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Well, I re read it. . .
I felt that this thread required that I re-read the book. I wanted to see if my memory has faded, or if a more mature reader would feel differently than the boy barely out of his teen aged years that I was when I first read it.
It's a tough read, no question about it. It is brutal in the pain and suffering, and the responses to that pain, experienced by the characters; but at no time, did I feel that the interest in that pain and reactions to it was prurient or pornographic in nature.
Actually, I read the author's afterword where he explained the book and the environment in which he wrote it. He wrote the book as a response to his reaction to the world's treatment of the 'boat people' that resulted from the disastrous end to the Vietnam war. He wanted the people of the west to identify with the pain of the boat people in a way he felt they hadn't at the time.
That's why the national identities of the people involved are from nation-states descended from modern western cultures, with not much involvement of non western cultures in the book. He wanted to 'gut punch' the reader. In that regard, he was successful.
Is this a worthy book? Absolutely, yes. Is it a book you want to casually pick up and read? maybe not.
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