EPILOGUE
by Trịnh Y Thư
1.
This book, entitled Creative World of South Vietnam 1954-1975 and Overseas to the Present (2025), originally known as Literary, Artistic, and Cultural Portraits, by the eminent author Ngô Thế Vinh with English translation by the American scholar Eric Henry is a unique book, in the sense that it presents to the general readers fresh images of many personalities including writers, novelists, poets, journalists, painters, musicians and other cultural figures, who, by all accounts, have been among the most respected and influential intellectuals in Vietnam.
Endowed throughout with the author’s warm, story-telling style, Ngô Thế Vinh’s book is a rich compilation of documents, a rare collection of portraits of literary and cultural figures of an era considered the most turbulent in the nation from the second half of the 20th century until now. Ngô Thế Vinh does not pretend to be a critic. He does not stand on a podium to criticize the works or careers of the figures he writes about. One reason for this is that they are not strangers to him but friends in art, talented figures who in the most difficult conditions devoted almost their entire lives to the creation of a humane and artistically significant body of literature, art, and music for the nation. From the depth of his memories, the author penetrates every corner of his and their souls, sometimes from under the thick layer of the dust of time, trying to find just the right tones with which to create his beautiful, nostalgic pages, filled with the warmth of friendship, and with all manner of humanity. The studies in this book all have the character of sketches that convey the living environment, the creative circumstances, of his subjects who, like him, were artists and intellectuals. Interwoven with his narratives are spaces and times filled with memories, with each memory being cherished and treasured like a precious object. However, if we read attentively, we can detect another element in these accounts: beneath the relatively gentle, soft layer of color on the narrative surface, there is a firm conviction, a resolute view, plus a bit of pride, concerning a body literature, art and science that developed freely in Vietnam in the period from 1954 to 1975 and which, to some extent, continues to exist overseas, whose breakthroughs in terms of ideology, art, and human life seem never to have been surpassed.
2.
Of the many people portrayed, only two people from the post-1975 generation of writers are mentioned, Cao Xuân Huy and Phùng Nguyễn. However, whether earlier or later, all of them experienced the violent, stormy, unstable conditions that prevailed in the nation in the second half of the 20th century. Therefore, whether we like it or not, history exists everywhere and sticks to everyone’s life. The existence of humans is tied and linked to the surrounding world just as closely as a snail adhering to its shell. The world is an inseparable dimension of humanity; as the world changes, injustice and misery also change. The world we exist in has a historical dimension. The life process of us all unfolds in time marked by milestones (such as, for example, April 30, 1975). This book by Ngô Thế Vinh does not deviate from that basic aspect of the human condition, but it rejects historical prejudice and focuses only on episodes that are important, that are anthropologically significant, whether forgotten or remembered, with no special weight given to the views of historians or politicians.
History is manifested in the handwritten note that accompanied Nhất Linh’s last will and testament, given by one student to another in front of a university dormitory. History appeared in the touching farewell in the midst of the 25th-hour chaos between journalist Như Phong Lê Văn Tiến and Đỗ Thúc Vịnh’s family on Tự Đức Street. History darted from the darkness when: “… after the surrender order was issued, one could see from several high floors a shower of confetti, all white, the color of the personal papers of the military and government officials that needed to be torn up before the communists completely controlled Saigon.” History appeared as “the shoes and caps of military uniforms were hastily shed and thrown in tatters on the street.” History appeared when writer Lê Tất Điều saw the writer Võ Phiến weeping on the ship anchored offshore during their flight from the country, leaving the homeland with no prospect of return. History appeared when writer Phạm Việt Châu committed suicide at his home after the Communists took complete control over the South. History appeared in the immeasurable pain of the poet Thanh Tâm Tuyền when his son went missing while crossing the sea. History appeared when writer Nhật Tiến and two journalists Dương Phục-Vũ Thanh Thủy “sent news to the world about the tragedy in the East Sea, which shook the conscience of the world and which also led to the initial step in forming the Committee to Rescue Refugees that would operate for many years to come.” The list goes on.
That history, in the drunkenness of victory by the winning side, became so turbulent that it led to an act of extreme barbarism: the book-burning campaign.
As a writer having to witness such barbaric counter-cultural acts, Ngô Thế Vinh must have felt extreme pain. He mentions it many times in his book. Let’s listen to him describe the book burning scene in tones that express his indignation:
“… They trampled on books, set fire to stacks of books, and even entire book warehouses. Books that most of them had never read, including a whole bookshelf of a series entitled “Learning to Be Morally Mature.” Books by so-called “literary commandos” were also displayed in the exhibition building of “American and Puppet Crimes,” along with weapons of war and tiger cages, and of course there were books by Dương Nghiễm Mậu, including this writer’s own work Green Belt.”
Or in another passage, less indignant but no less painful, commenting on the writer Nguyễn Đình Toàn, he says:
“Nguyễn Đình Toàn’s books were classified as decadent culture after 1975; so all of them were confiscated and turned into “Ashes,” the name of a prophetic work by Nguyen Dinh Toan himself in the book burning campaign that spread throughout the South at that time.”
“We need a history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but in order to escape it,” the Spanish philosopher José Ortega Y Gasset once said. Our human history over the past hundred years has had too many holes, each one as big as the one that Ngô Thế Vinh presents. How can we have a history in its entirety when instead of patching up the holes to make them whole, we tear them apart even more? If Mr. Ortega Y Gasset were still alive, he would probably shake his head in dismay at us. And Ngô Thế Vinh, faced with that upheaval, cannot contain his anger. With a steely voice, he says:
“Not only did this unjust imprisonment destroy bodies, it also killed the creativity of artists during their most productive years. It was an attempt to destroy an entire culture to its roots: before the tribunal of history, who must take responsibility for these eternal crimes?”
To ask is to answer. But when will that tribunal be established to judge the guilty? Half a century has passed in oblivion, and perhaps the “eternal crime” that Ngô Thế Vinh reminds us of will quietly drift into eternity.
3.
Ngô Thế Vinh does not follow any particular formula in this series of articles. He writes his “portraits” spontaneously, in accordance with his own feelings and personal relationships. Thanks to that, we are not faced here with a series of matter-of-fact biographical accounts. On the contrary, each portrait has unique aspects. Each portrait is a story with different levels of emotion, sometimes passionate, sometimes melancholy, sometimes bitter, sometimes angry, sometimes smiling, but also at times tearful. Through Ngô Thế Vinh’s flexible but honest pen, the subjects of these portraits become suddenly “brighter”, closer to the reader, and we are given the means to gain a better understanding of their work.
He tells us much about the life and literary career of the writer Mặc Đỗ, and does not hide his admiration and respect for the senior writer in the famous Quan Điểm (“Viewpoint”) group of South Vietnam. Each short story of Mặc Đỗ is considered by him to be a “pearl in a pearl necklace” and he writes that “his language is rich in imagery but concise and refined.”
He also loves the novels and short stories of the writer Linh Bảo such as “North Wind”, “Rainy Nights” and “The Old Horse Stable.” According to Ngô Thế Vinh, “Linh Bảo’s pen is intelligent and sharp, mockingly revealing the negative aspects of life. Her style is cruelly mischievous, even at times bitter.” The women in Linh Bảo’s works, though tough and enduring, are always “unfortunate victims of circumstance.” He goes further when he comments that through her works, Linh Bảo was fighting for women’s rights, a noteworthy datum for those who wish to research Feminism in the literary works of female writers in South Vietnam during the period 54-75.
Restless Sleep, a novel by Nhật Tiến about the devastation wrought in a remote village due to the circumstance that it was Nationalist by day and Viet Cong by night, is also mentioned by him with nostalgia and sorrow:
“… the villagers lived half-dead between two lines of bullets with hatred surrounding them day and night. The young men and children in that village were close to each other, but when the war broke out, neighbors and even brothers killed each other, causing many tragic and painful scenes.”
Ngô Thế Vinh mentioned as well that this book by Nhật Tiến “stated truthfully that there was no mass uprising of people protesting the Republican regime, as the so-called National Liberation Front claimed in their propaganda, and that is why the book and its author were condemned by the Hanoi Communist leadership as extremely reactionary, a one-size-fits-all charge for anyone who disagreed with their political line.
Ngô Thế Vinh is by nature a social writer sensitive to the periods in which he lives. His works throughout his career demonstrate this, and it is not surprising that he sympathizes with works such as Restless Sleep by the writer Nhật Tiến or the novels of another writer, Nguyễn Đình Toàn. He writes about Nguyễn Đình Toàn as follows:
“Faded Dream is a premonition of a Hanoi that is about to be lost, and Field of Grass, another work, depicts a Saigon that is about to fall. Nguyễn Đình Toàn, he writes, is sensitive to changes in weather as well as to historical changes. The writer’s premonition or intuition before the tragedy, before the separations, is prophetic.”
Ngô Thế Vinh has a special admiration for the series of books entitled Twenty Years of Literature in South Vietnam compiled by by Võ Phiến. Võ Phiến devoted great effort to this monumental work. When it was released to the overseas public, it was criticized by a minority of readers as biased (failure to mention some important authors), narrow in its view of poetry (failure to mention innovative poets), and lacking in serious criticism (because the style was sometimes mocking and satirical), etc. However, the majority, writers as well as readers, enthusiastically welcomed the book as a valuable and worthy work that lay beyond the capability of most others. Ngô Thế Vinh was in the majority. He expresses his opinion on that controversy in these terms:
“Võ Phiến’s research work needs to be evaluated in a way that takes account of the circumstances of its birth: it emerged in the first decade right after 1975, when within the country there was a comprehensive strategy of destruction aimed at wiping out twenty years of South Vietnamese literature. This effort at rescue and collection should be considered a worthy beginning. Everyone should understand that Võ Phiến’s “unprofessional” effort will never be the only or the last book of Vietnamese literary criticism: it is rather a facilitating step, a roadmap leading to quantities of reference material, it is like a launching pad for the more comprehensive works to come. This will be the responsibility of professional critics. They will need to have the courage to inaugurate a serious evaluation of the literature of 1954-75. They will need to create praiseworthy works of criticism themselves, instead of just focusing on the “half-empty part” of Võ Phiến’s series of studies. A question therefore arises: Who among us can seriously start such a research work? And a further question: Who will inherit the rich collection of documents that Võ Phiến had before it falls into oblivion?”
The answer to both questions asked by Ngô Thế Vinh can only be a single “Not yet.” No one has been able to do it, even though 30 years have passed since Võ Phiến completed the last book in the series.
(It should also be added that though the Communist regime tried in every conceivable way to wipe out the twenty-year literature of the South, the truth is that it still exists today and is preserved and loved by later generations, both overseas and within the country. More importantly, the streams of thought that originated from it, most importantly the idea of freedom, have remained with us forever. You can burn many books, even the books of the most brilliant minds, but the ideas in those books have flowed through millions of rivers and will continue to flow forever. No brutal force can bury the most basic and beautiful human qualities.)
With respectable figures who devoted their whole lives to fighting or contributing their talents and knowledge to the country, such as journalist Như Phong Lê Văn Tiến, Doctor Phạm Biểu Tâm, scientist Phạm Hoàng Hổ, etc., Ngô Thế Vinh always emphasizes his respect. But with his personal associates, like the painter Nghiêu Đề, whom he refers to as his close friend, it is different. Here, we encounter a kind-hearted Ngô Thế Vinh, who loves and cares for his friends, and sees even his friends’ trivial faults as something engaging, nothing to be bothered about.
An interesting aspect of the “portraits” in this book is that Ngô Thế Vinh often tells us about the “health status” of his subjects. A substantial number of his words, including many medical terms, concern the serious illnesses that took the lives of his literary friends. Cao Xuân Huy stubbornly gritted his teeth as he endured his “melanoma of the eye with liver metastasis”; Nguyễn Xuân Hoàng struggled on the slope of life and death with “sarcoma of the spine.” Ngô Thế Vinh sometimes, in fact, sees his friends with the eyes of a doctor. This is easy to understand, for in real life he is a medical doctor, and for his literary and artistic friends, he often bore the nurturing, motherly image of a caring physician.
Where does Dr. Vinh’s kindness come from? From his innate nature? From the education he received at home and in school? From the years spent beside the sick, suffering from the pain of life? From the influence of shining examples such as Dr. Phạm Biểu Tâm? Perhaps it is all of the above. That kindness is reflected in the picture he draws of Mai Thảo when he ponders, with a hint of sadness and bitterness, that author’s writing desk in exile:
“Mai Thảo’s living quarters were also the editorial office of his journal Literature. Every time I visited him, I would notice his desk next to the low frame of a window that gave a clear view of the scene outside. On his bookshelf, few of his books were visible, just a few French volumes, a few issues of Literature, and a couple of new books his literary friends sent him.”
Or, at Dương Nghiễm Mậu’s house, during a family meal after the cataclysm that befell the country, his own fate, his friends’ fate, and the country’s fate seem to be intertwined:
“If it wasn’t a day when I had to work late, I would stop by the market to buy something to add to the family meal. Adding meat and protein would make that day a feast for the two kids. Every time we met, Nghiễm and I were quiet. It seems Nghiễm wrote somewhere that there are things that don’t need to be said because people already understand each other.”
Yes, the book has pages that are heartfelt and heartbreakingly beautiful. Friendship, especially friendship in literature and art, does not come about overnight. From the convergence point, it needs to be distilled and refined over many years with a sincere and earnest heart. That convergence point is the passion for literature and art that Ngô Thế Vinh and his friends have in abundance.
That passion, it seems, flowed very early in the veins of writer Ngô Thế Vinh and his friends.
4.
According to Ngô Thế Vinh, there were several important literary groups that existed in South Vietnam before 1975: 1) Tự Lực Văn Đoàn (the Self-Reliance Literary Group) continued as Văn Hóa Ngày Nay (Contemporary Culture) headed by Nhất Linh; 2) Sáng Tạo (Creation) with Mai Thảo and Thanh Tâm Tuyền, who rejected pre-war forms and tried to invent new genres; 3) Quan Điểm (Viewpoint) with Nghiêm Xuân Hồng, Vũ Khắc Khoan, and Mặc Đỗ; 4) Đêm Trắng (All Night; also known as the La Pagode group after the name of the restaurant where they gathered and discussed literature) was thought to be the New Novel group of Saigon.
Ngô Thế Vinh does not say which group he belonged to; perhaps he was an outsider, but through some of his thoughts, we can guess that he had special feelings for the Đêm Trắng group, which included writers and poets, most of whom were teachers, such as: Huỳnh Phan Anh, Đặng Phùng Quân, Nguyễn Nhật Duật, Nguyễn Xuân Hoàng, Nguyễn Đình Toàn and Nguyễn Quốc Trụ. The writer he praises most in the group is Nguyễn Đình Toàn:
“Standing out in this group is Nguyễn Đình Toàn with his new writing technique, writing “stories without stories,” the pages are a series of emotional images with long internal monologues. Nguyễn Đình Toàn succeeded in his effort to renew literature, but that does not mean he was influenced by, or followed, the French new novel movement.”
He talks also about the literary innovations of this period:
“Thanh Tâm Tuyền and Dương Nghiễm Mậu are two other names that are also mentioned when talking about the new-novel trend in Saigon at that time. I should also mention here that Hoàng Ngọc Biên was not in the Đêm Trắng group, but he was the first person to really research the Nouveau Roman movement in France, in the mid-1950s with names such as Alain Roble-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor, Claude Simon… Hoàng Ngọc Biên translated some works of Alain Roble-Grillet. Also, according to Hoàng Ngọc Biên, the term “new novel” though it indeed was a term used in the twenty years of Southern Literature, no comparable movement actually existed in Saigon “in the fashionable sense” of the New Novel movement originating from the West.”
The period lasted only twenty years, but there was never a period before or after in Vietnamese literature that flourished as this one did, and there was never a period with more talent. Yet it was called decadent and reactionary and then mercilessly crushed. An entire, beautiful humanistic culture of the nation was hunted down and extirpated to its roots. And we understand Ngô Thế Vinh’s sadness and rage as he recounts this story.
5.
Only three talented painters of the South Vietnamese Fine Arts movement in the 60’s – Đinh Cường, Nguyên Khai, Nghiêu Đề – are mentioned in the book. They are painters with whom Ngô Thế Vinh had a sincere and long-lasting friendship, but through them he also mentions other famous painters such as Mai Trung Thứ, Tạ Tỵ, etc., and especially the development of a high level of achievement in the Fine Arts of South Vietnam in the 60’s. Here is another highlight from the pages of Ngô Thế Vinh:
“They were in their 20s and 30s, whether in the Vietnamese Young Artists Association or not. Some graduated from the Fine Arts School like Đinh Cường, Lâm Triết, Nguyễn Trung, Trịnh Cung, Nguyễn Phước, Nguyên Khai, or dropped out like Nghiêu Đề, or did not come from the Fine Arts School at all, like Cù Nguyễn, but they were all “hidden gems,” talented figures who had the opportunity to bring their creativity to the highest level in the free atmosphere of the South.”
Once again we see the element of “freedom” mentioned by Ngô Thế Vinh as a necessary and sufficient condition for any kind of artistic creation. The painter Trịnh Cung talks about the Young Artists Association in his two books published overseas – Issues Concerning the Fine Arts in Vietnam and Comments and Questions on the Fine Arts – with some pride. According to Trịnh Cung, the world of Fine Arts in South Vietnam did not have to wait for the Young Artists Associationto form in the mid-60’s in order to flourish. Since the establishment of the First Republic, Saigon had had remarkable achievements in Fine Arts, for which the unforgettable milestone was the first international exhibition held in 1962 at Tao Đàn Central Park with the participation of the world’s leading painting schools of such countries as Italy, the Netherlands, France, and Spain... Paintings by Vietnamese artists from this time on were sought after by many foreign collectors.
In fact, Vietnam has a rich tradition of Fine Arts, the main launching pad of which was the Indochina School of Fine Arts founded by the French in 1924 in Hanoi. Before the August Revolution, there was a team of talented painters that included Bùi Xuân Phái, Nguyễn Tư Nghiêm, Dương Bích Liên among others. However, that promising initiative was blocked by the dialectical dogma of Socialist Realism.
Stalin imposed that ideology as the main creative method for all literary and artistic disciplines in Soviet society, and it was gradually “exported” to other Communist countries, including North Vietnam. The results are so clear that there is no need to go into detail on this point.
Meanwhile, after the Geneva Agreement of 1954, a number of Northern painters emigrated to the South, among whom were Thái Tuấn, Duy Thanh, and Ngọc Dũng, Tạ Tỵ, along with a number of others who studied abroad in Europe returned to Saigon, bringing with them concepts of artistic Modernism. All of them contributed to creating a fresh wind for the development of Southern culture in general, and Vietnamese modern art in particular, with the center being the capital Saigon at that time. Having access to Western art books and magazines, participating in international exhibitions (in Vietnam or abroad), having almost total creative freedom, Southern artists freely approached and quickly absorbed schools of Modernism such as Symbolism, Surrealism, Abstraction, Expres-sionism, Abstract Expressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and so on. Thanks to that, the Saigon visual arts scene from its infancy developed with steady strides, capable of speaking the same common world language of painting.
After the milestone of the first international exhibition in 1962 was the second milestone, the establishment of the Young Artists Association in 1966 with the participation of most of the talented artists, still young, in their twenties or early thirties, but quite famous at that time like Nguyễn Trung, Trịnh Cung, Nguyễn Lâm, Nguyên Khai, Đinh Cường, Ngy Cao Nguyên, Hồ Hữu Thủ, Rừng, La Hon, Đỗ Quang Em, Hồ Thành Đức, Nguyễn Phước, Hoàng Ngọc Biên... The echoes of the Young Artists Association still exist today, proving that its influence was not small. Another noteworthy point is that, along with the efforts of innovation with clear Western influence, the stream of traditional aesthetic paintings still flowed on, with noteworthy paintings by artists such as Tú Duyên, Nguyễn Siên, Trần Văn Thọ... Nguyễn Gia Trí especially was considered a pioneer in the field of lacquer painting, conquering connoisseurs with his profound emotion, and his blending of Renaissance styles with Modernism; or Lê Văn Đệ’s silk paintings, the characteristic style of which radiated a simple, gentle, and profound fragrance and color.
In this way, the growth of South Vietnamese Fine Arts in the period 54-75, as presented by Ngô Thế Vinh in this book, was an inevitable response to the favorable conditions that existed in the academic, ideological, and political environment of that time. Along with literature, it can be seen as a golden age of Vietnamese Fine Arts, never seen before or after.
6.
If one were to choose only one musician to portray, it would perhaps be hard to know who to choose other than Phạm Duy. And Ngô Thế Vinh chose Phạm Duy for this series of “portraits.” A bigger-than-life, awe-inspiring figure, Phạm Duy had a musical career that spanned two centuries, from the time of the Resistance War against the French to his 30 years of living abroad. He has always been admired, respected, even worshipped by multiple generations of Vietnamese. He is a prolific and tireless composer and song-writer, whose work falls into many genres, from songs like nursery rhymes to pieces influenced by Western classical music, from short songs of a few bars to long, richly variegated suites. But his most successful creations are songs with the melodies imbued with homeland sentiment. His music has entered the hearts of the nation, and almost all of us remember and occasionally hum one of his songs. Therefore, it is not too much to call Phạm Duy the greatest songwriter and composer of modern Vietnam. Ngô Thế Vinh, like us, has a heart full of respect and admiration for Phạm Duy. However, he does not delve into the musical depth of that famous musician, but allows readers to see him through the lens of everyday details, and especially the story of his return to Vietnam to live the last years of his life. With a rich selection of documents and images, the author of the book paints a true portrait of Phạm Duy in his twilight years, grieved due to his life in exile, still deeply attached to his homeland, and missing his old friends, feelings that motivated him to find a way to return, though that return brought not only joy, but unnecessary sorrow. However, that is Phạm Duy in the eyes of those who understand him, and one of those people is Ngô Thế Vinh.
He writes: “… After thirty years of living in the U.S. amid the love and regard of the overseas Vietnamese community,Phạm Duy chose to go back to Vietnam and ended his days there. He had every right to make such a decision; it must be viewed by all with respect. And in accordance with this desire, he lived and died in Vietnam.”
Phạm Duy, after all, is a complex and controversial character. That’s precisely the reason why Ngô Thế Vinh found many paradoxical traits in the man. “Phạm Duy always emphasized that he was simply a Vietnamese musician, and completely unconcerned with politics. But in a manner totally contradictory, he chose at the end of his life, after building up a huge legacy of music, to live in a country that was not yet free, that was still a land with a “command culture.” He chose to resign himself to the life of a caged bird. No one forced him to do it, but often, on his own volition, he made public statements that had political overtones, or that seemed to express conformity with the tendencies promoted by the regime, so that even those who loved and defended him had to frown with disapproval.”
7.
This collection of Literary, Artistic, and Cultural Portraits by writer Ngô Thế Vinh is not a Who's Who of Vietnamese artists and cultural figures. It does not have the ambition to paint a panoramic picture or do in-depth research on any artist. It is rather a personal account. It also does not expand on secondary points outside of literary and artistic life. After reading the book, we still do not know in what circumstances the writer Nhật Tiến wrote the novel Thềm Hoang (The Abandoned Porch) or who the female character in the novel Another Sunday by Thanh Tâm Tuyền was in real life, etc. These things seem not very relevant to the Vietnamese literary research community. But Ngô Thế Vinh has given us a multi-dimensional overview of a literary period that was – according to writer Võ Phiến – unlucky (due to a lack of criticism) and unfortunate (due to destruction). The book is also a valuable source of information, an extremely useful resource for those who want to learn more about Vietnamese literature and arts.
For his literary friends, for the figures whom Ngô Thế Vinh always admired and respected, and for us, the readers, he has absolutely fulfilled what he wanted to do, which was, “Let this little token of trust be set down faithfully. (Của tin gọi một chút này làm ghi.)
TRỊNH Y THƯ
Born in 1952 in Hanoi. Writer, poet, translator. Former editor-in-chief of Văn Học magazine (California). Currently in charge of the Văn Học Press publishing house; Editor-in-chief of Việt Báo Weekly.
Published works: Người đàn bà khác (The Other Woman – short story collection); Chỉ là đồ chơi (Just a Toy – essay); Phế tích của ảo ảnh (Ruins of Illusion – poetry); Theo dấu thư hương (Following the Fragrant Letters – essay), Đường về thủy phủ (The Road to the Water Palace –novel). Currently residing in California, USA. Photo by Nguyễn Bá Khanh
