Triumph Of The Absurd: A Reporter's Love for the Abandoned People of Vietnam

Written by Uwe Siemon-Netto

Narrated by Steve Miller

Almost half a century ago, a young reporter from Germany arrived in still-glamorous Saigon to cover the Vietnam War over a period of five years. In this memoir he now tells the story of how he fell in love with the Vietnamese people. He praises the beauty, elegance and feistiness of their women. He describes blood-curdling Communist atrocities and fierce combat scenes he had witnessed. He introduces a striking array of characters: heroes, villains, statesmen and spooks, hilarious eccentrics, street urchins and orphans herding water buffalos. He shows how professional malpractice by U.S. media stars such as Walter Cronkite turned the military victory of American and South Vietnamese forces during the 1968 Tet Offensive into a political defeat. He mourns the countless innocent victims of the Communist conquest of South Vietnam, which was the grim consequence of its abandonment by the United States. Thus, he argues, the wrong side won. Finally, with the eyes on Afghanistan, he poses a harrowing question: Are democratic societies with their proclivity for self-indulgence politically and psychologically equipped to win a protracted war against a totalitarian foe?

• Language: English
• Publisher: 1517 Publishing
• Release date: Jul 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781945978869

Reviews for Triumph Of The Absurd

[carolee888 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Duc 3rd Edition: Triumph of the Absurd: A reporter's love for the abandoned people of Vietnam by Uwe Siemon-Netto is was disappointing for me. There was a political bias towards the right but the author did recognize that atrocities had been committed in the Vietnam war by both sides. And he tried to have balanced point of view. There are few places that he quoted someone third hand and I was not satisfied about the accuracy of the statement. Like the many "Dear John" letters received by American soldiers that turned out to be cruel and punishing. But my biggest negative criticism is that I was wanting more depth. Listening at home to the constant reporting of the war, I agree with him that there was a strong lack of coverage of the war crimes committed by the North. I would have liked to have him probe the question of why those crimes did not make the news. He did hit on that several times but did not go into any reason why. He did say that the crimes committed by the North were much worse but there were not that much detail. He did tell about the horrible Tet massacre of 5,800 civilians but omits other major ones. I would have preferred less coverage of his social life and more on the war itself. This is the report of just one reporter, a German reporter. I would like to read more points of view. I did enjoy reading about his friend, the other Duc, a young boy of the leader of a group of homeless children who bargained for shelter for his group in the author’s car. I was impressed that he taught the other children to read newspapers in Chinese, Vietnamese, English and French. It is too bad that the author lost contact with him. I received this Advance Reading copy from the publisher as a win from FirstReads but that in no way influenced my thoughts or feelings in this review.