The issue of marriage and family in the novel Time of Absence by Le Luu

The time away is the story of Sai and Huong - a beautiful, strong, studious girl. It was the flood in Ha Vi village that tied Sai's life to hers, and from here a series of tragedies came to them. At this time, Sai already had a family, Huong could only live quietly and send her love into letters from joy, sadness, longing and waiting. Those were the eagerness and anticipation " does he know this news at home yet!.. I just need to know that you are the only one who loves me, you are by my side " [10, 75]. Even in dreams, Sai's image is always present in her heart. She dreamed of her lover being beaten and raped: “ There was not a night that I did not cry and there was a time when I dreamed that you were surrounded by hundreds, thousands of people holding knives, holding guns, rushing in to slash and shoot you ” [10, 75]. Those thoughts kept rushing through Huong’s mind, proving that her love for Sai was too great, it was always present in Huong’s mind, a passionate, sincere love but could not reach each other, so Huong always carried a feeling of longing and anticipation. The author also clearly portrayed the anxious tone when Huong read the article about Sai’s exploits: “ Don’t cry when you come back and see me lovingly, comforting my husband and children, but you are silent and avoiding me. But… my dear… But when will I be able to let you understand my feelings so that you will be less hurt and feel sorry for yourself. When! When will it be, dear!!! ” [10, 208]. The sorrowful, poignant voice was not only revealed in the words but also in the ellipses, exclamation points, and the questions that kept coming back and forth in her mind. As strong as Huong was, Sai was quiet and thoughtful. He poured his longing and love for Huong into his diary. He imagined her longing, her happy face, the scene of the two of them studying together, going out to eat ice cream around Hoan Kiem Lake. He imagined Huong becoming the daughter-in-law of the Giang family, the beautiful life of the two of them.

Throughout the novel, the wistful, poignant tone focuses on describing the mood of the characters Sai and Huong, people who long for love but are not loved. Their burning desire for love is the clearest evidence of personal awareness of happiness. Writing about the love of Sai and Huong, the author also expresses sympathy and sorrow for human happiness. Le Luu's wistful tone when writing about people and life has become a unique voice in his writings. Le Luu's private life is not very peaceful, perhaps it is this life that has helped him gain many experiences and valuable writings about marriage and family issues.

3.3 Artistic space and time

3.3.1 Art space

According to the Dictionary of Literary Terms : “ Artistic space is the internal form of an artistic image that expresses its integrity. Description and narration in art always originate from a certain point of view, through which the concrete, emotional artistic world reveals its entire extension: this next to that, continuous, intermittent, successive, high, low, far, near, wide, long, forming an artistic perspective ” [8,160].

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The concept of literary space is defined by author Hoang Phe in the Vietnamese Dictionary : " Space is the vast space that covers all things and phenomena surrounding human life " [14].

In the book Introduction to Poetics , Tran Dinh Su further explains: “ Artistic space is an important category of poetics, it is a form that exists with the art world . It is the creative product of the artist to express people and express a certain concept of life ” [15,108].

In short, there are many concepts of artistic space, but we all understand that artistic space is the form of existence of artistic images. It is the space where the character exists and lives, the context for the character to express his personality, thoughts, actions, etc. Artistic space is also the foundation for events.

The beginning of the novel appears in the reader's eyes is the rural space of Ha Vi village: " The village drifts in the night of frost. The tall, straight areca trees seem to be ready to fly straight up to the sky, immersed in the silent cold. For five nights now, the dew has blackened the rows of village potatoes and the bamboo poles have exploded " [10,5]. The setting of the story is Ha Vi village - a poor village, people always have a conservative lifestyle, accustomed to working for hire all year round, they are not passionate about the fields, but also do not have the courage to abandon them: " They do not love the fields passionately, but do not have the strength to abandon the familiar things from their birth in the place that everyone is familiar with and calls their homeland " [10, 26]. It can be said that Ha Vi village is a miniature model of the Vietnamese countryside before the renovation period. When they were given land and fields to be their own masters, they became confused. They could abandon their fields but not their jobs as hired laborers. Those farmers were only used to being servants, beggars, and pickers, begging for work to earn a living. But when they became their own masters, their own fields, and their own lives, they immediately broke down. Le Luu grew up in a rural family, so creating a rural space in his works was not difficult. He built up very close, rustic, and familiar village scenes, through which the writer raised the backward customs from long ago that were deeply imprinted in people's subconscious, specifically the custom of early marriage, whose main victim was Giang Minh Sai. The forced marriage pushed him into suffering and unhappiness.

Besides the rural space, the urban space is also a typical image in the novel Time Away. In the work, Le Luu helped readers visualize a cramped, deadlocked space, full of social problems: marriage, family, moral lifestyle... Although born in the countryside, Le Luu lived in the city for a period of time, so he understood the daily life of the people here very well. In the novel Time Away, Le Luu focused on depicting the cramped, deadlocked life of the couple Sai and Chau: " In Sai's cramped house, half of it was covered like a game room. The remaining half could not accommodate all the guests in the countryside " [10, 301] or " The nephew slept on a single bed while three people slept on a double bed, cluttered with diapers, bottles, milk thermoses, diaper basins, jars to "catch the bird" when peeing, there was no place to move or breathe " [10, 304]. The author described the small, cramped room of the Sai couple filled with gifts from the countryside and household items. Right from the beginning of the construction of the urban space, Le Luu outlined the contrast between the city and the countryside. If the vast rural space is a place where people can return to and feel light and peaceful no matter where they go, the urban space is cramped, deadlocked, and suffocating, where people lack sympathy, Chau always shows arrogance and disdain for her husband. The more the people in the countryside live with love and meaning, the more the people in the city are pragmatic and calculating.

In addition to the rural and urban spaces, the battlefield space with the nights Sai sat writing his diary was also noticed by the author: “ Night…I decided to keep a diary from tonight. This is my first job ” [10, 87]; “…Night…my dear brother. It has been six months and five days since you left .” [10, 87]; “ Night…the entire squad fired live ammunition, exercise one. There were hundreds of lieutenants, colonels, and even the Major General of the Military Region Command who came to monitor the pilot firing for the entire army.

area .” [10, 88]; “ Night 25… ”; “ Night 29… ” [10, 90]. It can be said that this space keeps coming back and forth throughout Sai’s diary. Bringing the military space with long nights of writing his diary, Le Luu expressed Sai’s loneliness, where he could not talk or confide in anyone. He poured all his longing and feelings for Huong into his diary, it was like a friend who shared the good and the bad with him, helping him to feel less lonely and isolated.

By placing his characters in these artistic spaces, Le Luu successfully portrayed the thoughts, moods, actions, sufferings, and torments that people have to endure. This also contributed to creating the liveliness, appeal, and attraction of the work.

3.3.2 Art time

According to the Dictionary of Literary Terms : “ Artistic time is the internal form of an artistic image that expresses its political integrity. Like artistic space, narrative description in literary art always originates from a certain point of view in the world. And what is narrated always takes place in time, known through narrative time. The combination of these two time elements forms artistic time, a conventional phenomenon that only exists in the world of art ” [8, 322].

According to Professor Tran Dinh Su in Some issues of modern poetics , " Artistic time is a category of artistic form, expressing the way of existence and development of the artistic world. If the real world exists only in space and time, then similarly, the artistic world exists only in artistic space and time. Artistic time is the time perceived psychologically, through a continuous series of changes (events) with aesthetic meaning occurring in the artistic world. As time perceived psychologically with aesthetic meaning, artistic time

Unlike objective time measured by calendars and clocks, it can be reversed, recalling the past from the present.

From the above concepts, we can see. Artistic time is the time that the author expresses in a literary work with different lengths, shortness, fast and slow tempos and dimensions of past, present, future. Le Luu wrote the work Time Far Away in 1984 when the country was in the process of renovation to build socialism. The context of the novel is the 60s of the 20th century with the lives of the working villagers who work all year round as hired laborers. Artistic time in the novel is linear time, it does not stop at any point in time.

Reading the novel The Distant Time, readers can easily see the dark time appearing again and again in the novel. That is the time of night when Ha Vi village is submerged in flood water, all the villagers rush to evacuate: " After midnight, the dike broke at the banyan tree, still a few kilometers from the village head, and the sound of water rumbling like a bomb " or: " That night, Sai and the workers, carried all the people who had not yet escaped in the hamlets, then carried the remaining people, pigs, chickens, buffaloes and cows that had run up the dike to the main dike " [10, 51].

It is also the time of night when the villagers of Ha Vi wake up early before dawn to call each other to go to work: " Every night around midnight, the scholar wakes up, boils water to brew guava buds and smokes tobacco, waiting until he hears people calling each other around or the loud voices of the Mong couple wading in the water, then he only needs to ask softly: Has the scholar woken up yet? " [10,27]. It can be said that the dark time keeps coming back in the novel, perhaps the construction of this artistic time is also the author's intention, when the dark time keeps going on and the characters' lives keep extending tragedies.

That night was also the time when Sai met and had moments with Huong: “ Tonight, the night with only weak cries. I'm scared. Don't do that. And that moment can trade the whole world, trade the whole life for a moment ” [10, 66]. It can be said that these are the most peaceful moments in the entire work, where Sai lives with love, does not have to face Tuyet nor is oppressed like living with Chau, but it is also from that moment that a series of tragedies that will befall the lives of Sai and Huong are predicted.

The artistic time in the novel Time of Distant Time is also historical time. That is the artistic time from when Sai was a young boy who was always enthusiastic and actively participated in the emulation movements of the team. Sai always fulfilled his assigned responsibilities well. Besides studying, Sai also taught his friends to write and do math: " There was no night when Sai's team did not gather to shout slogans and then go to Mr. Can's yard to learn to sing and dance. Sai also taught his friends to study, do math, and write. Whatever Sai's team did, it was always full, praised, and won first prize. Five or seven months later, the whole Ha Vi commune was "prosperous", the organizations were making great progress, Sai was one of the five most outstanding teenagers in the whole commune, becoming the August Youth " [10, 42], to the days of studying and training in the army: " There were hundreds of officers of the rank of lieutenant, colonel, and even major general. The Commander of the Military Region also came to follow the pilot firing for the whole military region. Uncle Ha and the delegation from his province also came… ” [10, 88].

It can be said that throughout the work, time passes gently without rushing but still creates attraction and suspense for the reader. In the same period, Le Luu always affirms his name with creativity in both content and artistic form. With the successful use of artistic time in the novel Time Far Away , Le Luu has created a

new light for Vietnamese novels after 1975 in general and the novel Time of Absence in particular.

The issue of marriage and family in the novel Time of Absence by Le Luu - 6

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