Voices and Visions: A Journey Through Vietnam Today

In this unconventional and involving record of a quest for understanding, Visser, a Dutch travel writer, turns to good advantage her distance from what the Vietnamese call ``the American war.'' For four months in 1992 she wandered around Saigon, Hanoi, Hue, the Mekong Delta and mountain villages on buses and motorbikes, drinking beer, attending parties and weddings, listening attentively, observing acutely, delicately posing difficult questions. She was rewarded with friendships and revealing stories. With a gift for conveying character, ambience and dialogue, Visser introduces us to communists, noncommunists, ex-communists, opportunists, idealists, writers, musicians, shopkeepers, clerics. The elegant reserve of the North Vietnamese, the easy openness of the Southerners, the landscapes, architecture, enduring cultural impact of the French occupation, ambivalence toward the U.S. all inform her report, as does the continuing impact of the war. In Hanoi, when a disillusioned communist wonders what they fought for and why so many died, the puzzlement echoes what Visser heard everywhere. (May)