The Sorrow of War: Book Review

The experience of war brings out the moralities of war and the tragedies of loss and death. Bao Ninh portrays these realizations and tragedies throughout his novel The Sorrow of War. The stories told follow the central character Kien whose story shows the moralities of war and tragedies of loss and death. Bao Ninh’s The Sorrow of War is a novel depicts the horrors that are a result of war. Kien is the main character whose life is used to depict these horrors; a soldier who’s lost all his comrades, lost his love, and lost his path. Kien’s life is made to be extremely harsh and extremely undesirable by the readers. The novel starts off with Kien gathering the remains of his fellow fallen soldiers, this gathering seems to be the trigger for many flashbacks that are jumbled and don’t seem to be in any sort of chronological order. Some of the themes presented in The Sorrow of War are the moralities of war and the tragedies of loss and death. These are some of the themes that Ninh emphasizes throughout the novel. The title of the novel is very straight forward in meaning and is quite literal in the way the book is written. Ninh’s themes of morality, loss, and death are used to depict the awfulness and true sorrow that is brought on by war. Loss and death are shown through the slaughter that occurred with Kien’s platoon. This loss is the main cause for many of the stories that flow through afterwards. The jumbled flashbacks depict Kien’s distraught and war torn mind after this tragic incident. Kien’s memories portray to the reader the thought that he is affected by PTSD as he is constantly fixated on the horrors he has faced and can’t seem to overcome the horrors. Phuong is another great example of loss, Kien holds Phuong highly in his life. Phuong represents Kien’s ideal woman and is his childhood sweetheart before the events of the war occurred. She had rebellious and romantic ideals which were in large contrast to Kien’s own ideals. However the events of the war