Novel without a Name
by Duong Thu Huong
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Book Summary Information
Author: Duong Thu HuongTranslator: Phan Huy Duong
Translator: Nina McPherson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1996-06-01
ISBN: 0140255109
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Novel without a Name
Book Review: Those who lived in the jungle...
Summary: 5 Stars
...when it was a jungle, and not "upgraded" to a rain forest. Duong Thu Huong has written one of the classic, most realistic accounts of the Vietnamese experience during what they called "the American War." Along with Bao Ninh's The Sorrow of War: A Novel of North Vietnam and Duong's other novel, Paradise of the Blind: A Novel, they are essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Vietnamese perspective on the war.
The oddly titled novel is rich in a variety of unusual vignettes that convey the true horror of the "bo dai's" (Vietnamese foot soldier) daily life, with deprivations, discomforts, and death, their own, and their comrades, always present. It's vital to recall that the jungles of the highlands were as alien, and terror-inducing, for the Vietnamese, who, in general came from the flat lands of the rice-growing deltas, as it was for the Americans. The novel's initial scene involves the hunting and eating of an orangutan, all too human-like in its cries and baby-like hands. The soldier's desperate need for protein eventually overcame their qualms.
The vast majority of the novel is not about actual battles or skirmishes. Quan is the central character, at the age of 28, and has been in the war for 10 years. He was childhood friends with Luong, who is his commander now, and Bien, who has been driven crazy. Luong requests that Quan visit Bien, and determine his true condition, and as extra fillip, take leave to his native village where the three have grown up. Quan's trip across Vietnam is a useful technique for obtaining a sampling of life, deep in what seems to be a "forever war." Duong is a most perceptive observer of the human condition; a scene that underscores this is her depiction of Quan's rejection of a pro-offered sexual encounter with a lonely and ugly female soldier who tended the trails. His trip home is no American "R&R" (Rest and Recreation); he has to walk most of it, subject to the incessant bombing. He even gets lost in an area of giant colocassias (which are what Americans call "elephant ears.") There are memorable scenes with Bien, as well as his now pregnant (by another, unnamed) childhood sweetheart.
Duong never reveals the date, until almost the end of the book, nor the specific locations, which are important mechanisms for conveying what the soldiers at the time actually felt: war without end in sight, and always in an alien landscape. She juxtaposes the present with flashbacks of a perhaps overly idealized childhood in the peaceful native village.
The climatic scene occurs about half-way through, when Quan is on a train going back towards the front. Two high-ranking officials board, and take the seats of two other foot soldiers. They are fat and sleek, and present an utterly cynical view on taking advantage of the idealism of youth in the war effort to promote their own gains. Consider: "Once you're over fifty, they're just a bunch of moldy old memories. That ideal, well, the kids need it. And it's all we need to turn them into monks, soldiers, or cops. And it worked, whether it was the revolutionary uniform or the Nationalist police cap." Or: "If religion is an opiate, then nobody needs that opiate as much as we do!... We demolished the temples and emptied the pagodas so we could hang up portraits of Marx, enthrone a new divinity for the masses." Could our own "masters of war" put it any better?
Is it any wonder this novel is banned in Vietnam; and that Duong has spent some time in jail?
I was on the other side of the proverbial river, in the Highlands also, with the jungle as a constant, nearby, frightening companion. Few of us who were there, despite our various perspectives on the war, could not help but hold a grudging admiration for those who endured such hardships, with much more limited resources, in order to fight us.
Duong Thu Huong is a remarkable woman, who understands, and empathizes with the men who fought the war. A 5-star plus.
Summary of Novel without a Name
The author of Paradise of the Blind, the first novel from Vietnam ever published in America, traces a young man's experiences fighting for North Vietnam, in a novel banned in Vietnam for its subversive content. Reprint. 10,000 first printing. NYT.Historical Books
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