Novel without a Name

Fiction possesses (among other things) the brilliant quality of putting us in somebody else's shoes, and that in a manner as moving and eye-opening as it is safe and temporary. Still, in very few novels indeed could this quality be more urgently called for than in Duong Thu Huong's "Novel Without a Name" ("Tieu Tuyet Vô De", 1991). Certainly this nameless novel of war and its terrible costs--death and destruction, certainly, but also the disruption and interruption of lives, ravaging of hopes and dreams, and the pitiless erosion of youthful idealism and naive ambition--has something to say to everyone who's ever pondered the human condition and the insane things we do to each other in the name of our own pet ideologies. Certainly too this oddly straggling tale tracing the painful arc of a Viet Cong company commander's increasingly bitter disillusionment and spiritual fatigue as the war drags on for the better part of a decade must speak volumes to readers in Vietnam, if they can get their hands on this banned book published only abroad at all, as they reflect upon their own personal experiences and national history. Yes, then, this work of fiction is both evocatively specific and sweepingly universal in the way that all great literature inevitably turns out to be. However, this novel (masterfully translated by the team of Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson) also has something very specific to reveal to the American reader. Opinions about the Vietnam War are incredibly diverse in this country, of course, but whether you think the war was a noble crusade against Communism, an ignoble act of cruel imperialism, or even just a bumbling mistake in U.S. policy, or anything else in-between or other, it eventually boils down to an American drama featuring American protagonists and antagonists in which the Vietnamese themselves are merely co-stars and extras. This goes for John Wayne's "The Green Berets" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" alike; even the more recent ersatz Beatles musical "Across the Universe" unconsciously locks itself into the same limited pattern. "Novel Without a Name" knocks one out of that pattern with a sudden rude jolt and as such is an essential corrective, an enlightening and thought-provoking remedy for this tunnel-vision, this blind spot, this lack of perspective. Life was just as complex if you were a North Vietnamese soldier, it turns out--it was also nasty, brutal, and interminably long (if you managed to survive, that is). Besides all that, though, this is just a good, well-told story. Duong's prose deploys all five senses with searingly vivid force, placing the reader smack dab in the protagonist's world. With a few finely chosen details she sketches her characters indelibly in one's memory in a manner that flawlessly inspires you to give a darn what happens to them without sentimentally tugging at heartstrings in an obvious fashion. As novels go there seems to be no real structure or plot, merely a meandering sp

"NOVEL WITHOUT A NAME" by Duong Thu Huong is about a soldier fighting for the ideals of Communism. He is in fact, a Viet Cong officer and has been fighting the war for 10 years. His decade of fighting, killing, and watching his life slowly fade away causes him to become jaded and a disbeliever in the "great cause." His feelings of patriotism are eventually covered with the dust of hatred and disillusionment. His entire life begins to focus on his childhood, and the love of his mother. "Quan" is 28 years old in this novel and at times, his focus on his mother seems (to my thinking), almost bordering in the shadows of an Oedipus Complex. "Quan" is no doubt, a man of passion, art, and love. Unfortunately, most of these assets are lost in the clattering fire of AK-47's and steaming hot jungles. His opportunity to return home during these perilous times only helps to awaken his realization of change. He sees the change in his country, change in his family, change in his dreams, and most importantly... the change in himself! Ms. Duong Thu Huong is truly gifted and one of the most descriptive writers I have ever read. She obviously knows her country, it's people, their karma, and their souls. She is without a doubt...a superb writer!! An unusual title; an unusual book, and ...a great story.

It should be noted that Duong Thu Huong has done prison time for her writings. How interesting to see the other side of the same Vietnam War coin and find such vivid prose delineating a story of endless sacrifice, party corruption and bitter cynicism. U.S. soldiers had 13 month tour of duty. The North had as long as it took- 15 years in the hero's case. She writes expertly and hammers together a story of one man's experience of the war moving full circle from party ideologue to spent survivor leading an ever diminishing group of veterans

Novel Without A Name by Duong Thu Huong is a terrific novel that lets the reader into the head of a Vietnamese soldier fighting for the North Vietnam side during the Vietnam War. A twenty-eight year old man, Quan, is the narrator of Novel Without A Name. Quan's view of life is much different from what it was when he was a naive 18-year-old, enlisting in the army with his childhood friends. Back then, Quan had thought of war as a glorious time; a time when heroes and legends were made. At this point, Quan has begun to see the Vietnam War for what it really was; a brutal massacre needlessly killing his fellow Vietnamese people. Luong, once Quan's childhood friend, and now his commander who's life has become the Communist Party, sends Quan on a mission to find Bien, their childhood friend. The other task that Quan is given is one that Luong does not report to the officials, he asks Quan to go to their home village. Luong wants Quan to do this for a variety of reasons. First, he knows that the war will be going on much longer than was ever intended, and he knows that Quan misses his home. Second, Luong wants Quan to reassure all the families back home that they are doing well, even if this is partially a lie. Quan sets out on his long journey, and unfortunately is met with bad news. The war has driven Bien to insanity. This insanity was caused by the fact that Bien has a life threatening form of malaria, which he got from a mosquito; a very common occurrence during the Vietnam War. The cell that holds Bien was on par with others during the War, but was nonetheless despicable. The crazy man eats, lives, and sleeps in his own waste, and is malnourished. After seeing Bien, Quan returns home to his village. He finds that it is not only he who has changed during the 10 years that he has been absent. His childhood girlfriend, Hoa, whom he had planned to marry, has become pregnant by a passing soldier. Her life is in shambles and there is nothing he can do to help her. In addition, Quan learns that his brother had died. This came as a shock, as Quan had not even known that his brother had enlisted. After Quan learns that it was his father who encouraged Quang to join the army, he is enraged. His father, like many other fathers during the time, had been sucked in by the Communist propaganda. He had volunteered his son as a way to attain some personal honor. The shaky relationship between the father and son grows worse, and Quang leaves his home village unhappy with his life. During the course of the book, Quan encounters many people, all who give the reader an idea of what the society that existed in Vietnam during the war was like. Novel Without A Name by Duong Thu Huong is a great book. Because the book was told from the point of view of a boi doi, otherwise known as a soldier, the book seems so much more real. By reading Novel Without A Name I feel that I have learned so much about the Vietnam war in a way that was much more interesting than a book full

This book is narrated by Quan, a twenty-eight year-old soldier of the North Vietnamese Army who, after spending ten years in the jungles of central Vietnam, is thoroughly disillusioned by the horrible and absurd realities of war. The narrator's tone is one of disenchantment, of wistful longing for all that has been lost--youth, life, love, family. As also shown in Paradise of the Blind, Duong Thu Huong has a skill for detailed descriptions of everyday objects and scenes, which are often made grotesquely surreal by her minute, harsh, objective observations. For example, in describing the decrepit mental and physical state of Quan's childhood friend Bien, she writes, "He sat in a pile of filth and excrement, surrounded by pools of milky, rancid urine. A torn calendar. An old tin can filled with water." Everything touched upon by the war--the natural environment, the people--is made ugly, thus adding to the war's horror. Even her flowers are drenched in red colors of blood. In such an environment of degradation and death, people struggle to retain the smallest hint human decency. This struggle is movingly portrayed in the episode when Quan spends a night in a field station, the sole personnel of which is a homely girl who heroically goes about burying her dead comrades. Though forced by duty to spend the best years of her life in a bleak environment, she tries to retain some of her youthful feminine idealism by decorating her cave-room with pictures of French singers and a paper flower, and washing and combing her hair to get rid of the stench of human corpses which never goes away. Her futile effort in trying to get Quan to make love to her expresses a tragic desperation. The book has no main conflict, other than Quan's personal, psychological, spiritual conflict. As such, the book has no central story-line, but is rather a series of dramatic episodes of the last days of the war, interspersed with reveries that are sometimes nightmarish, sometimes poetically dreamy. The book raises the question: Is ideological glory worth its heavy price paid for in the irrevocable LOSS of love, life, and innocence.