Tan’s in Việt Nam!

Nguyen Du’s The Tale of Kieu is Vietnam’s undisputed literary masterpiece. It tells the story of Kieu, a beautiful and talented woman who sells herself as a concubine to save her family. Though she is betrayed into prostitution, her sense of honor and loyalty ultimately reunites her with her family and her beloved. But what does it mean when a country’s undisputed national hero is a prostitute?

Since the early 1750’s, maybe even before this time, Vietnam has known very little peace: the Nguyen/Trinh power struggle, the Tay Son Rebellion, the Nguyen dynasty’s successful campaign in military reunification of Vietnam, French colonialism, Japanese occupation, war against the French, and war against America.

For the Vietnamese people, then, Kieu represents not only the archetypal victim of perverse fate, but the inspiration to persevere until the end.

Last night, the EAP group met with the highly acclaimed Bao Ninh, author of The Sorrow of War. One of the language teachers, Thay Nam, knows him personally, and he was instrumental in setting up a discussion with Bao Ninh. His most famous novel, The Sorrow of War, has been compared to such literary classics like All Quiet on the Western Front for its uncompromising description of the utter senselessness and violence of war. Bao Ninh himself fought in the Vietnam War from 1968(?) all the way to its completion with the fall of Saigon in 1975. He was one of 10 people from his regiment who survived the war. Other than that, all we knew about him were rumors that he was a raging alcoholic.

As it turned out Bao Ninh was an eloquent speaker, holding us enchanted for over two hours with his honest, yet distantly sad discussion about his novel, the war, and Vietnam in general. He explained that the title in English was in fact a poor translation. “The sorrow of war” in Vietnamese is “Noi Buon cua Chien Tranh”. However, the real title, Noi Buon Chien Tranh, is better translated as, “Sorrow is War.” And for a generation of youthful soldiers, all they knew was sorrow.

In Bao Ninh’s novel, the protagonist, Kien, is a North Vietnam soldier who volunteered for the army and ultimately survived through the fall of Saigon. The things he saw and did on this journey fills him with such guilt that he writes down his memories in order to ease his pain. Bao Ninh, however, explains that he himself never wrote to ease the pain. The pain will always be there. Nothing in the world can make him forget. He simply wrote this story for economic purposes.

The Sorrow of War is actually a jumbled mess of Kien’s adventures during the war. The novel abandons all pretense of chronology, sharing a story about Kien’s prewar life in one page and transitioning into his postwar duties in clearing minefields in the next page. Sometimes he is at a bar as a disgruntled veteran, other times he is in the thick of a firefight in the Central Highlands. It is vaguely reminiscent to the stream of consciousness technique that James Joyce is famous for.

However, if there were any one memorable plot, it is the story of Kien and Phuong. These two were childhood friends. Nothing could get between them. They remained close, even into high school, even when Phuong developed into a beautiful woman. Everyone, even Kien and Phuong, knew they would one day be married to each other. Unfortunately, Kien idealistically signs up for the war, and he is forced to witness and commit all sorts of deeds that enables someone to survive a brutal war. Phuong likewise is forced to do things a beautiful woman is forced to do to survive wartime.

By the time they reunite after the war, the pain of war is too great for them to reunite, to pick up where they left off. They will always be living reminders to each other of the atrocities of war. It hurts not to be with one another, but it hurts even more to be together. Though they go their separate ways, Kien knows there were only two women he ever loved: Phuong before the war, and Phuong after the war.

But why would Bao Ninh write his novel in a jumbled, non-chronological manner? He says it is because life is not a natural progression from start to finish, but a fluid, sometimes confusing dynamic between many things. For example, a man might be drinking his coffee in one moment, but in his mind he is thinking about women. There is no cause-and-effect connection between the two events. It happens simultaneously. It is fluid. For a soldier, in any given instance, he might think about his enemy, his firing gun, the plane above, the man beside him, or his mother. In such a fluid situation, it makes no sense to write in a cause-and-effect manner. In fact, Bao Ninh asserts that bad authors are those who cannot capture the fluidity that is life. Bad authors are also those who are afraid to criticize.

The government of Vietnam initially banned Bao Ninh’s novel, citing the fact that it was detrimental to society. Why would you want to write a book that makes you feel bad? It does society no good. Eventually, the book was allowed to be published under the name Noi Buon Tinh Yeu which could be translated into “The Sorrow of Love”, or “Sorrow is Love.” It was less controversial than the original title, as the government endorsed war as a political necessity. Nowadays, copies of Bao Ninh’s novel can once again be found as the original title of Noi Buon Chien Tranh.

Despite the government’s open policy against such “social evils” like prostitution, drinking past 11pm, gambling, etc, in practice, they are actually quite progressive. For example, the current bestseller in Vietnam centers around women and sex. Sex is, in fact, a very popular subject to write about. The unofficial policy is now “You can write whatever you want, as long as it in no way criticizes the government.” Bao Ninh, then, is not as sensitive a subject as he once was. Others, like Duong Thu Huong, live in Hanoi under constant house arrest for her outspoken criticism. She would never be allowed to speak to a Viet Kieu audience.

Bao Ninh likewise notes that fifteen years ago, such a discussion with overseas Vietnamese students would have been impossible.

But as his book gets more acclaim, Bao Ninh points out that his book is forever about the Vietnamese people, and written for the Vietnamese people. Any international award he receives ultimately means nothing if the Vietnamese people cannot read his work. The war did terrible things to people, and even now they refuse to talk about it. It simply hurts too much. The Vietnamese, especially women and the people of the South, are like the mute girl in The Sorrow of War, forever unable or unwilling to speak out. Curiously enough, Bao Ninh is reluctant to talk more about the mute girl, explaining that she gave him the most problems. He wishes that she would simply disappear sometimes.

After the war, the protagonist Kien writes down his memories in an unnumbered manuscript. He writes not only with feverish passion, but also with sheer randomness. The mute girl who acquires his manuscript could not piece together his story in chronological order. Eventually, she realizes there is no point in trying. Any page could start his narrative, and any page could end it. There is no sense, just as life makes no sense, just as war makes no sense. Such a story mirrors closely with Bao Ninh’s real life situation, who also wrote with no commitment to chronology. When asked whether Kien might in fact be Bao Ninh, the author replies no. Kien does not represent one person, but everyone person who has ever fought in the Vietnam War, superficially a war against the Americans, but in every sense a civil war among the Vietnamese people.

Soldiers, guns, tanks- that is all normal to the Vietnamese. There is nothing special about war. War is what is normal. But peace? Peace is something very very special.

-Bao Ninh, Dec 7, 2005.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 2:19 am and is filed under Super Xanga. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.