Beyond Illusions
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A Vietnamese writer's luminous debutREVIEW BY KENNETH CHAMPEONIdealistic professor and romantic student fall in love. Oh, no -- not again! If there is any blight on contemporary literature worth eradicating, it is the professor-student romance, written, invariably, by a professor. But wait! Vietnamese professor in Hanoi marries student, has child. To support wife and child, professor writes and sells articles favorable to Vietnam's corrupt government. Wife declares husband a sell-out, leaves him, finds new beau. Despondent husband hits the bottle and, somewhat accidentally, has his own amour. This story line is something new under the sun. Thus begins Duong Thu Huong's exceptional first novel, Beyond Illusions, now available for the first time in America. Huong, the Hanoi-based author of Memories of a Pure Spring, Novel Without a Name and Paradise of the Blind, fought on the side of the Communists during the Vietnam War. But for her subsequent criticism of the government she has been in and out of jail, and her books are banned in her homeland. Elsewhere her writing has been widely acclaimed for its candor, regarding not only the disastrous effects of what the Vietnamese call the "American War" -- to distinguish it from the "French War" -- but also the disappointments of post-war society. Huong is equally deft in dealing with the no less complicated world of the human soul. Beyond Illusions presents a Vietnam still scarred by wartime memories of deprivation, long marches to the front and the American bombings. But it also shows a Vietnam still hoping that the "Resistance" will bear less bitter fruit. From this grim political backdrop shine forth individuals still occupied with the personal: the provocative bon vivant journalist Ngoc Minh; the chain-smoking, well-intentioned professor Nguyen; his wife, the brilliant, obstinate humanities teacher Linh; and her new lover, the talented composer and unctuous philanderer Tran Phuong. A bitter irony of war is that it engenders literary renaissance: witness the Lost Generation. Now, from the tragedy that was Vietnam comes a new breed of Vietnamese writers, showing their side of a war still enshrouded in American myths. With Beyond Illusions, Duong Thu Huong establishes herself as their leading voice, and a voice well worth heeding. Kenneth Champeon lives in Thailand and has written about the Vietnam War.
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