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- Verified Buyer
Operation Frangipani Flowers, Etienne Oggeri, Trafford Publishing ([...]), Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, softbound, 478 pages, $30.15.This is a love story. This is the story of a handsome and adventurous young man smitten by a Vietnamese beauty. They crave each others' touch; they make both gentle and ravenous love. But, in a tragic twist, their strength of character, their regard for each other's safety at a time of war, strains their faithfulness and keeps them apart for years at a time. All this occurs against the sometimes violent, yet often sensuous backdrop of 1940s and 1950s French colonial Indochina.The novel begins slowly. Ngo Thi Kim disobeys her parents, rejects their plans for her to marry a chosen cousin, and falls in love with Stephan Castelani. He is the son of a single mother and grandson of a wealthy Sicilian. The grandfather provides minimal financial support for Stephan's mother, so Stephan supports her by shooting deer, gaur and other exotic game, which he then dresses or sells, to make extra income. Later, he leads a popular big-game guiding business and develops his own successful mountain plantation.Soon, the pace quickens. The lovers confront an almost unbearable series of events or obstacles. Among them: Kim's rape by French Legionnaires; Stephan's temptation by a beautiful French woman; Kim's attachment to a svelte yet evil Mafia figure; and the dangers of the French conflict with the Viet Minh, nationalistic guerillas who preceded what Americans called the Viet Cong. Kim also engages in her own principled yet risky and dangerous involvement with the conflict.The novel's title, Operation Frangipani Flowers, refers to a group of beautiful women sympathetic to the Viet Minh who deliberately infected themselves with syphilis, then made love to ranking French military officers and civilian bureaucrats. They sold the men Frangipani flowers (similar to plumeria used in Hawaiian leis), with the understanding that sexual favors were included with every purchase.Stephan bridges both the French and Vietnamese cultures, while living among tribal people in Vietnam's central highlands. But, his preference is clear. Referring to these natives called Montagnards, he states emphatically, "People call them savages, but they have a natural nobility of heart, and are much better than those who think of themselves as being civilized."One might ask, why read a novel set amidst France's fading and ultimately defeated colonial empire? One might answer by asking, why did Americans fail to learn from the French and follow their footsteps into the jungles of Vietnam? Moreover, why did Americans fail to learn from the Russians and, with hubris and only the shallowest of understanding, follow their footsteps into the mountains of Afghanistan? Given today's conflicted world, and given our nation's tragic mis-reading of Vietnam, reading this well-crafted novel is time well spent.Etienne Oggeri, who now lives in North Carolina with his wife, Lechi, is the author of two other books: Fields of Poppies as Far as The Eye Can See, Trafford Publishing, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 2007, softbound, 339 pages, $25.00 (US); and I Killed for a Living, The Story of the Last Big-Game Hunter in Southeast Asia, Volume 34 in Safari Press's Classics in Big Game Hunting Series, 6 x 9 hardcover, limited edition of 500 signed, numbered and slip cased copies, $65, Safari Press, Huntington Beach, California. Also, I Killed for a Living will be available in a forthcoming paperback edition.Reviewed by Fred Stetson, Burlington, Vermont
