*please be warned the book, and therefore this review, does address topics that could be triggering for some readers*
The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh is the call of the past, of those who are deep in the dust of war and the barren lands that the main character has experienced. Things that seem extinguished but still live in Kien’s mind. The novel is also an inner struggle and torn from every corner of the soul which was tormented by death, love, regret and sin of Kien. Hidden behind the death, destruction and the pain of war is the beauty and liveliness under the author’s experience eyes. It is an enchanting, attractive call from the past that Kien cannot forget.
Back from Vietnam war, it seems that Kien will have a wonderful life without blood, gun and boom. But present doesn’t let him live his own life with peace and happiness. Instead of making a new life and enjoying the future, all the memories from the painful battle that killed all his teammates fill his mind and even his life in the present. Each beloved person was crushed and deformed by enemy fire. The battle lasted for a while, when their blood was still hot, and their bodies were little liquid mud. After the battle, there was torrential rain. The rain wanted to erase all the remnants of the battle. The rain from the past is continued in the present. The rain penetrates Kien’s mind, cleanses it to make room for the pain that creeps in. Graves where teammates lie are buried in the mind of Kien. Being obsessed by the death of teammates, he cannot also live in the present when he remembers himself many times depriving the life of the enemy. Then after liberation, Kien still sought forgiveness for the deaths he caused, seeking comfort and forgiveness by the past.
Kien spent all his youth to fight didn’t only kill his friends, but also destroyed the people he loved most. It killed his family and killed his love for Phuong – the girl he used to love when he was seventeen – before being a soldier. Phuong, at that time, was innocent and believed in Kien’s noble choice to be a soldier who would head to the national battle. Until Kien and Phuong went together on a train where he witnessed Phuong being raped. The unexpected event almost completely changed the relationship between them. The shame, humiliation, guilt and blame led to the separation. The war and the geospatial space gradually created a setback for them. After that event, every night was sleepless, Kien resumed his light memories with Phuong. Whether in the fight or in life, Phuong was always a pain, a domain of bitter memories and the most beautiful girl in his life. Because when he loved Phuong, it was the only moment Kien found love again, found youth and once truly lived.
Kien stepped out of the war but in his mind, there was no peace. The present is the new battle with Kien. The tediousness, the dryness of life, and the nights in which the memories are revisited make him exhausted every second. In the present, Kien is just like a corpse without purpose in life. In the past, Kien was himself, living and fighting with his teammates. He found the love and desire for youth in it, clearly and surely. The ultimate obsession, unrelenting pain, the unlimited regret, these are all his feelings about the war of the whole nation. Kien is part of the war, the war is also an inseparable part of Kien.
Kien lived in parallel, simultaneously in two lives: Reality and imagination, present and past, intertwined inseparably. Kien’s present is lackluster and unable to integrate with people. His present is associated with smoke, intoxication, stifling in the dormitory room. The past takes place in the present, which is occupying the present and his mind. Every time returning to the ended life, deep beneath the bomb. It is Kien with anger, extreme hatred, incessant suffering, extraordinary courage. Each different emotion is associated with a different story and people, mixed into the whole to create the sorrow of war that Kien cannot forget.
The war is something that still exists in the soldier’s soul like Kien, although it belongs to the past. This novel is a nostalgia for what a soldier feels and haunts about war, to evaluate the peace in the present. The feelings of bewilderment, regret, despair, with questions about life and people that, no matter how people try to search, there are still no answers to.
Don’t let such war happen again in this modern world. Because until the end, regardless if that war is righteous or unrighteous, ordinary people are always the only individuals who suffer its pain.