Literature and art are always innovating and creating constantly. In the collection of stories Di Huong , Suong Nguyet Minh has truly conquered readers in the way of building historical characters, a topic that people have long considered the "final field", Nguyen Huy Thiep's own specialty. In the whole collection, only Di Huong writes about historical topics, but "quality is precious, not quantity", with a completely new writing style, the work has also found
have a place for yourself
Since Di Huong was published, there have been many conflicting opinions. Writer Y Ban said that the way the theme was exploited was repetitive, not a new land, writer Van Chinh said: "When writing about Nguyen Anh , Suong Nguyet Minh and Di Huong have surpassed Nguyen Huy Thiep in terms of freshness, attractiveness, liveliness and rich imagination"...
Di Huong is about a turbulent and fierce historical period of Vietnamese feudal history - the time when feudal wars took place fiercely. But the work has put aside the issue of political power or war ... to exploit more deeply the issue of human fate. The historical character Nguyen Anh is built not as Nguyen Anh with the beauty of a talented and strategic hero, brave in battle but as a very ordinary Nguyen Anh - a Nguyen Anh who exists as a lover , a Nguyen Anh with the mundane nature of an instinct that exists in any ordinary person. Describing Nguyen Anh's strength , the writer did not mention his talent or achievements but used the man's own strength to express his strength: "The concubine spent the night with Anh, although her chest was covered with red marks from rough hands holding swords, her thighs were covered with bruises from teeth, in the morning she was still radiant, regretfully filled with joy , her eyes were bright and sparkling, her face radiant... her eyes were wet, her skin was plump and full of satisfaction". And Princess Ngoc Binh could not hide her sublime emotions in her words of gratitude: "I am grateful for your abundant rain and dew... I must be like Vuong, with abundant imperial energy, male sexuality. Maybe you are interested!
abundant. I am very happy and satisfied”. That is the sexual ability to talk about Anh’s strength, a creative way of constructing history. In addition, Anh’s ambition and strength are revealed right in her love relationship with Princess Ngoc Binh. As soon as she saw her naked bathing by the stream for the first time: “Anh’s shadow stretched out to the well… Anh’s head cast a dark shadow on her chest” signaling a fierce possession. In Vang Lua , Nguyen
¸ nh was told by Nguyen Huy Thiep as follows: “King Gia Long was different, he was terrible in his ability to dare to joke with nature, to dare to deceive his own people, to serve himself. He made history more vivid. That is the kindness of a politician”. And writer Suong Nguyet Minh said: “I want to give a different perspective. That is the
The beauty who died tragically because of war and the sadness of a talented person born at the wrong time, who spent his whole life searching for beauty, who wanted to serve but could not find a wise leader through the trio Nguyen Anh - Princess Ngoc Binh - Tran Huy San". Obviously in Di Huong , the character Nguyen Anh has deeply moved the audience.
read. We are moved by the pain of a genius!
What exactly is “Di Huong”? It is impossible to explain and readers still have many concerns. If it is a vague reference, for example in the character, which character would be Di Huong? Princess Ngoc Binh, Tran Huy San or Nguyen
¸ nh? If it is an artistic intention, a cultural response, then can the whole short story be considered a “foreign land” about a period of the Nguyen – Tay Son civil war? And if it is considered an artistic milestone, can it be considered the “alienation” of Suong Nguyet Minh herself?
The work revolves around the relationship of Nguyen Anh - Princess Ngoc Binh - Tran Huy San. In which Tran Huy San is a fictional character. Suong Nguyet Minh has magically transformed this character from appearance, thoughts to many actions. "San is a short person, with short limbs, a long, thin neck, full of blood vessels and blue veins. But his head is as big as a
sticky rice. Hair bun as big as a handful. Really different” {22;201]. But
Behind that strange appearance, San has a superior intellect, a straightforward personality... considering death as light as a feather" {22; 201}. He has a small red bib and two separate strips, which he always carries in his pocket, and when he sleeps, he covers his face. There is a strange thing, a very unique scent, every time he takes the bib out of his pocket, the scent gently wafts from near and far, seductive. Where that strange scent comes from, only he knows. San is very trusted by Anh , always taking it with him to the ends of the earth.
Nguyen Anh 's outstanding portrayal of the soul, Nguyen Anh 's concept of "beauty since ancient times is like fame", he is extremely eager to hold onto the
beautiful, possessing that exotic scent and also a Nguyen Anh with sexual instincts, a very ordinary desire for love. The romantic realism style combined with the fantasy element has helped Suong Nguyet Minh build a character that is more realistic, vivid and also full of magic and illusion.
Nguyen Anh took Phu Xuan as easily as turning his hand. But only one day of joy and happiness, the next day he was sad. He put on his sword and went out and back, then sat down and looked at the green Huong River, flat as if it had stopped flowing. Phu Xuan was in his hand, he wanted his heart to calm down and remember the memories of fleeing the Tay Son rebellion. The nursery rhymes of the buffalo herding children kept echoing and haunting him.
forever photo ¸ nh: "Girls are not strange girls / The king's daughter married two kings".
Anh told Tran Huy San to take Quang Toan's dragon boat and go upstream to visit Ngoc Tran Son mountain. When he arrived at this place , Anh was enchanted and lured by a "noble fragrance that did not come from herbs" [22; 208]. To find the strange scent , Anh slashed the necks of a group of maids: "red blood spurted out like an open underground stream. Long hair flew up into the sky, fluttering in the shape of a dragon and then wrapped around a tree branch" [22; 201].
Caught Princess Ngoc Binh bathing naked with her "ivory body. Her smooth curves were drenched in the crescent moon", he also saw
"very natural" action: " He then hid in the bushes, pulled the branches and leaves, his face was blank, fascinated by the beauty bathing... He recognized the scent of the girl's skin
passionately passionately mixed with the scent of the royal orchid and rare wild grass. ¸ nh was stunned by the exotic scent and the beauty of a girl who was burned among the natural plants and trees. Infatuated with her beauty and admiring her confidence and leisurely demeanor, ¸ nh decided to marry Princess Ngoc Binh despite the opposition of her subordinates. Le Van Duyet's words were very convincing: "Princess Ngoc Binh is truly beautiful and fragrant, but she is the queen of the Tay Son dynasty, the wife of an enemy" [22;210]. But Nguyen ¸ nh was still determined to protect his love and legitimate aspirations. Nguyen ¸ nh 's scolding of his subordinates showed how miserable he was! "I took back the world from the Tay Son bandits, so the branches and blades of grass also belong to me, let alone Quang Toan's wife. Moreover, you are heroes in times of chaos, only knowing how to work hard
fighting, killing, never knowing love, how can you understand my heart. You are a kind of martial men who only think about worldly matters,
who knows the strange, elegant fragrance emanating from her body”![22; 226]
Suong Nguyet Minh spent many pages describing the love scene between Princess Ngoc Binh and Nguyen Anh , which was full of fantasy but in
The characters still appear with all the most ordinary things. They are affectionate and harmonious.
intertwined between nature, the earth and sky. Under the pen of Suong Nguyet Minh, sex is not only a physiological need, a natural instinct of all races, but it is also an expression of love, a desire for communication and harmony of the character: " He laid the beauty on the hammock, the long-legged beauty tightly wrapped around his waist like two pythons. His two hands tightly gripped his back and shoulders, letting the hammock sway and rock. Then the hammock shook more than the storm. The green leaves shook in disarray. The two ends of the hammock competed to jerk the tree trunk. Sometimes the two tips screwed into each other and then sprang back apart" [22; 223]. Having Princess Ngoc Binh, for the next few days: "The laughter was like weapons clashing against each other every night
echoing in the air. The land and sky of Phu Xuan are bright and bustling, just like spring comes early, trees and animals are excited in the season of heat". Thus, we see that sexuality in the short stories of Suong Nguyet Minh is not a hot dish in the current literary market. It is a way of describing sexuality very naturally, fiercely and passionately like human emotions inherently are with images that blend with beautiful nature. And after all, it is the look at human fate, the way of pushing the plot to the ultimate tragedy with the way of expressing character emotions that makes Suong Nguyet Minh's work imbued with noble humanistic thoughts. More than anywhere else, an emperor Gia Long is described as very worldly like this: "Before a beautiful woman , he is as hasty as a sixteen-year-old boy". Indeed, the emperor is also "very human"!
But ironically, the more she loved the concubine Ngoc Binh, the more indifferent she became. Every time they finished making love, she “shuddered, froze… she smelled the stench of blood, the smell of burnt weapons lingering behind the dragon bed” [22; 221]. Ngoc Binh was pale, dry and discolored. Every time they finished making love, the concubine Ngoc Binh was “like a rotten fish lying on the chopping board. All interest was gone, her heart was cold”. The strange fragrance also disappeared. This is a detail with a strong mystical quality. Why did the strange fragrance disappear? What made Princess Ngoc Binh wither and become cold after each time they made love? According to Tran Huy San in Phu Xuan Thuc Luc, this could be the answer to this question: “In the last years
Ngoc Binh lived a lonely and disappointed life. Every time he was with Anh , he could not bear the cold smell of weapons touching each other. I guess, in twenty-five years of wandering, with a will to restore his clan soaring high, Anh had stepped over countless corpses of people and horses, passed through countless spears, lances, swords, and swords stained with blood. The stench of human blood and the smell of weapons touching each other gathered into the acrid smell of weapons that seeped into Anh's skin and flesh . That was why every time they made love, their foreign scent was completely absorbed! No! The stench of human blood and the acrid smell
The scent of weapons had overwhelmed and covered her pores, preventing her strange scent from spreading” [22; 230]. Thus, strange scent could only exist in a refined environment, and Tran Huy San was worthy of being the one to hold it.
Ngoc Binh - the woman in the love triangle: Nguyen Anh - Ngoc Binh - Tran Huy San. Ngoc Binh as the embodiment of beauty, was chosen to stand on the side of the sublime, if she cannot marry Hue, she must marry Anh to be worthy of her talent and beauty. So the work raises the issue of evil and hypocrisy. Quang Trung, although a hypocrite in Nguyen Anh's eyes, still appears as a hero. Nguyen Anh is the one who "carries a snake and bites his own chicken", in the eyes of later generations, is also re-evaluated through Ngoc Binh's choice: The
Beauty does not go with evil. So, ¸ nh is not evil either. Nguyen
¸ nh and Nguyen Hue are the embodiment of historical tragedy. Only in the end Ngoc Binh still died under Nguyen ¸ nh. So is the historical halo lost? This death needs to be analyzed according to another system in the relationship with Tran Huy San. That death originated from the common human emotions and desires. To have the beauty, ¸ nh took advantage of his position to destroy his opponent. That is a violation of morality rather than a violation of royal power. Because here, the work puts aside the issue of political power to refer more deeply to the issue of human fate. Nguyen ¸ nh exists as a person in love. San is a person who hates war, San follows ¸ nh mostly because he has vowed to follow the beauty, beauty, and goodness all his life. So in this correlation, if beauty is goodness, then San is the embodiment of the desire for peace. Living close to war and death makes a perfect person like Anh smell of death, and being away from arrows and arrows
The bullet made a deformed person like San retain the scent. " Anh is an evil scent, is dark and cold, leaning towards arbitrary power. Ngoc Binh is a strange scent, a scent that is both worldly and elegant, gentle and noble, crazy
foolish but peaceful... only suitable for San" [22; 237]. So when San died under ø nh's sword, the strange scent that always lingered in the bib was also eliminated - a miraculous disappearance: "The red bib flew out of ø nh's hand, fluttering and gliding
"go around and then ascend"
[ 22,234]. Nguyen Anh has just lost a beauty, a powerful general and a strange fragrance.
In the work, many historical characters are built with a strange writing style.
The virtual story contributes to weaving the story of King Nguyen ¸ nh more thrilling like Le Van Duyet, Nguyen Van Thanh. Duyet is the great eunuch (bisexual). Duyet is the one who tells the magical story about the childhood of Princess Ngoc Binh, she often played in the river with the male dragon.
With stories about historical subjects, especially historical figures, we should look at them in a multifaceted and objective way when evaluating the work. And consider the fantasy element as an artistic technique that the writer has used to build a more vivid artistic world. It is the fantasy element that has contributed to making works about historical subjects - a dry subject of literature - more attractive and captivating to readers, isn't it? We agree with the opinion of literary critic Pham Xuan Nguyen when commenting on the historical stories of Nguyen Huy Thiep: "With the characteristic of legendary style, Nguyen Huy Thiep in general is also
did not reflect reality: With the forms of life itself" in the style of simple realism, but made the entire character image more or less systematically distorted. Therefore, we think that when encountering a deformed line or detail "not like the real" in a historical character image, perhaps we should not rush to judge it as "distorting history" but should only understand it as the result of a writing style with strong legendary inspiration" [25;45]. This point of view is not only suitable for Nguyen Huy Thiep but also very true in the case of Suong Nguyet Minh.
Suong Nguyet Minh uses the fantasy element as an effective way to help the writer deeply explore the extremely abstract and elusive spiritual world of humans, thereby explaining the profound roots in understanding humans in terms of humanity and instinct. These artistic techniques have affirmed the writer's rich creative writing power.
3.1.2. Fantasy characters
As an experienced writer with a "strange" writing style, always knowing how to renew herself , the world of characters in Suong Nguyet Minh's short stories is extremely diverse. In Thirteen Ben Nuoc , the character lives in reality but is always immersed in a state of confusion of dreams. With a delicate pen, Suong Nguyet Minh not only depicts the character's external beauty but also penetrates the deepest corners of the character's heart. The character is not aware of reality: Nguyen Anh in Di Huong is always immersed in a dream of happiness with Princess Ngoc Binh. Sao in Thirteen Ben Nuoc , is always haunted by the children she gave birth to who are not human, always thinking she is a dragon; Kien in Ben Dong Tonle Sap , Kien has been through war for more than twenty years but the distant memories of the Khmer girl he loves still live in him. I in The Holy Night is living a prosperous life with my wife and two children but always feel lonely.
alone in his own family. The character “I” searches for the past, returns to childhood with the wish to find happiness, to find memories of a time. Returning to the “infinite holy night”, “I” seems to find myself, to find the happiness of a time. In short stories such as Daughter’s Hill, Night Train, Echoing Wild Place, Meteor at Dark, Strange Land … are all works written in this style.
In the story "The Hill of Daughters" , Suong Nguyet Minh brought to people
reading a completely new writing style. The reader just drifts along with the character's emotions immersed in dreams. The character "I" - a writer