I enjoyed the two books pictured in this post this week. You wouldn’t think they would have any similarities in common, other than their short length. Yet both include some vivid sentences and wisdom.
As for “Ru,” I was drawn to it after I heard the author Kim Thuy talking about it on NPR a couple weeks ago. Her first page, which was read on the radio, snapped me to attention:
I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chains of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of machine guns.
I first saw the light of day in Saigon, where firecrackers, fragmented into a thousand shreds, coloured the ground red like the petals of cherry blossoms or like the blood of the two million soldiers deployed and scattered throughout the villages and cities of a Vietnam that had been ripped in two.
I was born in the shadow of skies adorned with fireworks, decorated with garlands of light, shot through with rockets and missiles. The purpose of my birth was to replace lives that had been lost. My life’s duty was to prolong that of my mother.
“Ru” is an autobiographical novel that parallels Thuy and her family’s boat journey out of Saigon after the Vietnam War to a crowded Malaysian refugee camp for four months and eventually to a new life in Quebec. It’s told in a series of vignettes, the memories of which usually encompass a page each in the book and are shuffled back and forth between the various times of her life.
On the good side, the novel made me feel what it was like for the “boat people” who came over from Vietnam, their risks, fears and struggles. It also showed a glimpse into Vietnamese families and their culture, and especially expressed the feelings of living in a place of war and peace. “Ru’s” quite lyrical in the way it’s written, the passages evoke poetry in places, which I found both evocative and moving.
Just sometimes I got a bit lost in “Ru,” not knowing exactly who or what she was talking about, and maybe I couldn’t understand everything because of a cultural gap or perhaps the book’s back-and-forth structure. But still “Ru” left me with an impressionable picture of the boat people and of a survivor who seems grateful to have come through the hard sides of both war and peace.
“Good Dog. Stay.” from 2007 by Anna Quindlen was another pretty impulsive read this week. (Who knew she wrote a dog book?) It arrived in a package of dog books from my sister-in-law who was giving her collection away to us because we had recently gotten a puppy. The book is actually about Quindlen’s older dog, Beau, who is in the last stages of his life. In her usual wise and witty prose, Quindlen tells stories about Beau’s life and what she has learned from him along the way. Interspersed throughout it are lovely photos of a wide variety of dogs.
For anyone who appreciates canines or has lived through the passing of an old dog, “Good Dog. Stay.” is quite a soothing and touching quick read. It makes me want to read more dog stories, as well as other titles from Anna Quindlen. I think we can relate. Among other things, she knows the value of a dog’s life well-lived.
Good Dog. Stay. sounds wonderful to me. I’m sure I’d sob as I read it though, since we lost our dog of almost 17 years recently.
Yeah I sort of teared up reading it. So hard when a dog passes away
I have read some great dog books this year…and I love anything by Anna Quindlen so this is one I’m going to check out.
As for Ru, I personally experienced what it was like for the boat people from the side of those who “receive” the immigrants into their community. I worked for an agency that tried to help them assimilate…and heard their stories and their desperation.
Thanks for sharing….and here’s MY SUNDAY SALON POST
Interesting Laurel. So great of you to have helped immigrants from the boats. Thanks for stopping by. I will check out your post as well. SW
Ru sounds like an interesting book. I’ll have to check it out. 🙂
My Sunday Salon
Yeah it is pretty interesting. Thanks Rachel for stopping by. Will check out yours too
I’d like to read Ru, having read about and met people who came over by boat after the war.
Yeah it’s worth checking out; thanks Harvee for stopping by.