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Chinatown
Đây là lần thứ hai Chinatown được xuất bản tại Việt Nam. Cuốn tiểu thuyết vừa mang nặng nuối tiếc quá khứ vừa cay độc những khi cần này không chỉ chinh phục người đọc Việt Nam mà còn bắt đầu đến với độc giả Pháp qua bản dịch của Đoàn Cầm Thi (NXB Seuil, 2009).
Toàn bộ câu chuyện diễn ra trong vòng hai tiếng đồng hồ khi hai mẹ con nhân vật chính bị kẹt lại trên một chuyến tàu điện ngầm vì có nghi ngờ đoàn tàu bị đánh bom. Trong hai tiếng đó là một cuộc độc thoại nội tâm bất tận, đầy tiếc nhớ quá khứ và những nhận xét sắc bén về cuộc sống và số phận, khi nhân vật chính nhìn lại cuộc đời của mình, từ Hà Nội đến Leningrad rồi Paris, những con người đã đi qua đời mình, nhất là Thụy, người tình Trung Hoa từ thuở nhỏ, một mối tình đầy trắc trở, rồi sau đó trở thành người chồng chạy trốn, đến một Chinatown (Chợ Lớn) vô hình nào đó, nơi không mảnh vụn quá khứ nào bắt kịp được.
Ngồi trên tàu điện ngầm, cô nhớ về Hà Nội và tình yêu duy nhất của mình, từng bị hy sinh cho cuộc chiến biên giới Việt-Trung. Về cái thời cô còn chưa biết đến từ Chinatown, còn giờ đây nó đã trở thành số phận của cô. Giành được một thành công lớn tại Việt Nam, cuốn tiểu thuyết của Thuận, hiện sống ở Paris, làm nhòe đi các ranh giới giữa cái thực và hư cấu. Thỉnh thoảng chị nhét vào đây đó vài trang một cuốn tiểu thuyết khác được đưa vào đầy khéo léo, theo một lối mỉa mai tạo nên một mối liên hệ khó nhận ra với tác phẩm của Duras, và mang đến cho chúng ta, một cách đầy bình dị, một khúc ca xé lòng về lưu vong.
Toàn bộ câu chuyện diễn ra trong vòng hai tiếng đồng hồ khi hai mẹ con nhân vật chính bị kẹt lại trên một chuyến tàu điện ngầm vì có nghi ngờ đoàn tàu bị đánh bom. Trong hai tiếng đó là một cuộc độc thoại nội tâm bất tận, đầy tiếc nhớ quá khứ và những nhận xét sắc bén về cuộc sống và số phận, khi nhân vật chính nhìn lại cuộc đời của mình, từ Hà Nội đến Leningrad rồi Paris, những con người đã đi qua đời mình, nhất là Thụy, người tình Trung Hoa từ thuở nhỏ, một mối tình đầy trắc trở, rồi sau đó trở thành người chồng chạy trốn, đến một Chinatown (Chợ Lớn) vô hình nào đó, nơi không mảnh vụn quá khứ nào bắt kịp được.
Ngồi trên tàu điện ngầm, cô nhớ về Hà Nội và tình yêu duy nhất của mình, từng bị hy sinh cho cuộc chiến biên giới Việt-Trung. Về cái thời cô còn chưa biết đến từ Chinatown, còn giờ đây nó đã trở thành số phận của cô. Giành được một thành công lớn tại Việt Nam, cuốn tiểu thuyết của Thuận, hiện sống ở Paris, làm nhòe đi các ranh giới giữa cái thực và hư cấu. Thỉnh thoảng chị nhét vào đây đó vài trang một cuốn tiểu thuyết khác được đưa vào đầy khéo léo, theo một lối mỉa mai tạo nên một mối liên hệ khó nhận ra với tác phẩm của Duras, và mang đến cho chúng ta, một cách đầy bình dị, một khúc ca xé lòng về lưu vong.
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
About the author
Thuận
16 books114 followersNhà văn Thuận tên thật là Đoàn Ánh Thuận, sinh 1967 tại Hà Nội, hiện sống tại Paris, Pháp. Học đại học ở Nga, cao học ở Pháp. Con dâu của nhà thơ Trần Dần, chồng là họa sĩ Trần Trọng Vũ.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
January 2, 2023
This is a beautiful and profound work, a meditation during a stalled train journey, weaving back and forth in time, often repeating thoughts and memories, rendered for the most part in a single paragraph. This is surely a difficult work to translate, so hats off to Nguyễn An Lý and publishers Tilted Axis and New Directions. The original work was written in 2004 by the Vietnamese writer Thuận, a complex exploration of a life in exile, exclusion, displacement, culture, forgiveness, and memory itself. Thuận doesn't hold the reader's hand, and neither does Nguyễn, as characters are only obliquely named and the full memories can only be pieced together by reading the repetitions. For those familiar with Marguerite Duras's work, there are nods to Duras throughout this piece. Nguyễn remarks in the translator's note that many readers have found the reading experience to be tedious, which is borne out by some comments on this site. I confess to feeling the same way at times during my first encounter with this, but I recently came back to it with fresh eyes and after a second read I can see how exquisite this truly is. Well worth the effort.
November 1, 2022
A gloriously-complex exploration of exile, displacement, and discrimination and their impact on the life of a Vietnamese woman known only as Madame Âu. This is the second novel from acclaimed Vietnamese author Thuận, the first available in English. It opens in Paris in 2004, a woman and her sleeping son are stuck on a train, stopped in a remote Métro station, elsewhere along the line officials search for a possible explosive device. This isolated, liminal space sets off a chain of associations in the woman’s mind, she too is caught between spaces and a succession of moments over time. During a two-hour delay, she rehashes her memories, dreams, fantasies and desires. But what dominates her thoughts are lingering questions about her former husband Thụy who abandoned her years ago in Vietnam. These questions surface over and over again as if, like some kind of incantation, the act of repetition might also bring closure.
Originally her school classmate, part of the mystery surrounding Thụy’s fate’s rooted in his identity as ethnically Chinese, a teenager during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war when countless Chinese-Vietnamese people fled growing persecution in Vietnam. Thụy’s family was one of the few who elected to stay behind but paid a high price for that decision - not least the weight of relentless Sinophobia and constant surveillance. Her relationship with Thụy’s marked by absence from the very beginning but eventually they marry and have a child. But Thụy then moves far away to Chợ Lớn - the Chinatown of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Later the narrator also leaves for France where she’s remained in self-imposed exile, now she too is grappling with racism and prejudice, and seeking refuge in the familiar.
It's a dense, demanding piece at times but I found Thuận’s themes and style deeply compelling. There are no paragraphs in the main body of her text, no chapters either, instead the structure reflects the uninterrupted rhythm and flow of her narrator’s thoughts. Lyrical passages mingle with metafictional elements – the narrator’s also a writer whose published fiction overlaps with Thuận’s. Absurd, elaborate scenarios play out in Mme Âu’s head, key points in history, a future scripted by China’s success, semi-surreal scenes from her past as a student in the Soviet Union. Interspersed with these are sections from Mme Âu’s work-in-progress I am Yellow the first part taken from one of Thuận’s earlier short stories, with a plot that indirectly comments on Âu’s rendering of her relationship with Thụy.
Intertextuality’s an ongoing preoccupation of Thuận’s here: Mme Âu sets up an intriguing, ongoing dialogue with Marguerite Duras’s The Lover the famous account of another "star-crossed" love affair across divides - Duras’s tribute to an unforgettable, first love. Duras’s depiction of Chợ Lớn combine with Madame Âu’s visits to the quartier asiatique in Paris’s 13th arrondissement creating links between Vietnam’s Chinatown, the legacy of colonialism, and the many Chinatowns across the globe, places of sanctuary but also potential ghettos and unofficial forms of segregation.
Another key aspect of Thuận’s novel emerges from advice given to Mme Âu by her friends, who caution that it’s necessary to forget in order to live. Thuan seems to be interrogating that notion throughout, tying this to a broader meditation on the purpose and limits of narrative itself: the representation and reconstruction of reality, invocations of memory, and the promise of resolution that’s ultimately always just out of reach. Translated by Nguyễn An Lý
Originally her school classmate, part of the mystery surrounding Thụy’s fate’s rooted in his identity as ethnically Chinese, a teenager during the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war when countless Chinese-Vietnamese people fled growing persecution in Vietnam. Thụy’s family was one of the few who elected to stay behind but paid a high price for that decision - not least the weight of relentless Sinophobia and constant surveillance. Her relationship with Thụy’s marked by absence from the very beginning but eventually they marry and have a child. But Thụy then moves far away to Chợ Lớn - the Chinatown of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Later the narrator also leaves for France where she’s remained in self-imposed exile, now she too is grappling with racism and prejudice, and seeking refuge in the familiar.
It's a dense, demanding piece at times but I found Thuận’s themes and style deeply compelling. There are no paragraphs in the main body of her text, no chapters either, instead the structure reflects the uninterrupted rhythm and flow of her narrator’s thoughts. Lyrical passages mingle with metafictional elements – the narrator’s also a writer whose published fiction overlaps with Thuận’s. Absurd, elaborate scenarios play out in Mme Âu’s head, key points in history, a future scripted by China’s success, semi-surreal scenes from her past as a student in the Soviet Union. Interspersed with these are sections from Mme Âu’s work-in-progress I am Yellow the first part taken from one of Thuận’s earlier short stories, with a plot that indirectly comments on Âu’s rendering of her relationship with Thụy.
Intertextuality’s an ongoing preoccupation of Thuận’s here: Mme Âu sets up an intriguing, ongoing dialogue with Marguerite Duras’s The Lover the famous account of another "star-crossed" love affair across divides - Duras’s tribute to an unforgettable, first love. Duras’s depiction of Chợ Lớn combine with Madame Âu’s visits to the quartier asiatique in Paris’s 13th arrondissement creating links between Vietnam’s Chinatown, the legacy of colonialism, and the many Chinatowns across the globe, places of sanctuary but also potential ghettos and unofficial forms of segregation.
Another key aspect of Thuận’s novel emerges from advice given to Mme Âu by her friends, who caution that it’s necessary to forget in order to live. Thuan seems to be interrogating that notion throughout, tying this to a broader meditation on the purpose and limits of narrative itself: the representation and reconstruction of reality, invocations of memory, and the promise of resolution that’s ultimately always just out of reach. Translated by Nguyễn An Lý
August 26, 2022
Two years later I watched Marguerite Duras follow her lover into Cho Lon.
This is a compressed and deeply intertextual piece of writing that takes place in the space of two hours in an unnamed Vietnamese woman's mind - but which encompasses her life, her troubled relationship with her parents, and her inability to move on from her abbreviated love affair and marriage to Thuy, a Chinese man rejected by many Vietnamese, including the woman's own parents.
Marguerite Duras' The Lover and The North China Lover are conjured up continually, a sort of template for writing about problematic relationships and the power imbalances that can be both disturbingly erotic and deeply harming; and there are other allusions, such as the mention of Graham Greene's The Quiet American, set in Vietnam as the French colonial powers struggle to hold the country and America is just beginning to flex its muscles in Southeast Asia.
The complexities of history and Vietnam's relationship with Soviet Russia and the west, especially France, form a fascinating background to the woman's story but in the foreground, for me, is the graceful, sinuous, almost liquified fluency and pliancy of the prose. This is the real star of the show.
There's a hallucinatory, almost incantatory, feel as textual repetitions of words, phrases, scenes punctuate the narrative, circling and gathering meaning as we parse their importance and relevance - a technique that Duras famously uses in The Lover. The prose is more elegant and fully-formed than pure stream of consciousness but it captures the weight of personal meaning through reiteration and echo, the pull of memories - in Proustian fashion - never far from the surface of the woman's mind.
I found this book intense and strangely beautiful, with a deep attention to literary shape: note the ring composition as the end replicates the beginning, only two hours has passed. Stunning writing and literary conception - likely to be one of my books of 2022.
May 16, 2023
The story begins with Au and her twelve year old son, Vinh on a Metro train in Paris.
The train has just stopped because a duffel bag left under a seat is suspicious—a bomb? Not sure—
but many passengers departed.
A few passengers stayed — including Au and Vinh.
For the next two hours (and the bulk of this novel) we follow along with a type of soliloquy: Au’s inner voice… her past, her emotions, traumas, her one-and-only love, her parents, her education, her teachings, her son, the countries she’s traveled, cultural prejudices, her writing…..etc.
Daniel’s review is outstanding. I suggest reading his.
He warned us - it’s a challenging read ….so be warned.
But…
the challenges have to do with the larger picture of what’s going on politically….
The easier way of comprehending this story is with the immediate storytelling-inner-voice experience. It’s Au’s life - her loss -her fears, disappointments, desires—her full range of thoughts and emotions we take in (repeatedly to boot).
It’s fair to contextualize the unfolding of this book as a fever dream.
And truthfully… I’m so spent at the moment — I’m just jotting down thoughts… in lieu of a proper review!
It’s a damn good book though. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was never bored. It’s thought-provoking and reflective.
I recommend it. If I can read it — enjoy it — get value —anyone can.
It’s not ‘that’ challenging….(only 170 pages)
The surface layers are pretty easy to follow. And intriguing!!
My brighter - more savvy intellectual friends - highly more intelligent than I — can offer up deeper aspects of this book — and write about brilliantly.
Me— I’m a little spent…
So ….
read Daniel’s review.
I’ll add a few *excerpts* (only as in ‘addition’ to Daniel’s review)…
***But do read his review***!
I couldn’t say anything better!
“My mother said she had no mind to discuss my getting married. My mother was ill. My father was silent. At dinner, he just held his chopsticks and stared at his bowl. The rice in the bowl hadn’t diminished by a single grain by the time the table was cleared. On my wedding day, the house was still like a house in the morning. I didn’t dare remind my parents. We didn’t dare look at one another. Neither my father nor my mother mentioned Thuy even once. In the twenty-three years we were together.
My parents kept acting as if there was no Thuy. His name was boycotted. Along with the whole of China. From tofu pudding to Kong Fu Zi, Lao Zi.
From Wong Tang noodles to
Mao Ze Dong, Deng Xiao. From luk dau sa soup to Sun Wu Kong, Zhu Ba Jie. I’ve never met anyone whose Sinophobia was as perfect as my parents’. From A to Z.
Categorically. No compromise. No migrating circumstances.”
“I imagine how my parents would react to the news that the blood in their veins is partly Chinese. My father would surely stop touching his food. My mother would surely fall ill. Their house would be like a house in the morning”.
“You should forget in order to live, they told me. It’s the truth. Forget in order to live. They said I was the only one who’d worked hard, taking notes for everyone in class by day and writing letters to Vietnam by night”.
“Writing to me is not an active reminiscence. Nor is it an act of oblivion. Not until my last novel will I know why I write. Not until my last novel will I be able to understand him. My last novel will be dedicated to him. Thuy is a mystery. I have loved him as a mystery, the mystery to the end of all mysteries”.
“For the last twelve years, our family of three has been together in every one of my ‘dreams’, whether accompanied by a moment of sadness or a full night of joviality”.
“Turns out you cry in front of your pupils every week. The parents’ association is protesting against you on the Internet, clearly, stating your name, your school, the classes you teach. Your tears make a weaklings out of their children, they argue. They threatened to report you to the vice Director and Director of the Ministry of Education. I waive a dismissive and, I can always quit my job. There’s an ad that runs on television every day, the Home Office is looking for prison guards, unbeatable benefits”.
“Cho Lon by night is even more vibrant than by day. At night is when they sign their contracts, eat at their restaurants, swirl in their dance halls, push their mah-jongg tiles, and when they take their photographs. The black-and-white photograph that lets me gaze at Thuy. And Vinh”.
“People are obsessed with what they fear” …..isn’t that the truth?/!!
The train has just stopped because a duffel bag left under a seat is suspicious—a bomb? Not sure—
but many passengers departed.
A few passengers stayed — including Au and Vinh.
For the next two hours (and the bulk of this novel) we follow along with a type of soliloquy: Au’s inner voice… her past, her emotions, traumas, her one-and-only love, her parents, her education, her teachings, her son, the countries she’s traveled, cultural prejudices, her writing…..etc.
Daniel’s review is outstanding. I suggest reading his.
He warned us - it’s a challenging read ….so be warned.
But…
the challenges have to do with the larger picture of what’s going on politically….
The easier way of comprehending this story is with the immediate storytelling-inner-voice experience. It’s Au’s life - her loss -her fears, disappointments, desires—her full range of thoughts and emotions we take in (repeatedly to boot).
It’s fair to contextualize the unfolding of this book as a fever dream.
And truthfully… I’m so spent at the moment — I’m just jotting down thoughts… in lieu of a proper review!
It’s a damn good book though. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was never bored. It’s thought-provoking and reflective.
I recommend it. If I can read it — enjoy it — get value —anyone can.
It’s not ‘that’ challenging….(only 170 pages)
The surface layers are pretty easy to follow. And intriguing!!
My brighter - more savvy intellectual friends - highly more intelligent than I — can offer up deeper aspects of this book — and write about brilliantly.
Me— I’m a little spent…
So ….
read Daniel’s review.
I’ll add a few *excerpts* (only as in ‘addition’ to Daniel’s review)…
***But do read his review***!
I couldn’t say anything better!
“My mother said she had no mind to discuss my getting married. My mother was ill. My father was silent. At dinner, he just held his chopsticks and stared at his bowl. The rice in the bowl hadn’t diminished by a single grain by the time the table was cleared. On my wedding day, the house was still like a house in the morning. I didn’t dare remind my parents. We didn’t dare look at one another. Neither my father nor my mother mentioned Thuy even once. In the twenty-three years we were together.
My parents kept acting as if there was no Thuy. His name was boycotted. Along with the whole of China. From tofu pudding to Kong Fu Zi, Lao Zi.
From Wong Tang noodles to
Mao Ze Dong, Deng Xiao. From luk dau sa soup to Sun Wu Kong, Zhu Ba Jie. I’ve never met anyone whose Sinophobia was as perfect as my parents’. From A to Z.
Categorically. No compromise. No migrating circumstances.”
“I imagine how my parents would react to the news that the blood in their veins is partly Chinese. My father would surely stop touching his food. My mother would surely fall ill. Their house would be like a house in the morning”.
“You should forget in order to live, they told me. It’s the truth. Forget in order to live. They said I was the only one who’d worked hard, taking notes for everyone in class by day and writing letters to Vietnam by night”.
“Writing to me is not an active reminiscence. Nor is it an act of oblivion. Not until my last novel will I know why I write. Not until my last novel will I be able to understand him. My last novel will be dedicated to him. Thuy is a mystery. I have loved him as a mystery, the mystery to the end of all mysteries”.
“For the last twelve years, our family of three has been together in every one of my ‘dreams’, whether accompanied by a moment of sadness or a full night of joviality”.
“Turns out you cry in front of your pupils every week. The parents’ association is protesting against you on the Internet, clearly, stating your name, your school, the classes you teach. Your tears make a weaklings out of their children, they argue. They threatened to report you to the vice Director and Director of the Ministry of Education. I waive a dismissive and, I can always quit my job. There’s an ad that runs on television every day, the Home Office is looking for prison guards, unbeatable benefits”.
“Cho Lon by night is even more vibrant than by day. At night is when they sign their contracts, eat at their restaurants, swirl in their dance halls, push their mah-jongg tiles, and when they take their photographs. The black-and-white photograph that lets me gaze at Thuy. And Vinh”.
“People are obsessed with what they fear” …..isn’t that the truth?/!!
February 6, 2023
Ten years later in Paris, I’ve come to know that other authors had great artistic traditions to back them up, whereas those from Vietnam, Laos, or Cambodia were only seen as representatives of the numerous wounds of war and poverty....At thirty-nine I knew what waiting felt like. At thirty-nine I knew what defeat felt like.
A memory of a life, a dream about possibilities, fantasies about whatcould'vebeen. A rhythmical meditation with repetitions, that starts and ends in the same place, separated by 2 hours that reminded me of Fosse's Septology. Another sad story about displacement, immigration and longing for the place that isn't even there.
From the first pages it reminded me of Zabuzhko's messy Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex, and I still think they are not dissimilar, the stream of consciousness of the woman in her 30s far away from home and obsessing with the memory of her ex-husband. And yet they are different and I think Thuận's prose is more controlled. Fascinating slice of history, a look into the communist Vietnam where people lived with a dream of the ussr and then quickly swapped it for the dream of capitalist France or what have you. The sinophobic attitudes in Vietnam during and after Sino-Vietnamese War that destroyed destinies. And just a story of loss, loneliness, procrastination, hopelessness. A life suspended in limbo. But sometimes interesting.
January 25, 2023
Let us not beat about the bush: Chinatown (2005) by Thuận has floored me. I have noticed that the more I like a book, the more difficult talking about it feels. Well, this is the case. Thuận's novel left me speechless for a while and reading it was an experience extremely difficult to capture.
It is a realistic story intertwined with dreams and memories. Telling which is which is hard at times. The narrator mixes and sometimes confuses the past, the present and the future, shifting between them. I ended up not being sure what is a fact, what is a memory, what is happening at the moment, what is just the narrator's wish.
Chinatown is an emotionally resonant book. Truth be told, the array of my reactions to the narrator surprised me. Sometimes she drove me mad, sometimes I found her vulnerability and honesty totally disarming. She is a Vietnamese teacher of English who studied in Leningrad and now lives in Paris. She is also an aspiring writer struggling to have her first book published. The monologue covers her childhood, youth and what happened next plus passages from her short story and novel plus her thoughts on being stereotyped and marginalized as an outsider and an immigrant plus much, much more. But first and foremost, it is an alternately ironic and lacerating chronicle of grappling with loss.
The story of her life depicted in Chinatown is completely nonlinear, there are frequent flashbacks and flashforwards. Although the narrator’s monologue seems to be messy, chaotic and spontaneous, it has scaffolding built with all the incantatory repetitions and bracketed composition of the novel (the scene on the metro at the beginning and at the end of the novel). The flow of the narrative is quick, nervous, engrossing, incredibly addictive, with crumbs of sardonic humour.
The weird, hooking musicality of Thuận's prose really stands out. Frequent reappearances of some words and phrases turn the narrator’s monologue into poetry in prose. These recurrences reminded me of the rhythmic sound of trains or metro (by no means soporific!) which, by the way, played quite an important role in the novel. Kudos to Nguyễn An Lý whose translation of Chinatown is out of this world.
I do not feel enthusiastic about the title though. I am aware of the symbolic meaning of Chinatown in this novel, perceptible for example here: Thụy is Chinatown. I am the departure point and Thụy is the destination. Nevertheless, this title automatically makes me think of Roman Polański’s film, with which the novel does not have much in common. Moreover, I think it sounds too general and impersonal. Such an intimate, stunning book deserved something more adequate.
Painting by Zhang Xiaogang.
It is a realistic story intertwined with dreams and memories. Telling which is which is hard at times. The narrator mixes and sometimes confuses the past, the present and the future, shifting between them. I ended up not being sure what is a fact, what is a memory, what is happening at the moment, what is just the narrator's wish.
Chinatown is an emotionally resonant book. Truth be told, the array of my reactions to the narrator surprised me. Sometimes she drove me mad, sometimes I found her vulnerability and honesty totally disarming. She is a Vietnamese teacher of English who studied in Leningrad and now lives in Paris. She is also an aspiring writer struggling to have her first book published. The monologue covers her childhood, youth and what happened next plus passages from her short story and novel plus her thoughts on being stereotyped and marginalized as an outsider and an immigrant plus much, much more. But first and foremost, it is an alternately ironic and lacerating chronicle of grappling with loss.
The story of her life depicted in Chinatown is completely nonlinear, there are frequent flashbacks and flashforwards. Although the narrator’s monologue seems to be messy, chaotic and spontaneous, it has scaffolding built with all the incantatory repetitions and bracketed composition of the novel (the scene on the metro at the beginning and at the end of the novel). The flow of the narrative is quick, nervous, engrossing, incredibly addictive, with crumbs of sardonic humour.
The weird, hooking musicality of Thuận's prose really stands out. Frequent reappearances of some words and phrases turn the narrator’s monologue into poetry in prose. These recurrences reminded me of the rhythmic sound of trains or metro (by no means soporific!) which, by the way, played quite an important role in the novel. Kudos to Nguyễn An Lý whose translation of Chinatown is out of this world.
I do not feel enthusiastic about the title though. I am aware of the symbolic meaning of Chinatown in this novel, perceptible for example here: Thụy is Chinatown. I am the departure point and Thụy is the destination. Nevertheless, this title automatically makes me think of Roman Polański’s film, with which the novel does not have much in common. Moreover, I think it sounds too general and impersonal. Such an intimate, stunning book deserved something more adequate.
Painting by Zhang Xiaogang.
May 13, 2023
Madam Au, a Vietnamese woman, is sitting on a train that has been delayed arriving in Paris. The train is stopped in a tunnel while authorities search for an explosive device further up the line.Her unexpected delay triggers a spate of reminisces and associations that blur memory and reality as her mind swirls through two decades, obscuring boundaries between hopes and desires.The juxtaposition of a confined space and boundless mental wandering immerses the reader in a rumination on culture, displacement and emotional barriers.
During a two hour time frame, Madame Au’s thoughts spiral through two decades of her life, beginning with the last years of the Cold War. Her thoughts often resemble an untethered weather vane, spinning circuitously and periodically gaining respite at its originating focal point.Madame Au’s focal point is her unresolved relationship with her husband Thuy.He deserted her eleven years ago in VietNam after thirteen months of marriage.At the time, Madame Au was pregnant with their son Vinh. Subsequently, her parents sent her to Paris where she has been teaching English to predominantly Muslim children who are part of their own colonial diaspora. Thuy, an ethnic Chinese whose parents chose to remain in VietNam, ultimately has relocated to Saigon’s Chinatown, Cho-Lan,an area unfamiliar to his divorced wife.
Madame Au and Thuy have known each other since their teenage school days. Their different ethnicities presented difficulties for their union since they had to contend with the virulent Vietnamese xenophobia rampant at the height of the Sino-Vietnamese War.Their marriage encountered the strains embedded in the history between VietNam and China. Their career and personal choices have been influenced by this tense history, leading to a fracturing of identity rooted in the traumas of the colonial past. Eventually, displacement and diasporic exile followed.
Madame Au is haunted by the past.Her upbringing has been dominated by her status seeking parents and she retains the vestiges of that stifling relationship as she moves into adulthood.Severed from her cultural origins, she has been impacted by political disruptions that have skewered her emotional well being and left her feeling marginalized and emotionally paralyzed.Her rumination about her failed marriage is an attempt to synthesize and recalibrate her internal compass and resolve her fractured sense of ethnicity, identity and belonging. Having never been to Cho-Lan, Madame Au, a writer herself, creates a vision of this enclave by recalling a novel written by Marguerite Duras. In this way, she tries to escape the shackles in her life through imagination. Chinatown, then, becomes both a physical and emotionally imagined symbol of the limitations that ethnicity and politics place on individuals while altering their lives. An ancillary consideration arises: what memories of the past should one retain and what should be discarded in order to move forward with one’s emotional well being.
Based on these questions, one can deduce that visiting Madame Au’s thoughts is not always a pleasant experience.There is a palpable aura of disorientation that permeates her reflections.The text of the novel augments this feeling. There are no paragraphs.Instead, changes of tenses and points of view dominate our narrator’s musings and create a cacophony of culture and emotions that jump about and repeat themselves.This cadence weaves elements that are both disjointed and poetic, creating an unusual lilt to the narrative thread.
This novel is a very challenging piece of writing that may not appeal to all readers. Nevertheless, becoming attuned to the rhythms of Madam Au’s thoughts rewards the difficult journey through the narrator’s mind with insights into politics, history, culture and identity.4.5 stars rounded to 5.
During a two hour time frame, Madame Au’s thoughts spiral through two decades of her life, beginning with the last years of the Cold War. Her thoughts often resemble an untethered weather vane, spinning circuitously and periodically gaining respite at its originating focal point.Madame Au’s focal point is her unresolved relationship with her husband Thuy.He deserted her eleven years ago in VietNam after thirteen months of marriage.At the time, Madame Au was pregnant with their son Vinh. Subsequently, her parents sent her to Paris where she has been teaching English to predominantly Muslim children who are part of their own colonial diaspora. Thuy, an ethnic Chinese whose parents chose to remain in VietNam, ultimately has relocated to Saigon’s Chinatown, Cho-Lan,an area unfamiliar to his divorced wife.
Madame Au and Thuy have known each other since their teenage school days. Their different ethnicities presented difficulties for their union since they had to contend with the virulent Vietnamese xenophobia rampant at the height of the Sino-Vietnamese War.Their marriage encountered the strains embedded in the history between VietNam and China. Their career and personal choices have been influenced by this tense history, leading to a fracturing of identity rooted in the traumas of the colonial past. Eventually, displacement and diasporic exile followed.
Madame Au is haunted by the past.Her upbringing has been dominated by her status seeking parents and she retains the vestiges of that stifling relationship as she moves into adulthood.Severed from her cultural origins, she has been impacted by political disruptions that have skewered her emotional well being and left her feeling marginalized and emotionally paralyzed.Her rumination about her failed marriage is an attempt to synthesize and recalibrate her internal compass and resolve her fractured sense of ethnicity, identity and belonging. Having never been to Cho-Lan, Madame Au, a writer herself, creates a vision of this enclave by recalling a novel written by Marguerite Duras. In this way, she tries to escape the shackles in her life through imagination. Chinatown, then, becomes both a physical and emotionally imagined symbol of the limitations that ethnicity and politics place on individuals while altering their lives. An ancillary consideration arises: what memories of the past should one retain and what should be discarded in order to move forward with one’s emotional well being.
Based on these questions, one can deduce that visiting Madame Au’s thoughts is not always a pleasant experience.There is a palpable aura of disorientation that permeates her reflections.The text of the novel augments this feeling. There are no paragraphs.Instead, changes of tenses and points of view dominate our narrator’s musings and create a cacophony of culture and emotions that jump about and repeat themselves.This cadence weaves elements that are both disjointed and poetic, creating an unusual lilt to the narrative thread.
This novel is a very challenging piece of writing that may not appeal to all readers. Nevertheless, becoming attuned to the rhythms of Madam Au’s thoughts rewards the difficult journey through the narrator’s mind with insights into politics, history, culture and identity.4.5 stars rounded to 5.
March 16, 2023
Shortlisted for the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize, UK & Ireland
Chinatown is Nguyễn An Lý's translation from Vietnamese of Thuận's novel, one narrated by a woman on a Métro train which has been stopped for 15 minutes, due to a security alert. She debates leaving the train, to catch a bus, but decides to stay and the novel consists of her thoughts over the following two hours, the train still stuck.
The translator's afterword observes of the novel's reception in Vietnam:
There was nothing to prepare the reader for pages upon pages of short, repetitive, choppy, loopy (and sometimes loony) sentences that draw them further and deeper into a maze of time, space, memories, harsh truths and at times straight-up bullshitting. Many have found the style tedious, if we trust readers' forums (often more truthful than the press). Many have quit the ride. But many others have stayed, trapped in her maze, pursuing the author from book to book.
I wouldn't say this was tedious but it requires more attention that I had to spare and I quit the train after 50 pages. Perhaps one to revisit if this is prize featured.
Chinatown is Nguyễn An Lý's translation from Vietnamese of Thuận's novel, one narrated by a woman on a Métro train which has been stopped for 15 minutes, due to a security alert. She debates leaving the train, to catch a bus, but decides to stay and the novel consists of her thoughts over the following two hours, the train still stuck.
The translator's afterword observes of the novel's reception in Vietnam:
There was nothing to prepare the reader for pages upon pages of short, repetitive, choppy, loopy (and sometimes loony) sentences that draw them further and deeper into a maze of time, space, memories, harsh truths and at times straight-up bullshitting. Many have found the style tedious, if we trust readers' forums (often more truthful than the press). Many have quit the ride. But many others have stayed, trapped in her maze, pursuing the author from book to book.
I wouldn't say this was tedious but it requires more attention that I had to spare and I quit the train after 50 pages. Perhaps one to revisit if this is prize featured.
February 25, 2023
It has been a few weeks since I've finished and my thoughts really have not changed since I've replied to Ilse's comment below. This is an interior monologue of a woman trapped in Paris Metro; "trapped" does a lot of symbolic heavy-lifting respectively. I found the structure of the book is successful. The periodic sign-posting and repetition in the narrative worked effectively. Though sign-posting was often related to different food in different places. But the voice did not work for me and I did not feel any desire or curiosity to stay in the narrator's head as soon as I could escape. I was searching for the deeper layers, for something which would crystallise behind the direct meaning of the words and would add the second dimension to the story. But it never happened: the words meant exactly what they meant. I've read it was an intention by the author which is fair enough. But it did not work for me. I prefer more ambiguous, multilayered interior monologues. I am surprised noone so far compared her to Bernhard. She does not do long sentences, quite the opposite. But her consistency with a few of her main preoccupations bordering obsession deserves a mention.
The author is very good though when she sketches in the social observations of different cultures and satirises them: pushy parents; racial prejudice; cultural stereotypes; corruption of the socialist states. Also what I found interesting is how the book reflects the time it was written - 2005. The globalisation is palpable, and the world has just gone through the dismantling of the socialist camp: the narrator is a Vietnamese; she was educated in the Soviet Union; but now she teaches English in Paris; and many of her students are Muslims either the recent refugees or the next generation of ex-colonial arrivals. Also the rise of China is very present. This growth looked rapid and unstoppable in mid noughties. All of this looks very different from the perspective of 2023. That leads to the interesting question: does this change of the context make the book stronger or vice-versa. I sincerely do not know the answer. I suspect it would be irrelevant compared to the role of the literary craft.
The author is very good though when she sketches in the social observations of different cultures and satirises them: pushy parents; racial prejudice; cultural stereotypes; corruption of the socialist states. Also what I found interesting is how the book reflects the time it was written - 2005. The globalisation is palpable, and the world has just gone through the dismantling of the socialist camp: the narrator is a Vietnamese; she was educated in the Soviet Union; but now she teaches English in Paris; and many of her students are Muslims either the recent refugees or the next generation of ex-colonial arrivals. Also the rise of China is very present. This growth looked rapid and unstoppable in mid noughties. All of this looks very different from the perspective of 2023. That leads to the interesting question: does this change of the context make the book stronger or vice-versa. I sincerely do not know the answer. I suspect it would be irrelevant compared to the role of the literary craft.
July 3, 2022
In an interview at asymptotejournal.com, Thuan says:
My characters and stories are often considered too complicated, following neither moral nor cultural standards. People also complain that my writing is difficult to read—that if only Chinatown was divided into paragraphs, chapters, if the timelines were not jumbled up together, or if I didn’t joke around. . . But like everywhere else, the Vietnamese society of today—one with nearly one hundred million people—also has to deal with problems such as unemployment, corruption, prostitution, sense of alienation, and loneliness. Not to mention the characteristic oppression of the communist regime and the hard-to-heal wounds left by successive wars. All of this has made Vietnam a rich material and a complex subject.
(Note that I cannot, on my UK configured MacBook, find a way to put the correct character in the middle of the author’s name, so I am going with just an “a” without the diacritical marks it should have).
I was actually quite encouraged when I read this quote because I was finding the book quite hard to get to grips with. In the same interview, Thuan says:
I didn’t want the novel to become a memoir, but rather a direct experience of consciousness, taken from the disordered and persistent thoughts of the main character.
It begins at 10am one morning and ends 2 hours later. A woman is on a train that stops at a station because a suspicious package has been found. What we read is a kind of stream-of-consciousness overview of this woman’s thoughts as she sits on the train waiting for it to move again. A lot of her thoughts are concerned with a man called Thuy who was her husband. Thuy is of Chinese heritage and the story is set during the time of the border war between China and Vietnam (1979-1991) when someone with a Chinese surname was not welcome in Vietnam. So, falling in love with and then marrying someone with a Chinese name was definitely frowned on (or more).
I finished the book with a lot of questions. And the interview I have already quoted from twice actually provides answers to most if not all of those questions. I would really recommend reading the interview which can be found here: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog....
In many ways, this was an interesting book to read. It’s perhaps more interesting after reading the interview and getting a bit of an understanding of how Thuan approaches writing, how she sees this book, what purpose some parts of the book serve etc.. Prior to reading the interview, I have to confess I was rather at a loss to know what I had just read. But, and this is probably the main reason for my 3 star rating when part of me says the book is worth more than that, when it got to bed time last night and I only had 20 pages to go, I chose to go to bed. This is not my normal behaviour when I have anything less than an hour to go in a book - I always stay up to finish it (even if that sometimes means I have to re-read parts the next day because I was falling asleep when I read them!). Somehow, I was admiring the book without ever feeling engaged by it.
My characters and stories are often considered too complicated, following neither moral nor cultural standards. People also complain that my writing is difficult to read—that if only Chinatown was divided into paragraphs, chapters, if the timelines were not jumbled up together, or if I didn’t joke around. . . But like everywhere else, the Vietnamese society of today—one with nearly one hundred million people—also has to deal with problems such as unemployment, corruption, prostitution, sense of alienation, and loneliness. Not to mention the characteristic oppression of the communist regime and the hard-to-heal wounds left by successive wars. All of this has made Vietnam a rich material and a complex subject.
(Note that I cannot, on my UK configured MacBook, find a way to put the correct character in the middle of the author’s name, so I am going with just an “a” without the diacritical marks it should have).
I was actually quite encouraged when I read this quote because I was finding the book quite hard to get to grips with. In the same interview, Thuan says:
I didn’t want the novel to become a memoir, but rather a direct experience of consciousness, taken from the disordered and persistent thoughts of the main character.
It begins at 10am one morning and ends 2 hours later. A woman is on a train that stops at a station because a suspicious package has been found. What we read is a kind of stream-of-consciousness overview of this woman’s thoughts as she sits on the train waiting for it to move again. A lot of her thoughts are concerned with a man called Thuy who was her husband. Thuy is of Chinese heritage and the story is set during the time of the border war between China and Vietnam (1979-1991) when someone with a Chinese surname was not welcome in Vietnam. So, falling in love with and then marrying someone with a Chinese name was definitely frowned on (or more).
I finished the book with a lot of questions. And the interview I have already quoted from twice actually provides answers to most if not all of those questions. I would really recommend reading the interview which can be found here: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog....
In many ways, this was an interesting book to read. It’s perhaps more interesting after reading the interview and getting a bit of an understanding of how Thuan approaches writing, how she sees this book, what purpose some parts of the book serve etc.. Prior to reading the interview, I have to confess I was rather at a loss to know what I had just read. But, and this is probably the main reason for my 3 star rating when part of me says the book is worth more than that, when it got to bed time last night and I only had 20 pages to go, I chose to go to bed. This is not my normal behaviour when I have anything less than an hour to go in a book - I always stay up to finish it (even if that sometimes means I have to re-read parts the next day because I was falling asleep when I read them!). Somehow, I was admiring the book without ever feeling engaged by it.
February 17, 2023
February 17, 2023 Update A quick update to note that I got to the Toronto Public Library now as well and can confirm that the North American paperback edition from New Directions i.e.Chinatown is also missing translator Nguyễn An Lý's Afterword (previously I had only checked the eBook edition). That is really shameful on the part of New Directions that they wouldn't pay whatever extra fee that would have cost. Buy the UK Tilted Axis edition!
The Chinatown Chợ Lớn Lover
Review of the Tilted Axis Press paperback edition (2022) translated by Nguyễn An Lý from the Vietnamese language original Chinatown (2005)
I'll admit that when I first received Chinatown in the summer of 2022 I did not have the appetite for its 'one-long-paragraph' format which I often find tiresome to read. When it was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023 I decided to give it another look. I was especially encouraged by reviews from GR Friends Jola and David.
This time I was completely taken by it and found it to be smooth reading after all. There were in fact some respites to the 'one-long-paragraph' format when the protagonist inserts two extended excerpts from her fictional book 'I'm Yellow' into her stream of consciousness. Those excerpts follow a more conventional paragraph style (following the friend's advice from the above quote).
Thuận (the one-name penname of writer Đoàn Ánh Thuận) novel imagines her protagonist stuck on a Parisian subway train with her young son Vinh while the police hold up the system due to a suspicious package. This extended pause causes her to cast her memory back to her early life in Vietnam, her love for her Chinese husband Thuy (disapproved on by her Vietnamese parents), her years studying in Moscow University and her eventual life in Paris with her son.
The text is very hallucinatory as it draws parallels to Thuận's own real-life & to the story of Marguerite Duras and the Chinese lover of her youth as told in the books The Lover (1984) and The North China Lover (1991) and to the fictional book 'I'm Yellow' inside the book. It is also very taken with repetition in a manner that may remind you of the works of Gertrude Stein. I enjoyed it immensely for all of these aspects and for its humour. Likely many cultural references went over my head, but the translation flowed smoothly and the occasional Vietnamese food and placename references were easy to look up.
I note (although I only examined the Kindle eBook edition) that the North American edition from New Directions is missing the Translator's Afterword which is included in the UK Tilted Axis edition. That is a real disservice to North American readers.
A collage of a selected number of book covers by the author Thuận. Image sourced from her blog at Thuận’s Blog.
I read Chinatown through the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month subscription and due to its nomination in the longlist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023.
Other Reviews
From NPR Books in Translation Three Tales Touching on French Colonialism by Lily Meyer at NPR July 19, 2022 (Note: The reviewer is under the impression the book was translated from French, rather than Vietnamese).
Trivia and Links
The author’s own Vietnamese language blog posts two very interesting reviews of Chinatown for which I’ve linked to English translations as Text Games and Interactions and I’m Yellow: Textual Pleasure.
The Chinatown Chợ Lớn Lover
Review of the Tilted Axis Press paperback edition (2022) translated by Nguyễn An Lý from the Vietnamese language original Chinatown (2005)
He said, you can spin whatever yarn you like but don’t skimp on the paragraph breaks, your readers need to catch their breath, and don’t forget a chapter break every few pages so they can practice counting to ten. I chortled, I hadn’t expected my readers to have such exacting demands.
I'll admit that when I first received Chinatown in the summer of 2022 I did not have the appetite for its 'one-long-paragraph' format which I often find tiresome to read. When it was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023 I decided to give it another look. I was especially encouraged by reviews from GR Friends Jola and David.
This time I was completely taken by it and found it to be smooth reading after all. There were in fact some respites to the 'one-long-paragraph' format when the protagonist inserts two extended excerpts from her fictional book 'I'm Yellow' into her stream of consciousness. Those excerpts follow a more conventional paragraph style (following the friend's advice from the above quote).
Thuận (the one-name penname of writer Đoàn Ánh Thuận) novel imagines her protagonist stuck on a Parisian subway train with her young son Vinh while the police hold up the system due to a suspicious package. This extended pause causes her to cast her memory back to her early life in Vietnam, her love for her Chinese husband Thuy (disapproved on by her Vietnamese parents), her years studying in Moscow University and her eventual life in Paris with her son.
The text is very hallucinatory as it draws parallels to Thuận's own real-life & to the story of Marguerite Duras and the Chinese lover of her youth as told in the books The Lover (1984) and The North China Lover (1991) and to the fictional book 'I'm Yellow' inside the book. It is also very taken with repetition in a manner that may remind you of the works of Gertrude Stein. I enjoyed it immensely for all of these aspects and for its humour. Likely many cultural references went over my head, but the translation flowed smoothly and the occasional Vietnamese food and placename references were easy to look up.
I note (although I only examined the Kindle eBook edition) that the North American edition from New Directions is missing the Translator's Afterword which is included in the UK Tilted Axis edition. That is a real disservice to North American readers.
A collage of a selected number of book covers by the author Thuận. Image sourced from her blog at Thuận’s Blog.
I read Chinatown through the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month subscription and due to its nomination in the longlist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023.
Other Reviews
From NPR Books in Translation Three Tales Touching on French Colonialism by Lily Meyer at NPR July 19, 2022 (Note: The reviewer is under the impression the book was translated from French, rather than Vietnamese).
Trivia and Links
The author’s own Vietnamese language blog posts two very interesting reviews of Chinatown for which I’ve linked to English translations as Text Games and Interactions and I’m Yellow: Textual Pleasure.
August 29, 2022
Written almost without paragraph breaks and encompassing Vietnamese, Chinese, Soviet, and French culture – including intertextual references to Marguerite Duras’s work – Chinatown truly is one of a kind, a dense but rewarding flow of internal monologue that kept me in its hold for all of its (relatively short) length. The repetitive and rather simple diction reminds me of Jon Fosse, only more panoramic in terms of geography and culture. The translator’s note at the back helps to contextualize the novel. As the author has already published ten novels, I hope we will see more of them in English after this one.
June 9, 2023
3.5 stars
I really wanted this to be a five star book for me. I thought it would be. I loved the concept so much: a Vietnamese woman who lives on Paris sits trapped underground on the metro due to a bomb threat and remembers her life, her love for an ethnically Chinese boy in Hanoi, her time studying in Leningrad, the transformation of Vietnam, her difficult relationship with her parents, her abandonment with a newborn by her husband (that same Chinese boy), her life in Paris as an English teacher and all the aggressions and defeats of her status as an immigrant there.
I feel like I learned a lot: it was a sharp antidote to the Western-centric nature of much of my reading. And I admire the author’s dedication to her rather alienating technique of intense repetition, circular thoughts and one big paragraph.
It really was a slog to read, however. Very boring and very alienating. The narrator is described many times as having a “sullen face, but your voice is all right.” I beg to differ: the voice was sullen too. I had an almost pathological wish to not pick the book up, which is why it has taken me two months to read. The main story was thin, though potentially gripping, and a novel-within-a-novel was so unspeakably tedious I considered skipping it. I could see there was intertextuality happening with Marguerite Duras, but as I haven’t read Marguerite Duras, this didn’t enlighten me much. I do feel intertextuality is supposed to function on a base level for the first time reader and enrich the experience of those who have read more – here, I felt it might hold the key to an experience I simply wasn’t getting, but I had no way of knowing.
Too many flights of fancy anchored in nothing. Far too many roasted pigeons and pig brains.
I tried to read this on the bus. Impossible. Somewhat ironically for a novel set on public transport (nothing was done with this setting, a shame as I love public transport stories). I tried to read it before bed. Difficult. That single, numbing paragraph…
I give the translator a full five stars, however. This cannot have been an easy book to translate and it felt smooth and fresh. Her note on the text was honest and helpful as well.
This novel was by no means a waste of time. But I mourn the novel with these elements that lived inside my head.
I really wanted this to be a five star book for me. I thought it would be. I loved the concept so much: a Vietnamese woman who lives on Paris sits trapped underground on the metro due to a bomb threat and remembers her life, her love for an ethnically Chinese boy in Hanoi, her time studying in Leningrad, the transformation of Vietnam, her difficult relationship with her parents, her abandonment with a newborn by her husband (that same Chinese boy), her life in Paris as an English teacher and all the aggressions and defeats of her status as an immigrant there.
I feel like I learned a lot: it was a sharp antidote to the Western-centric nature of much of my reading. And I admire the author’s dedication to her rather alienating technique of intense repetition, circular thoughts and one big paragraph.
It really was a slog to read, however. Very boring and very alienating. The narrator is described many times as having a “sullen face, but your voice is all right.” I beg to differ: the voice was sullen too. I had an almost pathological wish to not pick the book up, which is why it has taken me two months to read. The main story was thin, though potentially gripping, and a novel-within-a-novel was so unspeakably tedious I considered skipping it. I could see there was intertextuality happening with Marguerite Duras, but as I haven’t read Marguerite Duras, this didn’t enlighten me much. I do feel intertextuality is supposed to function on a base level for the first time reader and enrich the experience of those who have read more – here, I felt it might hold the key to an experience I simply wasn’t getting, but I had no way of knowing.
Too many flights of fancy anchored in nothing. Far too many roasted pigeons and pig brains.
I tried to read this on the bus. Impossible. Somewhat ironically for a novel set on public transport (nothing was done with this setting, a shame as I love public transport stories). I tried to read it before bed. Difficult. That single, numbing paragraph…
I give the translator a full five stars, however. This cannot have been an easy book to translate and it felt smooth and fresh. Her note on the text was honest and helpful as well.
This novel was by no means a waste of time. But I mourn the novel with these elements that lived inside my head.
October 28, 2022
Được xuất bản lần đầu tại Việt Nam năm 2005, Chinatown của nhà văn Thuận là một thử nghiệm rất đặc biệt về hình thức: một tiểu thuyết không xuống dòng. Toàn bộ tiểu thuyết là một dòng suy tưởng miên man chồng chất không dứt của nhân vật chính về quá khứ và hiện tại, về người chồng đã ly tán của cô. Khi mới bắt đầu đọc thì mình cũng hơi thấy... oải khi phải bơi trong biển kí ức không biết đâu là bờ này. Nhưng càng đọc và nhập tâm, thì những đợt sóng dồn dập những suy nghĩ trăn trở của nhân vật đã tạo nên nhịp điệu đặc biệt gây cuốn hút, kéo mình vào câu chuyện. Những trải nghiệm, cảm xúc khiến cho mình rất đau lòng, nhưng lối kể của chị Thuận lại hết sức hài hước, châm biếm khiến mình vừa buồn vừa thương, nhưng cũng vừa bật cười không ít, cái kiểu cười ra nước mắt. Tác phẩm chạm đến rất nhiều chủ đề, trong đó có trải nghiệm của người di dân, tình yêu, mối quan hệ gia đình, danh tính, các vấn đề xã hội chính trị... Cuốn sách khoảng hơn 200 trang là tất cả những gì xảy ra trong đầu của người phụ nữ trong hai tiếng đồng hồ.
3.5 ⭐️
June 12, 2020
cuốn thích nhất của Thuận
February 7, 2023
This strikes me as more of a formal, academic writing exercise than anything else. A “can I write this way” exercise. One often using elements I either would obviously know nothing about, like the in-jokes of 1990-era Vietnam, or generally dislike, such as dreams and flights of frivolous fancy. I saw some things to admire, mostly in the effect generated by its looping repeated short sentences, but without a better story to serve it was a pretty dull reading experience I have to say.
2.5 if I could give half starts on this app. Why can’t we give half stars.
2.5 if I could give half starts on this app. Why can’t we give half stars.
February 3, 2023
Chinatown feels like something really special. The entirety of the novel takes place as a train is stalled on one woman’s three hour commute. Form-wise, this book captures a nearly uninterrupted stream of thought. Only punctuated with the main character’s own writing, the book is by no means an “easy” read. It asks for your attention and understanding in what feels like to me, a gentle way. And I felt like that patience and understanding pays off.
This book touches upon a lot of different themes, isolation, immigration, culture, history. But what stood out the most to me was how it handles one’s relationship with the past. The way that the things and people we love creep into our memory and never really leave us, and the fixation we have with replaying them over and over to make sense of them. There is a deep sense of longing in this book, and I found myself transfixed, lost in this character’s exploration of her past.
I really enjoyed this. Things definitely can get repetitious but isn’t that how it is when we mull over things that affect us deeply? We play them over and over in our heads. This reminds me a lot of the film aftersun, another work that portrays characters reliving moments over and over trying to figure out what went wrong. There’s a sense of imagining what life could’ve been like as you revisit some of the few key moments that changed your life’s trajectory forever. And how much time has passed, how different you’ve become and how much your life has changed since your youth. 39 years of life condensed into a single train stop.
I should forget in order to live. It’s the truth, forget in order to live.
Would like to attempt to read this in Vietnamese next time.
This book touches upon a lot of different themes, isolation, immigration, culture, history. But what stood out the most to me was how it handles one’s relationship with the past. The way that the things and people we love creep into our memory and never really leave us, and the fixation we have with replaying them over and over to make sense of them. There is a deep sense of longing in this book, and I found myself transfixed, lost in this character’s exploration of her past.
I really enjoyed this. Things definitely can get repetitious but isn’t that how it is when we mull over things that affect us deeply? We play them over and over in our heads. This reminds me a lot of the film aftersun, another work that portrays characters reliving moments over and over trying to figure out what went wrong. There’s a sense of imagining what life could’ve been like as you revisit some of the few key moments that changed your life’s trajectory forever. And how much time has passed, how different you’ve become and how much your life has changed since your youth. 39 years of life condensed into a single train stop.
I should forget in order to live. It’s the truth, forget in order to live.
Would like to attempt to read this in Vietnamese next time.
March 11, 2015
Cái cách viết thành từng câu ngắn, liên tục gần như không hề chia đoạn này thật kì lạ, khiến mình cảm giác nhân vật đang cố kể với một giọng điệu thờ ơ, chuyện của mình mà như thế không phải của mình mà thực ra vẫn là của mình đó thôi. Đôi lúc mình lại cảm thấy thực ra là nhân vật như đang khóc nghẹn vậy, thổn thức nên chỉ bật ra được những câu ngắn ngủn, liên tục. Ranh giới giữa hiện tại với quá khứ nhiều khi không rõ lắm, khiến mình cứ như lần mò trong đêm tối. Cả cuốn này ngoài mạch truyện chính thì còn có mạch truyện phụ là mấy cái mẩu truyện do nhân vật viết, cái mạch phụ này viết theo lối văn bình thường, nhân vật của truyện phụ có vẻ như bổ sung cho truyện chính, theo mình là không bổ sung theo lối hoàn chính, nhưng nhìn chung cũng định hình được mấy phần. Thực ra là mình thích cái mạch truyện phụ hơn, chả hiểu sao.
December 15, 2023
This year, I have tended toward favouring original literary works whose authors take some risks. Initially the title put me off but luckily a thoughtful review was a catalyst for trying it out. Originally published in Vietnamese in 2005, Chinatown-Phố Tầu by Thuận has been translated to English by Nguyễn An Lý (Tilted Axis Press, 2022). My copy of Chinatown from New Directions perplexingly does not include Nguyễn An Lý's Translator's Note at the end, get a hold of it if possible.
Chinatown has the ability to both confound and astound, I found myself mesmerized by its circular rhythmic prose which so effectively convey the ruminative perseverating thoughts of the thirty-nine-year-old Vietnamese female protagonist teacher living in France. The rhythmicity also transports one to the monotone chug-chugging of train wheels on a train journey, which is where the protagonist and her son are stuck after a bomb scare at a railway station. Her thoughts run on well-worn tracks of regret, recrimination and remembrances. Quite a lot of it skitter around her ex-husband, Thuy, with whom she has a son Vinh. Their relationship was marred by the rampant Sinophobia of that time period in Vietnam (Thuy is ethnically Chinese-Vietnamese) but it is interesting to note too the expectation that her parents had for her in sending her to the Soviet Union for university studies and present Vinh's hopes for his bright future in China. Communist states, racism, filial obligation, migration, longing, wrenching loss .... perspicacious sly observations abound trotting globally around Hà Nôi, Sài Gòn, Leningrad and Paris. We have a novel within a novel too as our protag is an aspiring writer.
I find it nigh impossible to describe the layers of complexity this compact novel has; how it plays with language and reality amid a tangle of sociopolitical history and emotional heartbreak. Certainly I was pulled into the situation of this character with alarming transference requiring frequent breaks. Good literature should discomfit and make us question.
Here's an interview with the author: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
Excerpts:
I think my novels’ rhythms should attack the reader, confront them, suck them in. And when I’m feeling out the rhythm, I like to think of myself as trying to compose a piece of music.
Also, I wanted to find words that are concise and clear, with no hidden meanings, few adjectives, and generally without many embellishments. I use short sentences, one following another, utilizing space so the words may gain more strength. And then I would repeat—like small waves that come in every now and again, disappearing into the rock and sand. That’s how I approached writing Chinatown. The cadence, for the most part, is created by repetition—of a word group, a sentence, or even a whole passage. It could also be an action, a saying, a name.
My characters and stories are often considered too complicated, following neither moral nor cultural standards. People also complain that my writing is difficult to read—that if only Chinatown was divided into paragraphs, chapters, if the timelines were not jumbled up together, or if I didn’t joke around. . . But like everywhere else, the Vietnamese society of today—one with nearly one hundred million people—also has to deal with problems such as unemployment, corruption, prostitution, sense of alienation, and loneliness. Not to mention the characteristic oppression of the communist regime and the hard-to-heal wounds left by successive wars. All of this has made Vietnam a rich material and a complex subject.
Translator's Note last paragraph
There is a tenderness, a pity towards all her characters, which makes the book markedly different from her more mature works. I hope its new readers will also love its clueless protagonist, and Chinatown itself, which is not merely ‘a Vietnamese book’, but truly one of a kind.
Chinatown has the ability to both confound and astound, I found myself mesmerized by its circular rhythmic prose which so effectively convey the ruminative perseverating thoughts of the thirty-nine-year-old Vietnamese female protagonist teacher living in France. The rhythmicity also transports one to the monotone chug-chugging of train wheels on a train journey, which is where the protagonist and her son are stuck after a bomb scare at a railway station. Her thoughts run on well-worn tracks of regret, recrimination and remembrances. Quite a lot of it skitter around her ex-husband, Thuy, with whom she has a son Vinh. Their relationship was marred by the rampant Sinophobia of that time period in Vietnam (Thuy is ethnically Chinese-Vietnamese) but it is interesting to note too the expectation that her parents had for her in sending her to the Soviet Union for university studies and present Vinh's hopes for his bright future in China. Communist states, racism, filial obligation, migration, longing, wrenching loss .... perspicacious sly observations abound trotting globally around Hà Nôi, Sài Gòn, Leningrad and Paris. We have a novel within a novel too as our protag is an aspiring writer.
I find it nigh impossible to describe the layers of complexity this compact novel has; how it plays with language and reality amid a tangle of sociopolitical history and emotional heartbreak. Certainly I was pulled into the situation of this character with alarming transference requiring frequent breaks. Good literature should discomfit and make us question.
Here's an interview with the author: https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog...
Excerpts:
I think my novels’ rhythms should attack the reader, confront them, suck them in. And when I’m feeling out the rhythm, I like to think of myself as trying to compose a piece of music.
Also, I wanted to find words that are concise and clear, with no hidden meanings, few adjectives, and generally without many embellishments. I use short sentences, one following another, utilizing space so the words may gain more strength. And then I would repeat—like small waves that come in every now and again, disappearing into the rock and sand. That’s how I approached writing Chinatown. The cadence, for the most part, is created by repetition—of a word group, a sentence, or even a whole passage. It could also be an action, a saying, a name.
My characters and stories are often considered too complicated, following neither moral nor cultural standards. People also complain that my writing is difficult to read—that if only Chinatown was divided into paragraphs, chapters, if the timelines were not jumbled up together, or if I didn’t joke around. . . But like everywhere else, the Vietnamese society of today—one with nearly one hundred million people—also has to deal with problems such as unemployment, corruption, prostitution, sense of alienation, and loneliness. Not to mention the characteristic oppression of the communist regime and the hard-to-heal wounds left by successive wars. All of this has made Vietnam a rich material and a complex subject.
Translator's Note last paragraph
There is a tenderness, a pity towards all her characters, which makes the book markedly different from her more mature works. I hope its new readers will also love its clueless protagonist, and Chinatown itself, which is not merely ‘a Vietnamese book’, but truly one of a kind.
May 24, 2017
Nếu buộc phải lựa chọn cuốn sách nào gây cảm giác vừa đọc vừa khó chịu, lại vừa có thể làm lậm lụy các giác quan, thì đây là một lựa chọn khá đỉnh. Hơn nữa, với những kẻ tự hào về sự kiên nhẫn, có thể nhấc cuốn này lên và xem nó xô đổ nó ở trang thứ .. 3.
Chinatown có một cú mở cảnh tuyệt vời, khi mọi chi tiết được kể trong hơn 241 trang chỉ là một cái tích tắc, một khoảnh khắc chớp nhoáng trên một chuyến tàu. Đó là ký ức của một người phụ nữ hiện đang sống ở khu Belleville với đứa con trai tên Vĩnh. Mọi chuyện từ thuở con gái luôn là nỗi niềm ám ảnh với một người đàn ông, một người gốc Hoa sinh ra ở Hà Nội, người mà cô cho rằng là đối tượng mà cô không thể quên, cho dù thời gian có trôi đi nhiều thế nào đi chăng nữa.
Truyện này, cho một góc nhìn khác về con người Hà Nội, với những định kiến về con người, bị ảnh hưởng từ vết thương chiến trang quá lớn. Đồng thời, đủ sức làm ta có thể tưởng tượng được khung cảnh của Hà Nội thời xưa, và cảm nhận được rõ ràng sự luyến tiếc cho cuộc đời của người phụ nữ mà về cơ bản, bị gắn chặt với một vùng đất, một thân phận và một bầu trời.
Mạch truyện chính với lối hành văn chấm chấm liên tục, câu ngắn cũng cỡn, có cảm giác như đang thở dốc là thứ làm nản lòng kiên nhẫn, khiến cho ta có thể bỏ ngay sách đấy và chẳng thèm đọc nữa. Quả thật, thật khó để đúc kết và lưu lại dấu ấn từ những ngắn chỉ có vài từ, thậm chí là 2,3, và nó cứ liên tục như v���y. Thứ dễ thở hơn là mạch phụ với những bức thư, phần này viết như văn bình thường với câu cú và ngắt quãng thông thường, với câu chuyện thực đầy sinh động. Theo cảm giác nào đó, mạch phụ làm cho ta cảm thấy yêu thích hơn vì "dễ dãi" và nội dung nó truyền tải đến. Đỡ phải mất công ghép lại và nặn óc xem sau dấm chấm trước là từ gì.
Bỏ qua nội dung, thì nhận xét chung nhất là: Khó đọc, và chiếm của ta rất nhiều thời gian.
Chinatown có một cú mở cảnh tuyệt vời, khi mọi chi tiết được kể trong hơn 241 trang chỉ là một cái tích tắc, một khoảnh khắc chớp nhoáng trên một chuyến tàu. Đó là ký ức của một người phụ nữ hiện đang sống ở khu Belleville với đứa con trai tên Vĩnh. Mọi chuyện từ thuở con gái luôn là nỗi niềm ám ảnh với một người đàn ông, một người gốc Hoa sinh ra ở Hà Nội, người mà cô cho rằng là đối tượng mà cô không thể quên, cho dù thời gian có trôi đi nhiều thế nào đi chăng nữa.
Truyện này, cho một góc nhìn khác về con người Hà Nội, với những định kiến về con người, bị ảnh hưởng từ vết thương chiến trang quá lớn. Đồng thời, đủ sức làm ta có thể tưởng tượng được khung cảnh của Hà Nội thời xưa, và cảm nhận được rõ ràng sự luyến tiếc cho cuộc đời của người phụ nữ mà về cơ bản, bị gắn chặt với một vùng đất, một thân phận và một bầu trời.
Mạch truyện chính với lối hành văn chấm chấm liên tục, câu ngắn cũng cỡn, có cảm giác như đang thở dốc là thứ làm nản lòng kiên nhẫn, khiến cho ta có thể bỏ ngay sách đấy và chẳng thèm đọc nữa. Quả thật, thật khó để đúc kết và lưu lại dấu ấn từ những ngắn chỉ có vài từ, thậm chí là 2,3, và nó cứ liên tục như v���y. Thứ dễ thở hơn là mạch phụ với những bức thư, phần này viết như văn bình thường với câu cú và ngắt quãng thông thường, với câu chuyện thực đầy sinh động. Theo cảm giác nào đó, mạch phụ làm cho ta cảm thấy yêu thích hơn vì "dễ dãi" và nội dung nó truyền tải đến. Đỡ phải mất công ghép lại và nặn óc xem sau dấm chấm trước là từ gì.
Bỏ qua nội dung, thì nhận xét chung nhất là: Khó đọc, và chiếm của ta rất nhiều thời gian.
December 8, 2015
một chuyến du hành kéo dài hai giờ (xét theo mốc thời gian của cuốn sách) vào nội tâm của nhân vật, với những suy nghĩ cuồn cuộn, những câu chữ ngắn, gãy gọn và lặp lại như muốn xoáy sâu nỗi đau và vòng lẩn quẩn không thoát ra được, có những đoạn khiến tôi nghẹt thở với nỗi buồn, cay đắng phải đặt sách xuống, hít thở sâu rồi lại tiếp tục bị cuốn theo dòng suy nghĩ bất tận của nhân vật chính.
October 29, 2022
CHINATOWN - THUẬN
Một mê cung của ngôn từ
Một cuộc truy đuổi cảm xúc dồn dập.
Một dấu chấm hỏi về xã hội và con người.
Văn của Thuận rất khác, dồn dập, đặc sắc và ấn tượng. Chưa bao giờ mình đọc một tác phẩm văn học Việt Nam mà mình hoang mang đến như thế, ngay cả khi khép lại những trang sách, mình cứ như bị cuốn vào một lốc xoáy, liên tục xoay vòng.
Dấu ấn lớn nhất của mình với Chinatown chính là mê cung của ngôn từ và nghệ thuật lặp từ, lặp câu, lặp hình ảnh mà nhà văn Thuận đã sử dụng một cách tài tình. Nhiều câu văn nao lòng và đáng nhớ, ví dụ:
"Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi Thụy ở đâu, gặp ai, làm gì. Những ngày ấy. Những ngày ấy.
Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi Thụy. Về những ngày ấy.
Tôi muốn hoãn tất cả. Chỉ để gặp Thụy. Chỉ để hỏi Thụy những ngày ấy Thụy ở đâu, gặp ai, làm gì. Cuộc sống riêng của Thụy hiện nay tôi không cần biết. Nhưng tôi muốn biết những ngày ấy."
Chinatown là dòng chảy mênh mông của kí ức cuộc đời hết người này đến người nọ đan xen và chồng chéo lên nhau. Chinatown là quá khứ, là thực tại được dồn trong hai tiếng đồng hồ trên một chuyến tàu. Chinatown là suy tư, tưởng niệm, đau đáu từ Việt Nam đến Yên Khê, qua Leningrad rồi dừng bước tại Paris trong thoáng chốc để rồi lại cuồn cuộn theo lộ trình của riêng nó, tuần hoàn, tuần tự. Câu chuyện của Chinatown tương đối lộn xộn, nhưng sự lộn xộn đó khiến người đọc (là mình) phải lưu tâm. Thực ra, ban đầu (tầm 40%) mình không khỏi cảm thấy choáng ngợp trước trùng trùng điệp điệp ngôn từ và những câu văn buồn xiết lòng mà khắc họa đậm chất xã hội lúc bấy giờ.
Một điều nữa gây ấn tượng với mình ở Chinatown là dòng suy nghĩ đầy trăn trở và cay đắng, thậm chí có phần tự giễu chính mình của nhân vật nữ chính. Thậm chí, có lúc suy nghĩ mình bị cuốn theo dòng tự sự của nhân vật, chính mình cũng muốn đi tìm Thụy, "muốn hỏi Thụy", "muốn hoãn tất cả", hay mệt nhoài trước sự đợi chờ vô vọng. Phải chăng cô cũng giống như thân phận người phụ nữ lúc bấy giờ, có phần mệt nhoài, có phần muốn buông bỏ, có phần thê lương? Hơn nữa, thân phận "tôi" bằng một cách nào đó để lại dấu ấn lớn với mình. "Tôi" là ai? Nhân vật "tôi" sở hữu thân phận nào? Một người mẹ đơn thân với tấm hộ chiếu CHXHCN Việt Nam, nuôi một đứa con trai trên đất Pháp, ở Belleville trung tâm quận 18 không ai muốn dính dáng? “Tôi” là một nghiên cứu sinh mãi không làm xong luận án tiến sĩ? Hay “tôi” là một người phụ nữ ba mươi chín tuổi với những biến cố của thời cuộc, của cuộc sống riêng tư nghĩ thôi cũng muốn bạc đầu? Hay “tôi” là nhà văn với cuốn truyện I’m yellow lồng ngay trong Chinatown? Có lẽ “Tôi” có lẽ là toàn bộ những vai diễn ấy, mặt nạ ấy những đồng thời cũng không là gì trừ việc tồn tại như một chứng tích về chính cuộc đời biến ảo của mình.
Tiếp đó, trải nghiệm sinh sống và làm việc của Thuận ở nước ngoài cũng góp phần không nhỏ vào thành công trong việc miêu tả cảnh sắc của Pháp lúc bấy giờ. Câu văn mở ra cảnh quan quen thuộc ở Pháp: đó là quận 13 với những toà chung cư chọc trời (bây giờ đa phần người ta gọi bằng tên quận Gobelins), Tang Frères, Belleville, văn phòng xin giấy cư trú, và người Pháp.
Hơn nữa, bức tranh xã hội ở Việt Nam lúc bấy giờ được phác họa khá rõ nét. Đó là một Hà Nội bao cấp, Hà Nội với Liên Xô, Hà Nội với những năm chống giặc Tàu trên biến giới. Hà Nội mở cửa, Hà Nội 1986, Hà Nội Đổi Mới. Đó là phố lồng đèn, là lũ vịt, là món chè đậu đen nấu bằng kẹo mậu dịch. Đó là nơi nặng nề thành kiến, sĩ diện, và ngờ vực. Đó là nơi với những bản hợp đồng trách nhiệm hư danh. Chính là như thế nên mình thích Chinatown bởi phải sống thật, nghĩ thật và dốc lòng thật mới có thể có những dòng chữ cay đắng đến thế.
Khép lại trang sách, câu văn "Người Việt khổ. Người Hoa khổ. Không ai khổ bằng người Việt gốc Hoa." liên tục dội lại trong tâm trí mình. Đừng quên, “Phải quên đi mà sống. Chân lý đấy phải quên đi mà sống”.
Một mê cung của ngôn từ
Một cuộc truy đuổi cảm xúc dồn dập.
Một dấu chấm hỏi về xã hội và con người.
Văn của Thuận rất khác, dồn dập, đặc sắc và ấn tượng. Chưa bao giờ mình đọc một tác phẩm văn học Việt Nam mà mình hoang mang đến như thế, ngay cả khi khép lại những trang sách, mình cứ như bị cuốn vào một lốc xoáy, liên tục xoay vòng.
Dấu ấn lớn nhất của mình với Chinatown chính là mê cung của ngôn từ và nghệ thuật lặp từ, lặp câu, lặp hình ảnh mà nhà văn Thuận đã sử dụng một cách tài tình. Nhiều câu văn nao lòng và đáng nhớ, ví dụ:
"Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi Thụy ở đâu, gặp ai, làm gì. Những ngày ấy. Những ngày ấy.
Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi Thụy. Về những ngày ấy.
Tôi muốn hoãn tất cả. Chỉ để gặp Thụy. Chỉ để hỏi Thụy những ngày ấy Thụy ở đâu, gặp ai, làm gì. Cuộc sống riêng của Thụy hiện nay tôi không cần biết. Nhưng tôi muốn biết những ngày ấy."
Chinatown là dòng chảy mênh mông của kí ức cuộc đời hết người này đến người nọ đan xen và chồng chéo lên nhau. Chinatown là quá khứ, là thực tại được dồn trong hai tiếng đồng hồ trên một chuyến tàu. Chinatown là suy tư, tưởng niệm, đau đáu từ Việt Nam đến Yên Khê, qua Leningrad rồi dừng bước tại Paris trong thoáng chốc để rồi lại cuồn cuộn theo lộ trình của riêng nó, tuần hoàn, tuần tự. Câu chuyện của Chinatown tương đối lộn xộn, nhưng sự lộn xộn đó khiến người đọc (là mình) phải lưu tâm. Thực ra, ban đầu (tầm 40%) mình không khỏi cảm thấy choáng ngợp trước trùng trùng điệp điệp ngôn từ và những câu văn buồn xiết lòng mà khắc họa đậm chất xã hội lúc bấy giờ.
Một điều nữa gây ấn tượng với mình ở Chinatown là dòng suy nghĩ đầy trăn trở và cay đắng, thậm chí có phần tự giễu chính mình của nhân vật nữ chính. Thậm chí, có lúc suy nghĩ mình bị cuốn theo dòng tự sự của nhân vật, chính mình cũng muốn đi tìm Thụy, "muốn hỏi Thụy", "muốn hoãn tất cả", hay mệt nhoài trước sự đợi chờ vô vọng. Phải chăng cô cũng giống như thân phận người phụ nữ lúc bấy giờ, có phần mệt nhoài, có phần muốn buông bỏ, có phần thê lương? Hơn nữa, thân phận "tôi" bằng một cách nào đó để lại dấu ấn lớn với mình. "Tôi" là ai? Nhân vật "tôi" sở hữu thân phận nào? Một người mẹ đơn thân với tấm hộ chiếu CHXHCN Việt Nam, nuôi một đứa con trai trên đất Pháp, ở Belleville trung tâm quận 18 không ai muốn dính dáng? “Tôi” là một nghiên cứu sinh mãi không làm xong luận án tiến sĩ? Hay “tôi” là một người phụ nữ ba mươi chín tuổi với những biến cố của thời cuộc, của cuộc sống riêng tư nghĩ thôi cũng muốn bạc đầu? Hay “tôi” là nhà văn với cuốn truyện I’m yellow lồng ngay trong Chinatown? Có lẽ “Tôi” có lẽ là toàn bộ những vai diễn ấy, mặt nạ ấy những đồng thời cũng không là gì trừ việc tồn tại như một chứng tích về chính cuộc đời biến ảo của mình.
Tiếp đó, trải nghiệm sinh sống và làm việc của Thuận ở nước ngoài cũng góp phần không nhỏ vào thành công trong việc miêu tả cảnh sắc của Pháp lúc bấy giờ. Câu văn mở ra cảnh quan quen thuộc ở Pháp: đó là quận 13 với những toà chung cư chọc trời (bây giờ đa phần người ta gọi bằng tên quận Gobelins), Tang Frères, Belleville, văn phòng xin giấy cư trú, và người Pháp.
Hơn nữa, bức tranh xã hội ở Việt Nam lúc bấy giờ được phác họa khá rõ nét. Đó là một Hà Nội bao cấp, Hà Nội với Liên Xô, Hà Nội với những năm chống giặc Tàu trên biến giới. Hà Nội mở cửa, Hà Nội 1986, Hà Nội Đổi Mới. Đó là phố lồng đèn, là lũ vịt, là món chè đậu đen nấu bằng kẹo mậu dịch. Đó là nơi nặng nề thành kiến, sĩ diện, và ngờ vực. Đó là nơi với những bản hợp đồng trách nhiệm hư danh. Chính là như thế nên mình thích Chinatown bởi phải sống thật, nghĩ thật và dốc lòng thật mới có thể có những dòng chữ cay đắng đến thế.
Khép lại trang sách, câu văn "Người Việt khổ. Người Hoa khổ. Không ai khổ bằng người Việt gốc Hoa." liên tục dội lại trong tâm trí mình. Đừng quên, “Phải quên đi mà sống. Chân lý đấy phải quên đi mà sống”.
November 12, 2022
Karena sekalian untuk ulasan di BBB, akan saya ulas dalam Bahasa Indonesia ya 😊
Buku ini ditulis oleh penulis asal Vietnam yang Thuận dalam Bahasa Vietnam kemudian diterjemahkan ke Bahasa Inggris oleh Nguyễn An Lý.
Melalui buku ini, kita diajak masuk ke dalam pikiran seorang wanita asal Vietnam yang bekerja sebagai pengajar di Paris. Pikiran ini kemudian tertuang menjadi monolog tanpa jeda dalam satu paragraf sepanjang satu buku. Ya. Satu paragraf.*
Sepanjang buku kita akan ikut menelusuri memori masa lalu dan imajinasi akan masa depan sang wanita, serta perasaannya kepada mantan suaminya, Thuy (juga ayah dari anak semata wayangnya, Vhin), yang tak bisa ia lupakan bahkan setelah belasan tahun. Hubungan mereka yang terjadi pasca perang Tiongkok-Vietnam rumit dan tidak disetujui keluarga karena Thuy adalah orang Cina Vietnam. Sementara itu sang wanita juga harus menanggung ekspektasi orang tuanya untuk sukses, bersekolah di Soviet.
Tentu saja selayaknya lamunan yang mengembara ke mana-mana, kita akan membaca kisah si karakter dengan pria Perancis yang penerimaan oleh orang tuanya sangat berbeda dengan Thuy, mengenang kepingan memori si karakter utama saat bersekolah di Soviet, diskriminasi yang diterimanya di tempatnya di Perancis, dan masih banyak lagi.
Dengan format yang cukup unik, buku ini membutuhkan konsentrasi kita saat membacanya. Pikiran dan memori yang meloncat maju mundur tanpa struktur kadang membuat saya harus berhenti sebentar dan membaca ulang, "Eh bentar-bentar ini lagi ngomongin apa? Siapa? Kapan kejadiannya?" (Yah namanya juga ngelamun kan 🥲) Ada juga kalimat yang diulang-ulang, misalnya "Forget in order to live."
Walau agak pusing membacanya, tapi menurut saya buku ini keren karena dari potongan-potongan lamunan itu kita bisa merasakan rasa cinta dan patah hati si karakter utama, obsesi keluarga negara dunia ke-3, diskriminasi dan rasisme, hingga kesepian dan krisis identitas yang kerap melanda kaum diaspora.
Salah satu hal menarik di edisi terbitan Tilted Axis Press adalah catatan dari penerjemah yang menceritakan pengalaman menerjemahkan buku ini. Saya jadi tahu bahwa dalam Bahasa Vietnam, lamunan panjang ini tidak semembingungkan dalam Bahasa Inggris karena ada variasi 'personal pronoun' yang lebih banyak.
Saya rekomendasikan untuk yang suka atau tertarik dengan buku yang:
- Berformat eksploratif
- Bertema diaspora dan identitas
- Bertema CLBK alias 'Cinta Lama Belum Kelar'
- Ditulis oleh penulis Asia Tenggara
---
*) Kecuali bagian di mana sang tokoh utama menuliskan cerpen yang sedang ia buat berjudul 'I'm Yellow' yang juga terinspirasi dari kisah hidup dan cintanya.
Buku ini ditulis oleh penulis asal Vietnam yang Thuận dalam Bahasa Vietnam kemudian diterjemahkan ke Bahasa Inggris oleh Nguyễn An Lý.
Melalui buku ini, kita diajak masuk ke dalam pikiran seorang wanita asal Vietnam yang bekerja sebagai pengajar di Paris. Pikiran ini kemudian tertuang menjadi monolog tanpa jeda dalam satu paragraf sepanjang satu buku. Ya. Satu paragraf.*
Sepanjang buku kita akan ikut menelusuri memori masa lalu dan imajinasi akan masa depan sang wanita, serta perasaannya kepada mantan suaminya, Thuy (juga ayah dari anak semata wayangnya, Vhin), yang tak bisa ia lupakan bahkan setelah belasan tahun. Hubungan mereka yang terjadi pasca perang Tiongkok-Vietnam rumit dan tidak disetujui keluarga karena Thuy adalah orang Cina Vietnam. Sementara itu sang wanita juga harus menanggung ekspektasi orang tuanya untuk sukses, bersekolah di Soviet.
Tentu saja selayaknya lamunan yang mengembara ke mana-mana, kita akan membaca kisah si karakter dengan pria Perancis yang penerimaan oleh orang tuanya sangat berbeda dengan Thuy, mengenang kepingan memori si karakter utama saat bersekolah di Soviet, diskriminasi yang diterimanya di tempatnya di Perancis, dan masih banyak lagi.
Dengan format yang cukup unik, buku ini membutuhkan konsentrasi kita saat membacanya. Pikiran dan memori yang meloncat maju mundur tanpa struktur kadang membuat saya harus berhenti sebentar dan membaca ulang, "Eh bentar-bentar ini lagi ngomongin apa? Siapa? Kapan kejadiannya?" (Yah namanya juga ngelamun kan 🥲) Ada juga kalimat yang diulang-ulang, misalnya "Forget in order to live."
Walau agak pusing membacanya, tapi menurut saya buku ini keren karena dari potongan-potongan lamunan itu kita bisa merasakan rasa cinta dan patah hati si karakter utama, obsesi keluarga negara dunia ke-3, diskriminasi dan rasisme, hingga kesepian dan krisis identitas yang kerap melanda kaum diaspora.
Salah satu hal menarik di edisi terbitan Tilted Axis Press adalah catatan dari penerjemah yang menceritakan pengalaman menerjemahkan buku ini. Saya jadi tahu bahwa dalam Bahasa Vietnam, lamunan panjang ini tidak semembingungkan dalam Bahasa Inggris karena ada variasi 'personal pronoun' yang lebih banyak.
Saya rekomendasikan untuk yang suka atau tertarik dengan buku yang:
- Berformat eksploratif
- Bertema diaspora dan identitas
- Bertema CLBK alias 'Cinta Lama Belum Kelar'
- Ditulis oleh penulis Asia Tenggara
---
*) Kecuali bagian di mana sang tokoh utama menuliskan cerpen yang sedang ia buat berjudul 'I'm Yellow' yang juga terinspirasi dari kisah hidup dan cintanya.
February 24, 2023
This takes place in 2004, when an abandoned sports bag is discovered on the Paris Métro, and the protagonist and narrator, a novelist and her 12-year-old son, are heading to a table tennis match, but caught in a lengthy delay as they wait for the authorities to arrive and investigate.
The novelist / narrator is a single mother, but still very much has feelings for her ex-husband. The delay gives her the chance to meditate on her life, her failed marriage, her teaching job, and as a teenager in the 1970s, in the run-up to the Sino-Vietnamese War.
I frequently struggle with monologue-type novels, but this I found even harder to get into. With the narrator in a sort of semi-conscious, dozy state, the author uses the tactic of repeating sentences and even certain scenes spiralling back to the where they began.
The novelist / narrator is a single mother, but still very much has feelings for her ex-husband. The delay gives her the chance to meditate on her life, her failed marriage, her teaching job, and as a teenager in the 1970s, in the run-up to the Sino-Vietnamese War.
I frequently struggle with monologue-type novels, but this I found even harder to get into. With the narrator in a sort of semi-conscious, dozy state, the author uses the tactic of repeating sentences and even certain scenes spiralling back to the where they began.
April 3, 2023
I struggled with this.
A woman, waiting on a stationary train, remembers and muses upon her life: her past in Vietnam, her life in Paris, her son, the husband that left. Her thoughts meander and the story emerges piecemeal through repetition. That could have worked but eventually, as digression followed digression, I was lost.
The reading experience wasn't helped by the lack of paragraph breaks. Why do writers do this? What does it contribute that could offset how much harder it makes it to enjoy a book? In this case it just compounded the difficulties I had with the narrative and by the end I was reading to get to the end more than I was enjoying myself.
I am quite prepared to believe that the problem lay with me, that another more engaged reader might find their attention rewarded. But for me it was a weak 3 stars - in truth my reading experience was more like 2 stars, but I think that may be a bit harsh on a book other people may get more out of than I did.
A woman, waiting on a stationary train, remembers and muses upon her life: her past in Vietnam, her life in Paris, her son, the husband that left. Her thoughts meander and the story emerges piecemeal through repetition. That could have worked but eventually, as digression followed digression, I was lost.
The reading experience wasn't helped by the lack of paragraph breaks. Why do writers do this? What does it contribute that could offset how much harder it makes it to enjoy a book? In this case it just compounded the difficulties I had with the narrative and by the end I was reading to get to the end more than I was enjoying myself.
I am quite prepared to believe that the problem lay with me, that another more engaged reader might find their attention rewarded. But for me it was a weak 3 stars - in truth my reading experience was more like 2 stars, but I think that may be a bit harsh on a book other people may get more out of than I did.
January 1, 2015
Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi Thụy ở đâu, gặp ai, làm gì. Những ngày ấy. Những ngày ấy.
Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi Thụy. Về những ngày ấy.
Tôi muốn hoãn tất cả. Chỉ để gặp Thụy. Chỉ để hỏi Thụy những ngày ấy Thụy ở đâu, gặp ai, làm gì. Cuộc sống riêng của Thụy hiện nay tôi không cần biết. Nhưng tôi muốn biết những ngày ấy.
tôi cũng muốn hỏi :D
khi đọc cuốn sách này lần đầu, tôi đã cảm thấy rất khó khăn với những câu ngắn, nối dài không ngừng. tôi đọc được nửa cuốn. một chiều tháng 12 nào đó, khi đọc phần còn lại, tôi lại thấy rất thân quen với cách viết như vậy. gấp cuốn sách lại, tôi thực muốn đọc một lần nữa.
Tôi chỉ muốn hỏi Thụy. Về những ngày ấy.
Tôi muốn hoãn tất cả. Chỉ để gặp Thụy. Chỉ để hỏi Thụy những ngày ấy Thụy ở đâu, gặp ai, làm gì. Cuộc sống riêng của Thụy hiện nay tôi không cần biết. Nhưng tôi muốn biết những ngày ấy.
tôi cũng muốn hỏi :D
khi đọc cuốn sách này lần đầu, tôi đã cảm thấy rất khó khăn với những câu ngắn, nối dài không ngừng. tôi đọc được nửa cuốn. một chiều tháng 12 nào đó, khi đọc phần còn lại, tôi lại thấy rất thân quen với cách viết như vậy. gấp cuốn sách lại, tôi thực muốn đọc một lần nữa.
June 26, 2015
Điệu Waltz buồn nhất mà tôi từng nhảy.
April 30, 2023
i keep trying to explain this book but all i come up with are adjectives like hypnotic, mesmerizing, captivating. viet thanh nguyen blurbed this book calling it “a fever dream, a hallucination” & he was spot on.
thuận’s prose is so unique & has a fascinating rhythm to it as she uses repetition of words & phrases to make connections & emphasize feelings. the whole book is an ethereal stream of consciousness monologue from a woman reminiscing on her life. the memories move at a slow yet urgent pace, blur the lines between the past & the future, & exude such a haunting feeling of loneliness. themes of heartbreak, racism (including within the asian diaspora), immigration/displacement, & family relationships are explored in a way that is somehow poignant & emotional, despite how sparse the prose is.
i feel like there were many times i had no idea what exactly was happening, but i knew how exactly how our narrator felt & how the author wanted me to feel. the repetitive, obsessive prose was just so effective in prompting feelings of loneliness & despair without spelling anything out.
this book truly was so disorienting & i LOVED it. it was not an easy read by any means, i was often lost in the time jumps & had to look up a decent amount of việt sociopolitical history to make sense of the context, but i just appreciated it all so much. i want to recommend this book to everyone because i simply *need* to discuss it, but i also think it’s a read that is not for everyone. my tiny lil brain often struggles with books like this that totally disregard the typical conventions of space, time, & storytelling, so it was a pleasant surprise that i was so obsessed with it.
just such an incredibly challenging, but brilliant, brilliant book.
thuận’s prose is so unique & has a fascinating rhythm to it as she uses repetition of words & phrases to make connections & emphasize feelings. the whole book is an ethereal stream of consciousness monologue from a woman reminiscing on her life. the memories move at a slow yet urgent pace, blur the lines between the past & the future, & exude such a haunting feeling of loneliness. themes of heartbreak, racism (including within the asian diaspora), immigration/displacement, & family relationships are explored in a way that is somehow poignant & emotional, despite how sparse the prose is.
i feel like there were many times i had no idea what exactly was happening, but i knew how exactly how our narrator felt & how the author wanted me to feel. the repetitive, obsessive prose was just so effective in prompting feelings of loneliness & despair without spelling anything out.
this book truly was so disorienting & i LOVED it. it was not an easy read by any means, i was often lost in the time jumps & had to look up a decent amount of việt sociopolitical history to make sense of the context, but i just appreciated it all so much. i want to recommend this book to everyone because i simply *need* to discuss it, but i also think it’s a read that is not for everyone. my tiny lil brain often struggles with books like this that totally disregard the typical conventions of space, time, & storytelling, so it was a pleasant surprise that i was so obsessed with it.
just such an incredibly challenging, but brilliant, brilliant book.
February 25, 2024
mesmerising and dreamlike yet sharp, incisive, and always in control... Wow...!!
"He dreamt that the two thousand Chinatowns were threatened with twenty million viruses capable of gutting them from the inside out, and after a week of intensive research twenty veteran computer technicians from China had found the cause but dare not make it publicly known yet. Beijing acted as if nothing whatsoever had happened, the Voice of Beijing never mentioned it, and the news was replaced with The East is Red we have Mao Ze Dong playing on a loop. Rumours were quietly bubbling that the top computer expert of 2004, whose identity had been shrouded in mystery, had accepted from Beijing twenty million dollars and a tour of the Great Wall to engineer a male virus, four times as cagey as the bigender Y2K virus. Beijing had multiplied it into twenty million computers in two thousand Chinatowns all over the globe. All they wanted to do was understand the pace of economic development of Chinese diasporic communities. They couldn't foresee that those twenty million cagey male viruses could get out of the computers into real life and continue to gut our world from the inside out. Right now, Beijing was in negotiation with the top computer expert of 2004, promising another twenty million dollars and a tour around twenty forbidden cities to engineer a female virus of unprecedented beauty. Beijing would bring it home, take twenty-four hours to train it thoroughly in twenty-four stratagems of honey trap, then multiply it into twenty million copies to disperse among the two thousand Chinatowns. Vĩnh said he dreamt that the whole world ceased their activities, even Iraqi guerrillas and American soldiers ceased firing at each other, to witness the historical encounter between the viral couple par excellence."
"He dreamt that the two thousand Chinatowns were threatened with twenty million viruses capable of gutting them from the inside out, and after a week of intensive research twenty veteran computer technicians from China had found the cause but dare not make it publicly known yet. Beijing acted as if nothing whatsoever had happened, the Voice of Beijing never mentioned it, and the news was replaced with The East is Red we have Mao Ze Dong playing on a loop. Rumours were quietly bubbling that the top computer expert of 2004, whose identity had been shrouded in mystery, had accepted from Beijing twenty million dollars and a tour of the Great Wall to engineer a male virus, four times as cagey as the bigender Y2K virus. Beijing had multiplied it into twenty million computers in two thousand Chinatowns all over the globe. All they wanted to do was understand the pace of economic development of Chinese diasporic communities. They couldn't foresee that those twenty million cagey male viruses could get out of the computers into real life and continue to gut our world from the inside out. Right now, Beijing was in negotiation with the top computer expert of 2004, promising another twenty million dollars and a tour around twenty forbidden cities to engineer a female virus of unprecedented beauty. Beijing would bring it home, take twenty-four hours to train it thoroughly in twenty-four stratagems of honey trap, then multiply it into twenty million copies to disperse among the two thousand Chinatowns. Vĩnh said he dreamt that the whole world ceased their activities, even Iraqi guerrillas and American soldiers ceased firing at each other, to witness the historical encounter between the viral couple par excellence."
January 4, 2024
Am going to try to write more reviews in 2024. Picked a translated edition of this somewhere someplace and really glad to have found it. A train in Paris comes to a halt and we follow the narrator’s mind as she spins through the past 39 years in spent in Hanoi, Leningrad, and Paris. For me, what stood out the most was different precipitations of ethnicity and identity in her existences in those three places told through her whirling consciousness, reflections on her Chinese-Vietnamese husband & their son, and excerpts from her novel. Lucky to have stumbled across this.
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