Soldier’s riveting account is challenging, uncomfortable

It is a territory he knows well. Here, in 1969, his Vietcong battalion was wiped out in encounter with American troops. Kien, one of 10 survivors, is struck by a deep desire to write about the experience, and the highly lyrical narrative he produces — a fragmented, even impressionistic text — betrays his desire to reclaim something, anything positive or creative, from his long wasted years in the jungle.

As a result, The Sorrow of War occasionally resembles an extended prose poem on the misery of conflict.