First published 2005

Translated by by Andrew X. Pham

Summary

Written between 1968-1970, this is the diary of Dang Thuy Tram, of a young doctor who volunteered with the National Liberation Front in southern Vietnam. It includes her daily realities, her dreams for her future and the future of her country and her thoughts about her past in the north.

My Thoughts

I started this book in the audio version, and the narrator did a spectacular job, but when I am reading diaries, I prefer the physical version in print so that I can flip back and check dates and names. You can’t go wrong with either version; it just depends on your preferences. 

The writing is flowery, poetic prose that the introduction tells us was typical of the time among the educated classes. In some ways it felt counter-intuitive to read about the horrors of war in such beautiful language. In other ways, it made the horrors seem even more horrible. 

At times, she did fall into the language of propaganda, but that felt normal given that she was a member of the communist party in a war zone. In 1970, the final year of her diary, Vietnam had been at war for 25 years, nearly the entirety of Dang Thuy Tram’s life. 

It’s the parts where she talks about the simple things that she missed from her life at home that I found most poignant – a vase of flowers on the table, walking in a park, laughing with her sisters. At one point she reports that when she was walking through the jungle she picked flowers for herself. A simple pleasure to remind her of the beauty of the world. 

By the end of the diary, some of her writing had become repetitive, especially when related to her thoughts about M, her boyfriend from back home, or the ways in which she felt she needed to improve herself so that she could be a better member of the Communist Party. But when put in context of the life she was living, it feels like a small complaint indeed. 

Challenges

This is my 9th book for the Classics Club Challenge.