaiting conquerors, and the steadily unfolding insight into the narrator's Texas background, official intransigence, and Vietnamese dignity. Those who think a less-leashed military would have won will use the homosexuality to dismiss the argument, and most of those sympathetic to interracial homosexual relationships probably already know why the ARVN lost despite massive US military backup.

Rating:
Summary: A stunning first novel
Review: Robert Taylor's The Innocent is truly a stunning novel. That it is his first published novel makes his achievement all the more significant. Although the story is told in the first person by an intelligence officer stationed in Vietman during the darkest days of that conflct, and although his story is also about his love for a beautiful young Vietnamese man, the novel is more than a book about being gay in the Army or about the Vietnam war. Because Robert Taylor writes from the soul, and because he draws on the wellsprings of the deepest human sensitivities, the novel draws the reader into self-examination of what it means to be human in an inhumane world and what love means when the value of human life and deep personal relationships are turned upside down by rigid stereotypes and human cruelty. This is not escapist pap. Be prepared to have to think, to feel deeply, perhaps to be challenged in some of your most private and intimate assumptions about your own life and values.

Rating:
Summary: A stunning first novel
Review: Robert Taylor's The Innocent is truly a stunning novel. That it is his first published novel makes his achievement all the more significant. Although the story is told in the first person by an intelligence officer stationed in Vietman during the darkest days of that conflct, and although his story is also about his love for a beautiful young Vietnamese man, the novel is more than a book about being gay in the Army or about the Vietnam war. Because Robert Taylor writes from the soul, and because he draws on the wellsprings of the deepest human sensitivities, the novel draws the reader into self-examination of what it means to be human in an inhumane world and what love means when the value of human life and deep personal relationships are turned upside down by rigid stereotypes and human cruelty. This is not escapist pap. Be prepared to have to think, to feel deeply, perhaps to be challenged in some of your most private and intimate assumptions about your own life and values.

Rating:
Summary: Lovely and well structured. A bit cold, but well told
Review: That this is the author's first published work of ficton is painfully obvious from the beginning. Not only could I not feel anything for the main character (told in first person), but there was very little to like in anyone in the book (or dislike for that matter). Even though the main character has affairs with various characters and one in particular, there just seems to be a lack of emotion. The story seemed to go nowhere, and nowhere fast. It meandered here to there, at times focusing on the War, at times on relationships, etc., etc. I would recommend that this author take some time out and read a good gay novel - like "Dream Boy."