The couple Ban in The Hat with a Hole in the Top were lucky to win a stock and change their lives. With money, Ban immediately bought a house in the city and brought all his wife and children from the countryside. Ban's wife has always been dirty with mud, worked hard, and was uncouth: "My wife has big feet and even bigger butt" because she "waded through low-lying fields a lot and carried a lot of burdens, so she developed horizontally" . However, Ban's wife adapted to the new life very quickly. Not long after arriving in the city, she knew how to dress up, used all the luxury items: "liked wearing pink nightgowns, wearing Chanel perfume" , knew how to wander in the online world, went to dance clubs, became "smooth and red-skinned", "with sparkling eyes" . A woman who used to "sell her face to the ground and her back to the sky" all year round , never leaving the bamboo fence of the village now wanted to shake off all traces of being a farmer, deny her past, deny her roots to become a Hanoian. These characters on the pages of Suong Nguyet Minh remind people of the character “Mr. Tay An Nam” of Nam Xuong, the character Tam ( Return ) of Thach Lam before. It can be seen that writers who are responsible for everyday life are concerned about the paradoxes of life and are indignant at the state of “rootlessness” of people.
When writing about the character "half-country, half-city", Suong Nguyet Minh expressed a sympathetic view of people who are victims of circumstances. Before the invasion of the new, they could not avoid stumbling and Suong Nguyet Minh stood on the "tears side" to sympathize with their stumbling. Although the writer lived in the city most of the time, perhaps his understanding of rural life (even when the countryside was transforming into "village towns, market towns" ) was still thorough and profound. Writing about farmers, he always paid special attention, perhaps in this unstable world, they are the smallest people, easily oppressed, and suffer the most. Being confined in the bamboo fences of the village, with limited awareness, the people's lives fell into a deadlock, wandering, wanting to struggle to escape.
but could not escape. When the wind of urbanization blew in, it seemed to bring them a change of life but unintentionally pushed them into new tragedies caused by its negative side. As a writer with a heavy heart for his homeland, Suong Nguyet Minh always turned his pen to the place where he was born and raised. That sentiment was all conveyed in his writings. Through the pictures of human life in the countryside and urban areas of Vietnam before and after the renovation period with both light and dark colors, Suong Nguyet Minh brought readers new perceptions and emotions.
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When reading the works of Suong Nguyet Minh, writer Van Chinh commented: "People are uprooted from their homeland, whether voluntarily or just as a way out, they immediately encounter a vortex, a whirlwind of the times that no nation can avoid if they want to industrialize and urbanize" [10] and: "The writer stands on the "side of tears" to judge the cruelty of the market, but if not careful, he will take away the way out of tears" from which he said : "Suong Nguyet Minh's writerly spirit is to see through the inevitable, respect it while still not forgetting the pain and sympathy". Perhaps that is why, when reading Suong Nguyet Minh's short stories, we feel both warm and sad, tormented.
On her creative journey, from mainly writing about soldiers and farmers, Suong Nguyet Minh gradually expanded to characters who were “half-country, half-city”, and then went back in time to write about historical figures. It was this movement that created the distinctive mark in Suong Nguyet Minh’s short stories. Not all of the writer’s experiments with characters were completely successful, but he did what he believed in: “writers must be different”.
Chapter 3
MOVEMENT IN ARTISTIC PENISM
(From traditional romantic realism to romantic realism and fantasy)
3.1. Introduction to realism-romanticism, realism-romanticism, fantasy
According to the Dictionary of Literary Terms , “writing style is the way of writing, using words, layout, and using means of expression to create a certain form of art” [20, p.21]. Artistic writing style increases the reflective effect of the work and contributes to the writer's style.
For a long time, the use of realistic writing style, romantic writing style or a combination of these two writing styles has become quite familiar in literature. Realistic writing style values real documents and events in real life and uses them as materials to build plots, characters, character personalities, psychological phenomena with the art of generalization, high typification and the art of deep psychological and ideological analysis; thereby providing readers with a realistic and vivid picture of life and people.
Romantic writing style mainly relies on the writer's feelings, dreams, and imagination. Real life is therefore expressed through the writer's subjective feelings and private desires, rather than relying entirely on objective reality. Using this writing style, the writer values the product of imagination, builds ideal characters, and uses emotional language and tone.
Recently, with the revival of the fantasy element, many writers have appeared in literature using the fantasy element as an artistic means to explore the extremely abstract and elusive spiritual life in humans. Phung Huu Hai in the article "The fantasy element in modern Vietnamese short stories since
1975” believes that the fantasy element in Vietnamese short stories needs to be viewed from both macro and micro perspectives. At the macro level, “the fantasy element represents a new concept of the writer about the world, an extremely vivid expansion and occupation of reality” . At the micro level, “the fantasy element is the specific art forms such as: spiritual dialogue, fairytale, ghost, religion, mythologization…” [19]. The fantasy writing style values fantasy elements, uses many fantasy materials and artistic techniques to create a fantasy quality for the work.
Around the concept, the name of the fantasy element is still not really unified. In general, researchers agree that the fantasy element is a product of imagination, originating from folk literature. It is often beyond human rational thinking but has a relationship with the nature of what is real in life. The fantasy element contributes with other artistic elements to build the plot and characters towards revealing the ideological theme of the work.
However, in reality, the division of boundaries between realistic, romantic and fantasy writing styles is only relative. Because there is still an overlap and interweaving between them when performing the function of expression and reflection in literature. Especially, when the scope of reality is no longer limited to the scope of real life, the object of reflection expands to the reality in the psychological and spiritual life of people.
Nowadays, very few writers use only one writing style. Most of them combine and use many writing styles to increase the effectiveness of reflection and highlight the ideas of the work. This combination also aims to promote the strengths of each type of writing style, because we cannot affirm that there is an optimal artistic writing style in reflecting life. The realistic writing style will promote its advantages very well when recreating the picture of life, criticizing
judge, denounce, expose the bad, the negative in society. When describing issues related to psychological and emotional life, romantic or fantasy writing style is more effective. Reality is so vast, so writers often have to combine many different types of artistic writing style to achieve their artistic purpose. Suong Nguyet Minh also used very flexible artistic writing style, and especially the writer's artistic writing style has a clear movement from realism - romanticism to realism - romanticism - fantasy.
3.2. From the realistic – romantic writing style…
Suong Nguyet Minh's forte is writing about war and agriculture. In that realistic picture, there are poetic pages about nature and love between couples. When writing about war, the writer not only realistically recreates the fierceness of the war and its aftermath, but also chooses details, images, tones, and languages to create lyrical and romantic qualities for the work. Therefore, most of Suong Nguyet Minh's works on the subject of war and agriculture are both realistic and romantic.
This combination of writing styles can be clearly seen in the short storyTrong Nhan Village Night . The story is about an American veteran returning to Vietnam. The war has long since ended, but Americans who have experienced the war in Vietnam still cannot explain why they were defeated? That question urged John Mac Co to return to Vietnam to find the answer. On this visit, he was fortunate to have writer Le Xuan - a person who had been in the East during the war days, help him answer that question with the short story Trong Nhan Village Night . This short story is more valuable than dozens of seminars, thousands of pages of documents and many films about Vietnam that John Mac Co has seen. It helps him understand the country, the people here and why this country won.
During the war, people had to endure countless dangers and hardships, but above all those personal pains was the common pain of the nation. The country faced the disaster of being annexed by the enemy, they knew how to live, knew how to sacrifice the most private things for the Fatherland.
Tuong and Thuong, along with many other couples at that time, followed the call of the Fatherland : "When the Fatherland needs them, they know how to live apart" . They thought that after many years of separation, they would be able to live in the joy of reunion, but war once again prevented this reunion. The writer used a realistic style when describing Tuong's wounded face: "jagged, rough, distorted, and numb". Looking at his face in the mirror, he could not recognize himself. This was the barrier that the war created to prevent Tuong's reunion. He felt so inferior that he had to change his name and surname just because he did not want his parents and wife to be terrified of his strange appearance. Although he did not want to hurt anyone, Tuong could not hide his desire and longing to return home to see his parents and meet Thuong - his wife. The sentences describing the reunion scene made the reader extremely emotional. On the way back, Tuong imagined meeting his parents and wife again, and thought about what he would do to surprise everyone with his return: “What would it be like to meet my mother? I would run quickly to hug her. No! I would close my eyes, put my hands forward, and grope around the yard. No! Seeing my mother, I would fall. That’s right! I would bend one leg, put on my pants, and hobble into the house with a cane…” [26, p.139]. As for Thuong, he also thought of many ways to surprise and make his beloved wife happy: “I would wear my backpack and wait by the door of the room. No! I would lie in bed with my face turned inside. Thuong opened the door and walked in. She lay down. He turned around and hugged Thuong tightly: “It’s me! It’s your Tuong” [26, p.140].
The romantic style is not only expressed through poetic pages when the writer describes Tuong's feelings when meeting his relatives, but also in the way he builds characters that reach an ideal level: for Thuong, it is a beauty that defies time; for Tuong, it is a noble sacrifice for the country and the people he loves. Watching his wife bathing, Tuong longs for a scene of happy lovemaking. Seeing his wife lying alone in the room while he is lying next to his father, he realizes something absurd: "It's absurd! Why am I lying next to my father? No! My place is over there" [26, p.148]. However, Tuong still has to suppress his feelings, suppress his instinctive desire. The war has cruelly extinguished his dream of reunion and separated him from his family. Tuong had to accept his own loss: meeting his parents and wife for only one night and then leaving again so that his loved ones could be happy... Perhaps not only Tuong but also our nation from ancient times has always had the virtue of sacrifice, always knowing how to live for others. That noble sacrifice is the spiritual strength of the Vietnamese people, helping our nation defeat the enemy time and time again. In the past, the fierce Yuan-Mongol army "went wherever the grass could not grow", many nations had to bow their heads in submission, but when they came to our country, they had to surrender in fear. Now we have defeated the French colonialists and the American imperialists - two powerful empires. To have those victories is partly due to the strategic talent of the commanders but partly thanks to the spirit of solidarity and sacrifice of the Vietnamese people.
After reading the short story Trong Nhan Village Night, John Mac Co found a satisfactory answer for himself : “You went through the war with your own souls, the souls of the Vietnamese people. Now I can explain why America lost. Because America never had a night like that: Trong Nhan Village Night” [26, p.151]. The combination of the reality of war on one side and the desire for love in the soldier's soul on the other side; and
By combining realistic and romantic writing styles, Suong Nguyet Minh has highlighted the devastation of war on human life, while expressing the strong vitality of love in the face of enemy bombs and bullets.
Although war is fierce, love in wartime does not lose its romantic beauty. In the middle of a sky full of bombs and bullets, Hien - a schoolgirl preparing for the university entrance exam - met Hoang - an anti-aircraft artillery soldier in a hut on a romantic rainy afternoon ( The Virgin River ). They got to know each other and fell in love without knowing when, and then Hien kept waiting for Hoang's return. The short story The Virgin River also combines two writing styles, realism and romance. In the eyes of a lover, the natural scenery during the fierce war also becomes unusually beautiful: "The enemy plane was burning and crashed on the Lai Ha bridge. From the Trinh River wharf, Hien looked up at the silvery sky. A spark of fire hung suspended. No! A torch was burning. Hien saw the river water shimmering. The lower the plane fell, the bigger the fire burned. Suddenly Hien exclaimed: "So beautiful! Like dawn on the river" [26, p.19]. Those romantic moments seemed to make the war less fierce, people less tense, and they could temporarily forget the fear of death. As soon as the sky stopped the sound of gunfire, Hien and Hoang found each other again. At such times, the war seemed to recede, and there were only two people left, happy and peaceful : “He wore a steel helmet, standing tall next to the grass hut. Hien recognized him, and she threw herself into the soldier’s arms. Hien could smell the smell of sweat and gunpowder on his shirt. They had gone looking for each other when the battlefield had just stopped the sound of gunfire” [26, p.20]. Nature seemed to be protecting the lovers, exalting their love: “The seventeenth moon hung suspended overhead. A boundless golden color. The river, water, sky and clouds were vast. The waves sparkled with gold, the south wind gently caressed his chest. Hien stirred and saw a thorn in the road. Oh, the flowers and grass on his shirt” [26, p.20].