THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408120523
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY PATTI CRAWFORD CARWELL
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
SEEING VIETNAM
Encounters of the Road and Heart
SUSAN BROWNMILLER
HarperCollins. 225 pp. $22.
WHILE ON ASSIGNMENT in Vietnam in 1992 for Travel & Leisure magazine, Susan Brownmiller, author of the celebrated feminist book Against Our Will, kept a journal. Seeing Vietnam: Encounters of the Road and Heart is a strangely edited account of her ``working vacation.''
About one-third travelogue, one-third internal monologue and one-third history, the book is regrettably less than the sum of its parts. No reorganization of her material could have salvaged it, though it appears attempts were made. Seeing Vietnam suffers from an inconsistent voice, a lack of focus and a lack of substance.
For example, Brownmiller writes, in reference to Hanoi's Fine Arts Museum: `` `Fine art' is a hallowed Western European concept rooted in snobbery and defined at its most basic as art that is definitely not practical, useful, or applied decoratively to something that has a utilitarian function. . . Fine art, however, is a slippery term. . . .''
Some of her entries are rendered perfunctorily and are as cumbersome to read as they must have been to write. Others, in which she tries to come across as open and childlike, are much too cute.
Brownmiller makes assumptions about the status of soldiers missing in action, dismissing as wishful thinking that any might still be alive. Agent Orange and other chemicals used for defoliation figure into her memories and observations about the controversies that the United States faced, controversies that caused her to quit her job with ABC News; and she proudly professes ``an eagerness toward guilt,'' alluding offhandedly to our nation's collective guilt.
Brownmiller's sometimes interesting bits of Vietnamese history are given no formal source attribution. Instead, she casually ``acknowledges'' a number of titles and authors.
Seeing Vietnam ends abruptly, when Brownmiller is stunned by her ``audience'' with an aged Buddhist monk, Tri Quang. She remarks: ``I have not prepared for this moment.'' Alas, it was just one of many. She does neither the monk nor Vietnam justice. MEMO: Patti Crawford Carwell is a free-lance writer in Virginia Beach. by CNB