Vietnam: A New History (ii)

from Christopher Goscha and Vietnamese studies

Arguably, often. Two words I noted as I read this first chapter where the author Christopher Goscha narrates human life in the area familiar to the 21C around the world as the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam,

from the earliest evidence of settlement and trade, in archaeology. He bookends his story with literary evidence, a letter from the very end of the 17C and an ode from the beginning of the 19C.

Arguably, often. They are adverbs. They stand out because such a good writer uses an adverb only sparingly. These adverbs in particular are weasel words,

softening an assertion. Arguably, not by consensus. Often, not always. Weak words from a strong mind, the honnete homme of French discourse,

not an expert, calling expertise into question. This is what we know, sort of. I wish I could read this chapter 30 years ago before I started reading

Vietnamese history in any language, before anyone wrote Vietnamese history like this. The chapter is a quiet demolition of anything you might assume.

That letter at the start, from the 17C, for instance, discusses the possibility of bringing Buddhism to Viet Nam. Chris notes later that Jesuits were starting to bring Christianity there at the same time.

Stray missionaries of both sorts already had been arriving for longer than we know about. So, is Viet Nam a Buddhist country? Is it Christian?

Arguably. Often. Another word I didn't note in my reading stands behind the whole chapter. Meanwhile,

as in meanwhile back at the ranch, the convention of storytelling that Ben Anderson pointed out that books and newspapers make possible, that things happen at the same time in different places.

It is also one of the mysteries of archaeology. Pyramids, for instance. Chris calls these stories comparatist as he tells of empires growing and falling around the one big continent of the old world,

and he uses the eternal, synchronic language of area studies - clients, patrons, networks, tribute - to describe the ebb and flow and tidal pools of power down from the Yangtze

to the valley of the Red River, down the coast and along the mountains to the Mekong delta. As he does he speaks of notions, a wiggle word, countenancing without affirmation or critique,

for desires, for embodied ideas, things in your head that come out of your mouth. He ends his tale of notions of a Viet polity with the national poet Nguyen Du's ode to the wandering ghosts of those fallen

in the civil war that first established the Viet Nam we may recognize on the map. The historian applies it to all the past country he has surveyed. This address to the dead is so right.

I cannot tell if you think so too, any more than I can imagine how Chris' story of millennia reads to anyone who hasn't heard it all before many many times but never this way.

If you have to do with Viet Nam you truck with ghosts. There was one who used to hang out at a left turn into a Vietnamese-owned grocery store in Charlotte, North Carolina, near here.

Poor thing was lonely and always trying to get a new friend by another traffic accident. I am not at all kidding. It has not yet occurred to me until just now to

point out what you may take away from this spectacular narration of the past. If you can keep score and remember all the players, hats off. I have been at this 30 years and I can't.

Chris has made a living standing up and lecturing about it all so he would do better than me on a quiz but I would not bet that any of his students do, say 1 year after exams.

What I would bet that they have taken away with them into their lives busy with their own notions is a sense of the people now living under Viet Nam. All these powers

that Chris shows us reaching out to govern them have recognized that you must deal with their ghosts. This is going to be a ghost story. Stick your flashlight under your chin and watch the sparks born to fly upward.

This was the second Viet Nam letter of 6 so far addressing Vietnam: A New History by Christopher Goscha. The first went out April 16, 2022.

Then the third posted on June 20, 2022, the fourth on August 20, 2022, the fifth on October 17, 2022, and the sixth on November 27, 2022.

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.

The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.