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From: Nu-Anh Tran
Date: Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 7:30 PM
Dear list,
My query has two parts.
1) David G Marr mentions in _VNese Tradition on Trial_ that there was a poll conducted in 1942 on the 10 most respected Vietnamese books. According to the footnote, it was a poll conducted by the journal _Thanh Nghi_. Here in Saigon, I can't get a hold of that journal, as there's only a children's journal under that name at the library here. Does anyone who's worked w/ _Thanh Nghi_ happen to know what those 10 books were? Marr mentions that some of them were: 1) Tran Trong Kim's _Nho Giao, 2) truyen Kieu, 3) Tran Trong Kim's _Viet Nam Su Luoc_, and (ranking unclear) Dao Duy Anh's _VN Van hoa su cuong_.
Hardcopy: pg 279 / googlebooks link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=FkcZ_nGkW-oC&pg=PA279&dq=david+marr+most+respected+books
2) Setting aside the poll by _Thanh Nghi_, I'm am curious as to what you would consider the 10 or so most important Vietnamese works written before 1954, esp non-fiction scholarly works. With the benefit of hindsight, what works formed foundation of Vietnamese intellectual thought and constituted a canon of classic by 1954? This is especially interesting to me because much of this takes place before the extreme Cold War polarization and extension of Cold War politics into cultural policy in the DRV and RVN. I have an everchanging working list myself, but I'm curious what other opinions are. I'd be happy to compile and post the results (or send to interested parties off-list, since this is a rather narrow interest).
Thanks for any assistance!
Nu-Anh Tran
Grad student
UC Berkeley
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From: Bradley Davis
Date: Thu, Apr 23, 2009 at 8:23 PM
Dea Nu-Anh,
You might want to get in touch with Philippe Le Failler at the EFEO-Hanoi. They are preparing to republish the Thanh Nghi journal. That Thanh Nghi was edited by Vo Dinh Hoe, whom I believe is still alive in Hanoi.
Bradley Davis
Adjunct Instructor/Visiting Scholar
Eastern Washington University
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From: Van Nguyen-Marshall
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 7:01 AM
Dear Nu-Anh,
If you can't get a hold of this journal in VN, it is available on microfilm at University of British Columbia and Cornell University.
Best,
Van
Van Nguyen-Marshall
Associate Professor
Department of History
Trent University
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From: Sidel, Mark
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 7:29 AM
Vu Dinh Hoe, mentioned by Bradley Davis in this string below, is indeed still alive in Hanoi. His two memoirs on editing Thanh Nghi, working in the legal field (and serving as Ministry of Justice, 1946-60), and other aspects of his very interesting professional life are well worth consulting for those interested -
Hoi ky Vu Dinh Hoe (NXB Van hoa Thong tin, 1995)
Hoi ky Vu Dinh Hoe (NXB Hoi Nha van, 2004)
Despite the same titles there is some different content -- including much more material on Thanh Nghi as well as early legal work in the 2004 book, but also an important autobiographic fragment in the 1995 volume that raises key questions about justice in the early 1950s -- and so both are worth a look for anyone interested in these topics or more generally intellectual and political life during those times.
For a brief sense of his spirit, which was very much in evidence when I interviewed him in the 1990s, see this March 2009 report of a visit to Mr. Hoe from the current Minister of Justice, Ha Hung Cuong: http://www.moj.gov.vn/p/tag.idempotent.render.userLayoutRootNode.target.n65.uP?uP_root=me&cmd=item&ID=12245.
Best wishes.
Mark Sidel
------------------------
From: Nu-Anh Tran <tran_n_a@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 3:34 PM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Dear list,
I meant to post my list and see if other vsg members might add or subtract entries and had any comments or ideas, but an unexpected out-of-town trip took me away from my books. I have been aiming to determine what might be considered the most intellectually influential colonial-era (pre-1954) works written in quoc ngu. Specifically, I am interested in works that in some informal way form a canon of classic works with which most educated, intellectually engaged people would have been familiar with. Since I am interested in well known published works, I obviously have not included illegal revolutionary tracts that may have been influential politically but not necessarily popular among intellectual circles. I am interested partly because many of these works would form the foundation for much of the intellectual discourse during the RVN. In no particular order...
1) Tran Trong Kim, Nho Giao
2) Tran Trong Kim, Viet Nam Su Luoc
3) Duong Quang Ham, Viet Nam Van Hoc Su Yeu & Viet Nam Thi Van Hop Tuyen
4) Dao Duy Anh, Viet Nam Van Hoa Su Cuong
5) Vu Ngoc Phan, Nha Van Hien Dai
6) Hoai Thanh & Hoai Chan, Thi Nhan Viet Nam 1932-1941
7) Nhat Linh, Doan Tuyet
8) Khai Hung, Nua Chung Xuan
9) Pham Quynh’s journal, Nam Phong
10) the Tu Luc Van Doan’s journal, Phong Hoa and Ngay Nay
I know it's an incomplete list, and I would love to hear other list members about what works I've completely forgotten or what works what I've overrated.
Thanks!
Nu-Anh
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From: Charles Keith
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 5:20 PM
Dear Nu-Anh and list,
This is a very interesting question. As the last two items on your list suggest, one problem might be in the assumptions that we bring to the question of what categories of texts may be considered "canonical." If we accept that periodicals can be considered as individual texts (as you seem to do, and rightly in my opinion), this opens up quite a large range of possibilities in the context of colonial Vietnam. What about Phu Nu Tan Van, for example? And how about La Cloche Felee? On the latter, I know that you're interested specifically in quoc ngu works, but is it necessarily a safe assumption that the most influential texts were written in quoc ngu? Intellectuals during and after the colonial period operated in many languages. Along these lines, I also think it likely that one could make a case for a number of pre-colonial era texts (which raises the question of whether they were "influential" in characters or in quoc ngu translation) - I'll leave it to those better-qualified than me to hash out which ones might qualify. Finally, what does "influential" itself mean? And when does "influential" mean - during the colonial period itself, or after? And if after, when? And on whom? The "most influential" texts surely differed at different moments during the RVN period (and depending on who you are talking about), and these texts were surely different from the colonial-era texts that are influential now - and if not, they're likely influential now for different reasons than they were then. But as I said: this is a very interesting question, and I'll enjoy following the thread.
Charles Keith
Assistant Professor
Department of History
Michigan State University
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 6:11 PM
I'd agree with Charles. If one were to ask individuals of my parents' generation in the South, Cloche Felee would be instanced of having had the greatest influence. My father recalls copies being passed around clandestinely in his school (College de Cantho, from which he was expelled in 1926, he and Ung van Khiem having produced a paper that was considered subversive).
The issue is that Cloche Felee was no longer read by the 1950s; but it did shape a whole generation's view of its historical role.
I'd also list Phu Nu Tan Van, if you are to include Nam Phong and Phong Hoa.
I'm not entirely sure of the dates, but Vu Trong Phung's works as well as those of Ngo Tat To were re-published in the South either in the later 1950s or early 1960s.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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From: Shawn McHale
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 6:11 PM
Nu Anh,
Your question is an intriguing one. I have seen that poll as well, and think of it as a good snapshot of what many intellectuals must have thought were the most important books that should appear on a list of important books. That last sentence is awkward, I know. What I am trying to say is that I think that there is a big difference between what might appear on a list -- and what, actually, might have been important.
Take, for example, the geographical spread of the authors. They are all from the center or the north. No southerner is on the list. This reflects the beliefs of many intellectuals that all high culture emanated from the north or center. But how do we measure "importance"? Is it only by high culture? The novelist Ho Bieu Chanh was read far more in the south before 1950 than Tran Trong Kim's tomes. And of course a similar argument can be made about, say the Lotus sutra -- parts of it were far more widely read, or heard, than any of the other books on the list. Or the Tay Du ky. One could go on and on . . .
I also wonder, when looking at the list, if those polled had actually READ some of these books. I say this because occasionally you will come across individuals saying that Tran Trong Kim's Nho giao is about Vietnamese Confucianism. It is not -- it is overwhelmingly about CHINESE Confucianism, with a little bit added on Vietnam, and what is added on Vietnam is sometimes in error.
Vu Ngoc Phan's Nha van hien dai seems to me overrated. Is it a great book? Hardly. Is it a good snapshot of what many probably thought about the literary scene? Yes. It's on the list because it helped to define a canon, not because it is a masterpiece. I prefer Hoai Chan and Hoai Thanh's Thi Nhan Viet Nam, which is less pedestrian, more emotional, more interesting. But that's my opinion.
One other note. there are some authors who don't show up on the list because they mostly wrote for newspapers -- the writings of Phan Van Hum come to mind, but Tran Huy Lieu, Phan Khoi, and others as well. Personally, I find what I have read, or struggled with, by Phan Van Hum to be much more interesting than Vu Ngoc Phan. Intriguingly enough, Phan Van Hum's prison memoir is not on the list. Shouldn't it be? It was the first of the genre, well-known in its time.
(An aside: it is my humble opinion that the street in front of the General Sciences Library in Saigon should be renamed after Phan Van Hum -- this because the library is on the old site of the prison made famous in that book. But would Vietnam ever name a street after one of the greatest southern intellectuals, a man who flirted with Trotskyism? I'm dubious.)
One last point -- years ago, I picked up a reprinted copy of Viet Nam su luoc by Tran Trong Kim. the printing had been paid for by a grant from the US government -- I think it was US AID! One assumes that the US had asked what books were important, and some intellectuals dutifully suggested that Viet Nam su luoc was, and so it was reprinted. Of course, by the late 1960s, that was a dated work indeed.
My two cent's worth.
Shawn
Shawn McHale
Director
Sigur Center for Asian Studies
Associate Professor of History and International Affairs
George Washington University
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From: Philippe Peycam
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 8:59 PM
I completely agree with Charles and Hue-Tam about La Cloche Felee's considerable influence among a whole generation of Vietnamese. Through the newspaper, it was the personality of Nguyen An Ninh that transpired with his unique personal style of writing. It was also his excentric extra-journalistic actions which had a lasting influence on many people. I think this is what often characterized the Vietnamese press and their authors in the 1920s: their style and political stand rather than their intrinsic literary value, by contrast to the 1930s which displayed a much more intellectually elaborated literature (Phu Nu Tan Van, Phong Hoa, etc.). I am at least talking about the press. For literature, personalities like Ho Bieu Chanh, Nguyen Chanh Sat or Le Hoang Muu, were obviously important, at least in the south.
To return to the press, I would add to La Cloche Felee and Nguyen An Ninh the examples of Tran Huy Lieu in the Dong Phap Thoi Bao, who, for over a year, from 1925 to 26, exerted a real fascination among readers (often more than 10,000 copies sold per issue). THL's later fame started from this unique political journalistic experience. And there are those who later disappeared from the literary reference screens but who had major impact at their time, and not necessarily for their writing prowess. I am thinking of Cao Van Chanh for instance, the original co-founder of Phu Nu Tan Van (and its last director), who made his fame by publishing a newpaper, the Tan The Ky (1926-27) whose stragegy consisted in publishing so virulent anti-government articles that the paper's front page appeared blanked due to censorship. This propaganda technique made Cao Van Chanh in the eyes of the public. He remained so all the way till the end of the 30s.
In that sense, 1920s militant journalism, especially in the south, was as much important for the content of its newspapers as it was for the style and mark its authors left on the public. Maybe I am moving away from Nu Anh's question.
Philippe
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From: Liam C Kelley
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 10:24 PM
I don't want to take this discussion off on a tangent, but I have to say my 2 cents about Tran Trong Kim's Nho Giao. It's not entirely accurate to say that it's not about "Vietnamese" Confucianism because most of it is about "Chinese" Confucianism. Prior to the 20th century, there was no "Chinese" or "Vietnamese" which preceded the term nho giao. There was just nho giao (the teachings of the scholars). As it turns out, those scholars who's teachings made up this tradition came from the place which we today call China, but that was not a point which was commented upon or which garnered much, if any, concern until the 20th century.
In the 20th century, scholars in "China" and "Vietnam" came to believe, through their exposure to Western ideas, that each "nation" (a neologism) needed to have its own "philosophy" (another neologism). This led to tremendous changes in the way in which things like nho giao were perceived and packaged. In "China" this started at least with Liang Qichao's study of Chinese thought (if not earlier) and culminated with Feng Youlan's "A History of Chinese Philosophy" in the early 1930s which had the explicit purpose of demonstrating that China had a "philosophy" just like Western nations did.
Liang Qichao's writings and other works by Chinese who were transforming the way in which "Confucianism" was understood were translated into Vietnamese and published in journals in the 1920s. It is in this context that Tran Trong Kim wrote his Nho Giao. He wrote at a time when ideas about how to perceive and package knowlege were changing. What was significant about Tran Trong Kim was that he succeeded in writing a book in this new manner. Is it not about "Vietnamese" Confucianism? Yes and no, because that way of perceiving and packaging knowledge had never existed prior to the 20th century. What he wrote was something very new - an invented tradition - and that, I would argue, is why it was (and should still be considered) significant.
Liam Kelley
U of Hawaii
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From: Tuan Hoang
Date: Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 2:46 PM
Hi Nu Anh: I just read through the posts in this most thought-provoking... A few quick thoughts:
1. There is something gimmicky about top-ten lists, and not just David Letterman’s. Like anthologies, they reflect biases of the people involved and are bound to displease or upset at least a few people. Then there is the problem of “why ten and not twenty or thirty-seven?”
2. That out of the way, this top-ten poll is telling of the educated class at the time. Could it be an effort to locate some kind of canonical footing? It sure is elitist to boot. It shows a clear bias in favor of northern and central writers, as already noted. However, I think it may reflect too the peripatetic and unstable nature of the Vietnamese intellectual/cultural center in the modern era: Hue for much of the nineteenth century, Hanoi for most of the first half of the twentieth century, Saigon during the divisional period. (Perhaps it has been Hanoi again since the 1980s or 1990s?)
This notion of cultural center could be pretty problematic & I’ll admit to playing lumper instead of splitter here. But it isn't about what we think, but what Vietnamese intelligentsia at the time perceived the center to be. Indeed, Marr's book notes that the 1942 poll took place in southern Vietnam, so presumably most southern readers would have acknowledged the primacy of northern and central writers as well as the primacy of Hanoi. Besides, there were southerners published in the journals from Hanoi and Hue: the poet Dong Ho, I believe, published quite a bit in Nam Phong.
3. Maybe there should be 2 lists: one on high culture and one on popular culture. Each list could be broken further into separate genres. E.g., the high culture list would includes the most important/influential histories, literary criticism, fiction, journals, etc.
4. Someone mentioned memoirs, and I’ll add reportage, which was usually published in periodicals first. Tam Lang, Toi Keo Xe and Hoang Dao, Truoc Vanh Mong Ngua and perhaps Bun Lay Nuoc Dong. (I also think Hoang Dao's Muoi Dieu Tam Niem had far-reaching impact too, but of course it isn't reportage but a powerfully worded manifesto based on, I believe, Japanese sources.)
5. Another genre: literary translations, esp. French fiction: Dumas pere and fils, Victor Hugo, Alphonse Daudet, and Hector Mallot. Mallot’s Sans Famille was enormously popular.
7. Additions to fiction: There should be something each from Nguyen Cong Hoan, Nguyen Tat To, and Vu Trong Phung. NCH's class consciousness & fine-tuned story-telling was of course important Marxist-oriented intellectuals, but even non-Marxists loved his attacks on the old order.
I'd also add Nguyen Hong’s Nhung Ngay Tho Au. Along with French stuff like Mallot’s, it might have been responsible for enlarging (creating?) the genre of fiction about Vietnamese childhood and adolescence so popular later in both RVN and DRV.
7. Addition to lit criticism: Truong Tuu, Van Chuong Truyen Kieu. How could a Vietnamese national canon not having a study of Kieu? This top-ten list came out in 1942 & therefore did not reflect the works of Truong Tuu's underrated group Han Thuyen. Truong Tuu's book is case in point; it wouldn't surprise me if a literary genealogist told me that it contributed directly to the mini-explosion of writings about Truyen Kieu in Republican Saigon and Hue.
8. One of the posts mentions Ho Bieu Chanh, who wrote a good deal more than fiction... I'd wish best luck, however, to anyone trying to determine which one or two of his novels to be "most important" (similar to Doan Tuyet being considered "most important" novel of Nhat Linh, or Nua Chung Xuan of Khai Hung's). The man was a publishing fiend, publishing novels the way Somerset Maugham churned out English short stories. Thanks to a group of dedicated fans, there's a website that formats and publishes his stuff online: http://hobieuchanh.com/pages/mp3.html
~Tuan Hoang
------------------------
From: Dan Duffy
Date: Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 2:06 PM
Quang Pham just sent this, below. My list along these lines would be Bob
Brigham's study of RVN; Huynh Sanh Thong's translation of re-education
camp stories, To Be Made Over, now available online; and the condensation
Bob Sorley is about to publish of the studies written by high RVNAF
officers just after the fall.
Dan
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Black April and My Top 10 Books on Vietnam
From: "Quang X. Pham" <qpham@lathian.com>
Date: Thu, April 30, 2009 2:10 pm
To: "'Quang X. Pham'" <qpham@lathian.com>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
This morning, a prominent national journalist asked for my top 10 books on
Vietnam (and its aftermath). My list will not have the typical books that
you would see. I feel that these provide important missing perspectives
apart from the other bestsellers penned by American historians, journalists,
media and veterans.
Here's what I sent him. I will let you know if/when he writes or posts my
list.
Regards,
Quang
----------------------------------------------------------
"In the Jaws of History," Bui Diem, South Vietnam's ambassador to the U.S.
reflects on the diplomacy of the war
"Buddha's Child," Nguyen Cao Ky, South Vietnam's flamboyant Air
Marshall/Vice President's second memoir
"The Twenty-Five Year Century: A South Vietnamese General Remembers the
Indochina War to the Fall of Saigon," Lam Quang Thi
"Counterpart: A South Vietnamese Navy Officer's War," Kiem Do
"Abandoning Vietnam: How America Left and South Vietnam Lost Its War," James
H. Willbanks
"A Gift of Barbed Wire: America's Allies Abandoned in South Vietnam," Robert
S. McKelvey, a Marine veteran of Vietnam who became a psychiatrist
interviews former detainees
"Vietnam's Forgotten Army: Heroism and Betrayal in the ARVN," Andrew Wiest
(if you think the Americans did all the fighting and the U.S. Marines took
Hue City, then read this 2007 book)
"The Sorrows of War," Bao Ninh, fiction, a former North Vietnamese soldier
writes about his experience in the American War
"A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain," Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize
winner for fiction, a Vietnam vet writes first person accounts of Vietnamese
refugees in New Orleans
"Fortunate Son," Lewis Puller, Jr., Pulitzer Prize winner for biography, the
only son of the most famous Marine recalls the Vietnam War and its aftermath
Dan Duffy
Editor, Viet Nam Literature Project
Chair, Books & Authors: Viet Nam, Inc.
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From: Nu-Anh Tran
Date: Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 6:48 PM
This is an interesting list. I assume the list is for English language works that show Vietnamese perspectives. Since I have shown myself to have a certain affection for lists, I thought I'd add my two cents. I would add two works.
First is John Schafer's _Sadness of Exile_ on Vo Phien's life and work. Vo Phien was not only one of the most important writers of the RVN, his lifestory of leaving the Viet Minh, working under the RVN regime, then leaving as a refugee is a narrative that many Vietnamese during the RVN period and now overseas Vietnamese identify with. Schafer's book nicely bridges the RVN and post-75 diaspora and offers a window into RVN intellectual life and attitudes towards communism, the war, and social and cultural changes w/in the RVN.
Second is Neil Jamieson's _Understanding Vietnam_ partly for its readability, it's wideranging overview of RVN society, and for the sheer volume of significant Vietnamese literature that is translated and made available to an English-speaking audience.
Of the memoirs mentioned, I was very pleased to see Bui Diem's and Do Kiem's books. I found both to be more insightful and revealing English language memoirs.
Nu-Anh Tran
Graduate Student
UC Berkeley
------------------------
From: Nu-Anh Tran
Date: 2009/5/19
Dear list,
Liam Kelley was ever so kind to send me a copy of the article. For those who are interested, I thought I'd post the official results from the Thanh nghi poll.
Nu-Anh
Thanh nghị list:
1) Trần Trọng Kim, Nho giáo
2) Nguyễn Du, truyện Kiều
3) Trần Trọng Kim, Việt Nam sử lược
4) Nguyễn Trọng Thuật, Quả dưa đỏ
-the rest are unnumbered:
Đào Duy Anh, Việt Nam văn hóa sử cương
Phạm Quỳnh, Khảo về tiểu thuyết (appears to be a translation)
Hồ Biểu Chánh, Cay đắng mùi đời
Khái Hưng, Tiêu sơn tráng sĩ
Hoài Chân & Hoài Thanh, Thi Nhân Việt Nam
Nguyễn Văn Ngọc, Tục ngữ phong dao
(if the diacritial marks don't go through...)
1) Tran Trong Kim, Nho giao
2) Nguyen Du, truyen Kieu
3) Tran Trong Kim, Viet Nam su luoc
4) Nguyen Trong Thuat, Qua dua do
-unnumbered-
Dao Duy Anh, Viet Nam van hoa su cuong
Pham Quynh, Khao ve tieu thuyet
Ho Bieu Chanh, Cay dang mui doi
Khai Hung, Tieu son trang si
Hoai Chan & Hoai Thanh, Thi Nhan Viet Nam
Nguyen Van Ngoc, Tuc ngu phong dao
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From: Hue-Tam Ho Tai
Date: Wed, May 20, 2009 at 3:26 AM
An odd list.
Pham Quynh's article was indeed very influential. I can't remember whether it was a translation or not. If not, he followed very closely LiangQichao's Trungguo hun (Soul of China) in which Liang argued that fiction's role need not be limited to entertainment only (Nguyen Du's "mua vui mot vai trong canh") but could be used to convey important messages.
Ho Bieu Chanh made use of French storylines. I believe that Cay dang mua doi was a reworking of Hector Malot's Sans Famille.
Hue-Tam Ho Tai
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