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Loading... The Time In Between: A Novel (2003)by David Bergen
None.  LDVoorberg | Apr 7, 2013 |  Winner of the Giller Prize in 2005, this novel deal with Ada Boatmean and her brother Jon’s search for their father Charles, in Viet Nam, decades after his experience in the Viet Nam war. Charles obviously suffered from post conflict distress but did not admit it openly. He had moved to Vancouver to live in a converted caboose where he raised Ada and Jon. Charles Boatman’s story is touching, and revealing in terms of the war experience for veterans from both sides, as he discovers through friendships with Vietnamese people and the reading of a war novel by a Vietnamese vet. He commits suicide after touring the country and finding things so much changed. This was a strange novel and while engrossing on one level, it was difficult for me to relate to Ada and Jon, and I was not sure whether they didn’t become as disoriented while in Vietnam as their father. (  ) CarterPJ | Jul 26, 2012 | This is a Giller Prize winning book from 2005. I am working my way through the list of past winners. This book to me was middle of the road for a Giller Prize winner. The writing is almost poetic-spare and descriptive. The story is set in British Columbia, Canada and in Vietnam. I liked the settings very much. I found that the book did move me and gave an insight into post traumatic stress. Charles Boatman served in the Vietnam war and then comes to settle in Canada afterwards. He secludes himself high up in the British Columbia mountains, raises three children there, and then decides to go back to Vietnam to try to lay to rest old memories. He seems to disappear once there and so two of his children come to find him, and have to trace his history during the war in order to find him and in order to understand some of the demons that their father had all his post war life. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book. Maybe just a little far off of my preferred genre for me to love it. (  ) Romonko | Dec 22, 2010 | At first, I really loved this book. Like another reviewer, I really liked Charles and felt very interested in his story and journey. I didn't really care quite as much about his children. Charles's story made me so sad, but it got too sad and tragic and I nearly put the book down. I finished it, but didn't feel good about it. (  ) understudy52 | Oct 21, 2010 | Bought this at a second hand sale just because it won the Giller prize. A novel of discovery for Ada Boatman and her brother Jon who travel to Vietnam to find their father who has disappeared. Charles Boatman was a Vietnam war vet. he commits suicide while back in Vietnam, Don't know what I think of this book. The writing was clear and the book was easy to read,Quite eloquent in fact. It just didn't do anything for me and I could not relate. I did enjoy the descriptions of Vietnamese life, the countryside and the people. They were beautifully described. (  ) Smits | Jul 4, 2010 | no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0812972473, Paperback)In search of love, absolution, or forgiveness, Charles Boatman leaves the Fraser Valley of British Columbia and returns mysteriously to Vietnam, the country where he fought twenty-nine years earlier as a young, reluctant soldier. But his new encounters seem irreconcilable with his memories.When he disappears, his daughter Ada, and her brother, Jon, travel to Vietnam, to the streets of Danang and beyond, to search for him. Their quest takes them into the heart of a country that is at once incomprehensible, impassive, and beautiful. Chasing her father’s shadow for weeks, following slim leads, Ada feels increasingly hopeless. Yet while Jon slips into the urban nightlife to avoid what he most fears, Ada finds herself growing closer to her missing father — and strong enough to forgive him and bear the heartbreaking truth of his long-kept secret. Bergen’s marvellously drawn characters include Lieutenant Dat, the police officer who tries to seduce Ada by withholding information; the boy Yen, an orphan, who follows Ada and claims to be her guide; Jack Gouds, an American expatriate and self-styled missionary; his strong-willed and unhappy wife, Elaine, whose desperate encounters with Charles in the days before his disappearance will always haunt her; and Hoang Vu, the artist and philosopher who will teach Ada about the complexity of love and betrayal. We also come to learn about the reclusive author Dang Tho, whose famous wartime novel pulls at Charles in ways he can’t explain. Moving between father and daughter, the present and the past, The Time in Between is a luminous, unforgettable novel about one family, two cultures, and a profound emotional journey in search of elusive answers. From the Hardcover edition. (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:33:54 -0500) Three decades after serving during the Vietnam War, Charles Boatman disappears during a return to the country, followed by his daughter, Ada, for whom the trip brings increasingly complex revelations and awareness about her life. |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
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Two siblings are in Vietnam looking for their father who had come to visit the country years after being there to fight in the war. A third of the way (or so) into the book the narration shifts to tell the story from the father's perspective before returning to the daughter's POV. She is the main protagonist, though the father's presence is always hovering in the story, almost like a ghost. (