Over the Moat: Love Among the Ruins of Imperial Vietnam

by James Sullivan

“Cultures clash, but love conquers, with some fascinating twists and plenty of intimate details.” ― Kirkus Reviews

James Sullivan's Over the Moat details his travels in Vietnam to bicycle from Saigon to Hanoi. He has just finished graduate school and has an assignment to write a magazine story about a country that is still subject to a U.S. trade embargo. But in Hue, the old imperial capital of Vietnam, the planned three-month bike trip in the fall of 1992 takes a detour.

Here, in a city spliced by the famed Perfume River and filled with French baroque villas, he finds himself bicycling over a moat to visit a beautiful shop girl who lives amid the ruins of the last imperial dynasty of Vietnam. She falls for him, but there's a catch. Several other suitors are vying for her hand, and one of them is an official with the city's police force. Over the Moat is the story of Sullivan's efforts to win Thuy's favor while immersing himself in Vietnamese culture, of kindly insinuating himself in Thuy's colorful and warm family, and of learning how to create a common language based on love and understanding.

Genres: Travel

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

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James Sullivan

Reviews

[Annette · Rating 2 out of 5]

My reason for choosing this book was to acquaint myself with Vietnamese culture. J. Sullivan didn't disappoint.

The protagonist, Jim, falls in love with Thuy, a Vietnamese girl. Their feelings are mutual. Jim has to return to the States. When he obtained his new visa, he returned to marry Thuy. Due to bureaucracy, their path to the altar was unbearably difficult.

I only continue reading for the reveal of the outcome of their union. The book is written in helter-skellter prose, too long, and following the characters confusing.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a poignant and sweet book about Love in a communist country... one filled with phenomenal bureaucracy and contradictions, excuses and non-sequitors. Jim - the memoir's protagonist - is deeply smitten with Thuy, the lovely Vietmanese girl he is engaged to. She cares for him too but her life and his are deeply conflicted by her uncertainy about leaving Vietman and his about being there wooing her. And then there are the competing interests of Dich, another suitor who is a bureaucratic and a policeman. He resents the fact that Jim is American and thus inherently part of the eternal conflicts of post-war antagonisms and the ongoing embargo we have against Vietman, and he does his best to thwart the union. The confounding of all these effects on Jim's life in Hue and his efforts to stay with Thuy seem utterly unimaginable by my american standards and yet... I know immigration and visas in America are often as baffling and frustrating and contradictory as in many other countries... so who am I to judge...?

James Sullivan is not a brilliant writer and his writing is not always easy to follow as a story goes, but he conveys the place and time and the deep emotional conflicts of his circumstances richly and mesmorizingly.

All in all, this is a really fascinating introduction to the deep heat and seemingly heady depths and sensousness of Vietnam today and yesterday.

The more I try to write this review, the more I realize this is a really rich and beautiful book.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF, actually. I like the writing on a sentence-by-sentence basis, but I was put off by Sullivan's handling of time sequencing. Only for a truly stellar book am I willing to untangle a narrative that bounces around in time.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the writing style of Sullivan and learning a little about vietnamese culture.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't finish this story because it didn't strike me as extraordinary and I felt unsympathetic to the author's voice. for non-fiction I typically need one of those aspects to keep me interested.