See that “Book 2” on the left-hand page? Look between “Chapter 33. Gold” and “Chapter 34. At work.” Or look down the right margin for “142”, just below“136”and just above “143.” Glance left along the line of dots to “Book 2” at the left margin.
Now return directly across the right then left gutter, onto the right-hand page, between “Chapter 60. The river” and “Chapter 61. The shop.” Do you see “Book 3” at “230” below “229” and “231? Me, neither.
But this concert has 3 movements: first, the daughter’s childhood in Ha Noi, The mute pig; second, The river, her independence in Saigon; and third and last her father’s old age in Ha Noi. We could discern instead 5 total movements of 15 chapters each, starting a second chapter, At Grandmother’s House, with Chapter 18,
and a fourth, New Job, at Chapter 54. In either scheme the final tome, third or fifth, begins at page 231 with “Chapter 61. The shop.” If a third book did in fact begin there it would be the shortest of the 3 by page count, roughly half the second and one-third the first.
This unmarked last, third book is the coda of the concerto of The Renovation, the slender tail that follows the body of the work through the concert hall then whips around to tie it all together. This last movement begins with the girl’s father shutting down the collective shop he has kept going,
then returning to his room in the collective to break down the sand table he has built. You might think he lets go at last of the vanished world of revolution and war. Then instead he takes his pistol on a journey to the frontier where he visits with old soldiers who may well be abandoned out there.
Could happen. A friend of mine got left up there for ten years teaching history to old soldiers. Or the father’s journey might all be instead an allegory, a vision. He is not sure himself. Afterwards he rides a bike south through the nation and finds his daughter again, happy, living, working. A date palm seed he has given her has grown into a low tree.
The Renovation is a work of talent and observation. It speaks in details I have heard from others and seen in life, with the uncanny sense of dream. In the first book I dream of the childhood in đổi mới of my friends born the first years of reunification.
In the second book I follow them growing up alone in the new economy, another life I only heard about. The third revisits Laos where Americans I have known hunted Vietnamese who were hunting them.
3 dreams you can go have yourself for the price of the book. But wait, you cannot. That is another, fourth dream I have had with this book. The author and publisher alerted me out of the blue to the publication of the novel.
That email arrived as I recovered from a lengthy illness. Any reading or writing concerning whatever it is I mean by Viet Nam made me want to kill myself. I now think it always did. Under medical care I have much improved, and begun my work again.
I bought The Renovation and started writing about it as I read, in the very first few of these Viet Nam letters. I have written more about it than any other book so far. At first I thought the author might be a former spouse,
but she has got in touch. She didn’t do it. I now think the author is the man whose name stands on the cover, copyright, and title page. As publisher he has now withdrawn The Renovation from sale.
I was concerned that might be my fault. In these letters I have drawn comparison of Do Hoang Ngoc Anh to friends of mine, other authors of đổi mới who have had trouble with the law. I hope I did not endanger the young man.
When I start to think about such things I want to kill myself, so I don’t. You read my hope on the page at the left, verso, in the photograph below. “First edition,” says the third line down. I think Do Hoang Ngoc Anh may be working on a second Renovation.
This was the ninth of 10 Viet Nam letters so far about The Renovation by Do Ngoc Hoang Anh. The first appeared on February 16, 2022, the second on February 23, 2022, the third on March 12, 2022,
the seventh on July 16, 2022, and the eighth on September 10, 2022, then the tenth, also first and only Viet Nam letter so far about Đổi Mới by Đô Hoàng Ngọc Ánh appeared May 29, 2023.
Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.
Interesting, but disturbing.