What is the author's style in The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam by Bao Ninh?

One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is the way it shifts between different points of view from between first and third-person perspective and between omniscience and subjectivity. Tense also changes frequently from past tense to present tense and vice-versa in addition to switching back and forth between memory and current circumstances. This shifting has a couple of effects. It creates a clear sense for the reader of just how fragmented Kien's experiences have left his psyche. This also implies that the experiences of his fellow soldiers in this particular war and any war can become just as fragmented. In many ways, this narrative is in the style of a stream of consciousness where the reader is taken into Kien's thoughts, feelings, and memories. There also the clear sense that it is the author's intent to bring the experience of war vividly into the reader's consciousness.

The second effect of this narrative shifting does not become apparent until very late in the novel in Part 7, when the nature of what has gone before is revealed. Specifically, this is the idea that the shifts have not only been reflective of Kien's experience but of the narrator's experience of attempting to organize and comprehend Kien's thoughts, writings, process, and personal history. It almost seems that the author pleas for a compassionate reading of the book to allow those who had a traumatic postwar experience to express and move through it in any way that he or she needs.