Paradise of the Blind- Duong Thu Huong, Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson (1993)

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As Hang makes a long journey by train to Moscow from the small suburb where she works as an ‘exported’ textile worker, she recalls her upbringing in Vietnam, a childhood dominated by the tragic consequences of the Communist Party’s land reforms. First published in Vietnamese in 1998, Paradise of the Blind is the fourth novel from Duong Thu Huong. It was a bestseller when first published, before swiftly being banned for its criticisms of the Party, in a country where the government retains a monopoly over the publishing industry. Duong has life experience that will make her work identifiable to those Vietnamese who have experienced the war and its immediate aftermath; at twenty years old she volunteered to lead a Communist Youth Brigade sent to the front and later was at the forefront of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese conflict. Once a member of the Vietnamese Communist Party, she was expelled in 1989 for her dissident views- notably her belief in human rights and freedom of speech- and was imprisoned for seven months without trial. Today, Duong is barred from travelling abroad and lives and works in Hanoi. The English version of Paradise of the Blind, translated by Phan Huy Duong and Nina McPherson, was published in 1993; it was the first Vietnamese novel to be published in English in the USA.

Young Hang, the protagonist of the story, remembers an upbringing as an only child, a fatherless child, as one that was squeezed between the conflicting priorities of those around her; from the traditional familial and spiritual values of her late father’s long-suffering peasant sister Aunt Tam, to the communist rhetoric of cruel Uncle Chinh, a Party cadre, and his family; with her struggling small-capitalist mother bearing the brunt of criticism from both sides. Through this story and other of her works, Duong serves as a courageous social commentator. Not only does the author criticise the destruction of morality by Communist Party policy, but demonstrates how oppressive Confucian values of the subservience of the young to the old and of women to men, characteristic of Vietnamese society as an influence from centuries of Chinese domination, can burden the life a young female.

Between 1953 and 1956, Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh party implemented a land reform programme in the Northern provinces in an attempt to gain support for the anti-French resistant movement. The chaotic forced redistribution of land to 1.5 million peasant families resulted in families torn apart and whole communities alienated. In the case of Hang, the result was a family torn in two; her father’s family were denounced as part of the landlord class, despite only owning a few acres of land, and were persecuted by Hang’s uncle on the maternal side, a ruthless Party cadre responsible for the implementation of the programme in their village. The fragmentation of her family haunts Hang decades after the programme was officially abandoned, and its consequences permeate her young life.

A simply told story, Paradise of the Blind holds considerable power to influence- perhaps the reason why the Communist Party found it so threatening. The story does not only serve to provide a political message, it could also be a source of nostalgia for Vietnamese, particularly those living overseas. The beauty of Vietnam and the celebration of Vietnamese food play considerable roles in this book.  There are evocative moments in which young Hang shelters under the covers of her bed in a dorm room in wintery Russia, remembering the slum in which she lived with her mother in Hanoi- the leaky roof of their home and the song of the crippled neighbour that could be heard every day.

Despite the emphasis on nostalgia and romance, I felt that at times it was possible to forget that the story is based on Vietnamese themes and characters. In the translator’s note, Nina McPherson explains that many Vietnamese expressions are difficult or impossible to translate into English, and that for the sake of clarity some things have been omitted. This translation is an American one, and often the Americanisms that have been used made the setting somewhat less convincing to me. Perhaps a little too much was lost in translation.

I found this novel to be an interesting glimpse into the lives of an ordinary Vietnamese family struggling with radical changes to their society. It is refreshing to read something that gives an insight into the deep fractures that exist within Vietnamese society as a result of the country’s tumultuous recent history, and contradicts the official propaganda line adopted by the state. I read this book in the run-up to Victory Day, the 30^th of April, which will be a big national celebration. In regards to this, I feel that reading Paradise of the Blind has given me an eye-opening reminder of the power of propaganda, censorship, illusion and of the reality of life under a communist regime, a reality that is so difficult for an outsider to penetrate.

This novel has been somewhat useful for my project in offering a glimpse into the hardships of an average Vietnamese family struggling with poverty and the fracturing of society at a time when the country was under political upheaval. Times have changed now and how relevant this story, first published in 1988 and set between the 1950s and 1980s, is to modern Vietnamese society is debatable, as the country develops rapidly and poverty levels fall. Nevertheless, censorship and suppression of free speech are very real in Vietnam today and it is worth remembering that around eighty per cent of the population still live in rural areas, often struggling with the same difficulties as those experienced by the characters in this novel. Paradise of the Blind is a short story, it is quick to read and overall I did not find it as compelling as I had hoped I would. Nonetheless, it is a touching, tragic story that leaves an impression of the reality of life and survival in post-war Vietnam and serves as a haunting reminder of the horrors that have been endured by this hardy, private and long-suffering population.