Trang chính » Biên Khảo, Dịch Thuật, Nhận Định, Từ Việt ngữ Email bài này

The Passing of April…

English version edited by Đinh Từ Bích Thúy

The last days of April also mark the (temporary) end of Damau’s "War" topic. War itself, unfortunately, has not, and will not, stop[ped] even for a short moment. Somewhere on this planet, blood and tears continue to shed for questionable goals.

First of all, it is not my intention to provide a thorough analysis of articles published in the last three consecutive Damau issues (23, 24, 25). A huge amount of works that are diverse in genres as well as subject matters has made it very difficult for me to accomplish the task, especially when working under time pressure. What is needed (but has not been granted) is a generous span of time and a reasonable "distance" to ensure that the topic of War and its literary responses—like the forest and its trees–can be properly observed. Thus, what is expressed here simply reflects broad impressions gathered from reading Damau’s April issues.

War depicts destruction, and is itself destruction. Poems written by Paul Celan, Nguyen Tien Duc, Le An The, Tran Ly Nhien Dang, and stories told by Tim O’Brien, Kinh Duong Vuong, Spôjmai Zariâb, Tran Mong Tu, Dang Tho Tho speak loudly for this fact. War implies not only the physical, but also holistic annihilation of the known and tangible world. This systematic destruction, however, has been depicted again and again in the realm of literature. How do our contributing authors approach the multifaceted destruction of war without treading on the footsteps of their predecessors? How can writers write about war without sounding trite or sentimental?

War is the S-shaped tattoo on Monique Truong’s body (and not only on her body), the discomfort of being marked for a country that waged war against itself (Real and Flawed). War yields the romantic yet belated nine-word poem by Duong Nhu Nguyen (Her Nine Words). War is the symphony of music and the thud thud of the grave diggers’ tools captured by Paul Celan (Todesfuge). War reconstructs hunger in the story of a wedding ring sold for a small piece of bread as told by Luu Dieu Van’s mother (My Story of 1975). War is glimpsed through a widow’s 30-year-old crystallized tears that, like in an ancient Vietnamese fairytale, suddenly liquefy through the release of pent-up grief (Tran Mong Tu, Binh Thuy 1969). War marks the sharp constrast between grapes and military boots (Spôjmai Zariâb, Combat Boots in Fevered Dreams). War projects the twenty-year long "evacuation" to planet Gliese 581c (Dinh Tu Bich Thuy, Gliese 581c). From the sky, war shoots the arbitrary bullet that implodes Le Anh Hoai’s fate (The Stray Bullet). War rewrites, reshuffles, and redreams history from the most unexpected angle in Dang Tho Tho’s History, A Photo-Negative View. And in unique, postmodern fashion, other authors have also spoken of the "horror" that, according to Luu Hy Lac, has been mistakenly thought to be an old, cliché refrain.

Most importantly, war has been used to justify other dark, ulterior motives, repeatedly and tirelessly until it has become unalienable from lies. Dinh Linh mentions this in his review of the movie "Apocalypse Now." ‘This is a movie that Coppola famously declared "is not about Vietnam – it is Vietnam".’ According to Dinh Linh, ‘This movie, then, is really about a bunch of pale guys, Coppola included, wading into their own hearts of darkness. It is certainly not about Vietnam. I’m not even sure it’s a Vietnam war movie’ (Apocalypse Lies). Obviously Vietnam doesn’t need such a movie. The inhabitants of Dresden did not need the Allies’ brutal and vainglorious show of force in the last phase of second World War. What about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Who among us have the answers? And Baghdad? Darfur? The mourning dove calls in Thuan’s final dream is a symbolic, though belated, rejection of the need to wage wars, "holy wars" included, in the name of great ideals and honors (Phung Nguyen, Mourning Dove Calls in Garden).

Like an octopus’s wily tentacles, war lurks in every place, every generation, creating havocs, making victims of those caught in its omnipresent grasp. War victims are those who have lost one or more precious things. Life. Freedom. Livelihood. Homeland. Innocence. Loved ones. Even at the end of a war, devastation does not immediately cease. During and after a war, there is exile. Lives are deracinated, chopped off, brought down. Baggage for the exiled is nothing but debris of dead or dying lives.

In Gliese 581c, Dinh Tu Bich Thuy offers war victims a solution: a 120 trillion mile ‘spacelift’ to the newly discovered planet with all the "legacy" the refugees are permitted to bring along. This is indeed a plausible effort, in spite of the current cynicism concerning the helplessness of human against warmongering forces–in starting a tiny spark of light, however illusory, to shine on the gloomy backdrop of war. Nonetheless, as acknowledged by Dinh Tu Bich Thuy, exile is exile is exile regardless of what it may be called and where it may take place.

While not leaving planet Earth, Dang Tho Tho is able to push the concept developed in Gliese 581c a step further: no solutions are needed. Because there will be no exile once war ends in true peace. "… Prisons shall be demolished. We had played a foolish game for the last 30 years, and thanks God, it is now over." There will be no roots to be uprooted, no trees to be brought down. However, there remains “a small, random crack. The very crack that renders things ill-fitting, repellent." It’s very true, my dear Thơ Thơ. The crack—South Vietnam’s defeat, or the collective death of an entire era–reveals an unfathomable abyss of losses and obliterates all attempts to reassess and rewrite history.

Are there valuable things that war victims can keep for themselves? Certainly there are: Poetry by Paul Celan and by other "witness" poets whose works are cited or mentioned in Carolyn Forché’s anthology "Twentieth-century poetry of witness." Poems in "South Vietnam poetry in Wartime" collected by Tran Hoai Thu and his friends. In "The Vietnam War and I" by Nguyen Bac Son. In all, the one thing that is difficult to cherish but still needs to be cherished, in the midst of unspeakable sufferings, is humanity, dangling precariously between life and death and good and evil. Humanity is the sole virtue that helps war victims to rise again from the ashes of their extreme fates.

April, however cruel*, is about to end. War, in the meantime, has not. Perhaps, like Do Le Anhdao, we should

… stretch to listen and to remember
when they so easily forgot the wars of the past
to start the wars of the future
————————-
Notes:

* "April is the cruellest month….”

T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland

bài đã đăng của Phùng Nguyễn

@2006-2025 damau.org ♦ Tạp Chí Văn Chương Da Màu
Tạp Chí Văn Chương Da Màu
Log in | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)