Rough Guide to Vietnam - Jan Dodd [385]
Y Lan Muon Hoi Tai Sao/I Want to Ask Why Y Lan Productions, US. From a well-known artistic family, she became a café owner before becoming a regular at the Ritz and Paris By Nightcircuit.
With contributions by Philip Blackburn (from The Rough Guide to World Music)
Books
Of the vast canon of books written on the subject of Vietnam, the overwhelming majority concern themselves, inevitably, with the American War. Indigenous attempts to come to terms with the conflicts that have caused Vietnam such pain are only now beginning to filter through the country’s overcautious censorship. Some of the few novels that have reached the West in recent years are also reviewed below.
For a decent copy of a book on Vietnam, your best bet is to scour bookshops before you set off from home – only Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have ranges of literature of any breadth, and then often only in photocopied offprint form. The exceptions to this are books produced by local publishers, notably The Gioi Publishers, which you’ll have difficulty finding outside Vietnam.
Books |
Travel writing
Maria Coffey Three Moons in Vietnam. Delightfully jolly jaunt around Vietnam by boat, bus and bicycle. Coffey conspires to meet more locals in one day than most travellers do in a month, making this a valuable snapshot of modern Vietnam.
Sue Downie Down Highway One. In 1988 Sue Downie was one of the first Westerners since the American War to travel the length of Highway 1. Returning in the early 1990s, she witnesses the changes – not all good – transforming the country and people’s daily lives.
Graham Greene Ways of Escape. Greene’s global travels in the 1950s took him to Vietnam for four consecutive winters; the coverage of Vietnam in this slim autobiographical volume is intriguing, but tantalizingly short, its memories of dice-playing with French agents over vermouths and opium-smoking in Cho Lon are evidently templates for scenes in The Quiet American.
Christopher Hunt Sparring with Charlie. Hunt can be a maddening travelling companion, but this account of his jaunt down the Ho Chi Minh Trail on a Russian-made motorbike is undeniably a page-turner.
Norman Lewis A Dragon Apparent. When in 1950 Lewis made the journey that would inspire his seminal Indochina travelogue, the Vietnam he saw was still a land of longhouses and Imperial hunts, though poised for renewed conflict; the erudite prose of this doyen of travel writers reveals a Vietnam now long gone.
W. Somerset Maugham The Gentleman in the Parlour. The fruit of Maugham’s grand tour from Rangoon to Haiphong to recharge his creative batteries, The Gentleman in the Parlour, finds him less than enamoured of Vietnam, his last stop. Nevertheless, his accounts of the Hué court teetering on the brink of extinction, and of a run-in with an old acquaintance in a Haiphong café, are vintage Maugham.
Karin Muller Hitchhiking Vietnam. A feisty American, Karin Muller went searching for the “real Vietnam”, a Vietnam untouched by commercialism and Western culture. On the way she gets deported, is arrested on numerous occasions and meets some motley characters, but eventually finds what she’s looking for among the minorities of the northwest mountains. Beautifully told, with great compassion and a never-failing sense of humour.
Andrew X. Pham Catfish and Mandala. After twenty years in America, Pham takes a gruelling bike ride through Vietnam to rediscover the country, his family and – in the process – himself. A compelling insight into the frustrations and fascinations of Vietnam.
Gontran de Poncins From a Chinese City. Believing that “the ancient customs of a national culture endure longer in remote colonies than in the motherland”, de Poncins opted for a sojourn in Cho Lon as a means to a better understanding of the foibles of the Chinese; the resulting document of life in 1955 Cho Lon is a lively period piece, backed up by fluid illustrations.
Pam Scott Hanoi Stories and Life in Hanoi. Hanoi and its inhabitants – both local and expat, from its celebrities to