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A review by millennial_dandy
Beyond Illusions by Nina McPherson, Dương Thu Hương
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
<i>"How could I have loved him like that?"</i> p.1
In languorous, sensuous prose that draws you in from the very opening lines, Duong Thu Huong crafts a complicated parable about the convictions we hold in our inner worlds, and what happens when they work against our best material interests. 'What are you willing to sacrifice (if anything) to live your truth?' she asks.
The plot itself follows Linh, who instantly falls out of love with her once beloved husband when she discovers he's been writing propaganda articles for the government despite having been a staunch defender of honesty in journalism in his youth. This betrayal of what he claimed to hold as a core value causes her to pull away from him emotionally, and then physically, and ultimately, she leaves him.
The two spend much of the rest of the novel wrestling with what their separation means for the future of their family unit, and in particular how the break between them impacts their young daughter. Is it ultimately better for their daughter to be with the parent who tells lies for a living but can financially support his child, or with the parent who stands strongly for the truth but can hardly even support herself on her teaching salary?
The situation grows in complexity when Linh starts up a very public affair with a famous composer, who, unlike her estranged husband, claims to be willing to speak truth to power. Claims he'd remain true to his art before he'd ever be true to the State.
However, unbeknownst to Linh, this composer has designs of his own, and a history of seducing and then tossing aside women. Things comes to a head when a relative of the composer's wife turns out to be in a position to return the composer to his former status within the establishment.
Meanwhile, Linh's increasingly isolated husband, Nguyen, faces a moral quandary head on when he is approached by his boss at the journal where he works to write a completely made-up story to save the reputation of a man accused of a heinous crime.
Throughout the text, Huong is constantly pitting these ideas of truth and honor against the realities of living in an authoritarian regime against each other. She seems to suggest that there is nuance to be found. The comfortable life Nguyen can provide for his wife and daughter is only possible if he writes propaganda articles. He argues that if he stood up to his boss on principle, he'd simply be fired and replaced with someone else, and the only thing that would change would be that his family would quickly become destitute. “How could we have survived if I had remained as pure as you wanted me to be?” (p.53) But even he has limits to what he's personally willing to lie about, though he only feels able to push back once he gives up the responsibility of providing for his daughter. Perhaps he's willing to put <i>himself</i> into poverty rather than bend his morals, but he wasn't willing to do that to his family.
Meanwhile, Linh, in pursuing a life of truth, ends up barely able to earn enough to live off of, often foregoing meals so that her daughter can eat. It is framed as irresponsible and prideful rather than strongly virtuous. One person classifies her pride as 'pathological.'
And of course, there's the irony of the man she has an affair with donning the aesthetics of moral conviction while secretly believing nothing of what he says, and abandoning it as soon as it's expedient to do so because his dislike of the regime was based on spite rather than stemming from an axiomatic belief.
In a strange way, considering the ages of the people involved, ‘Beyond Illusions’ is a coming-of-age story. Linh is constantly classified as very naïve and sheltered in an almost infantilizing way. Some analyses of the novel suggest that she is a stand-in for all Vietnamese people who grew up when revolution was in the zeitgeist and had earnest if ultimately unrealistic, idealized notions of what the new Vietnam could be. Is then the composer an allegory for the Communist Party, reeling these young people in by (in this case literally) seducing them with empty promises of rightiousness? Is Linh's story an allegory for the realization by Vietnam's youth that their dreams of a brave new world were based on lies?
Maybe.
Read and find out.
The novel ends on the somber, but quietly optimistic note that while the only person materially rewarded for their behavior is the composer, both Lihn and Nguyen walk away from the dissolution of their marriage into a life...beyond illusions.
In languorous, sensuous prose that draws you in from the very opening lines, Duong Thu Huong crafts a complicated parable about the convictions we hold in our inner worlds, and what happens when they work against our best material interests. 'What are you willing to sacrifice (if anything) to live your truth?' she asks.
The plot itself follows Linh, who instantly falls out of love with her once beloved husband when she discovers he's been writing propaganda articles for the government despite having been a staunch defender of honesty in journalism in his youth. This betrayal of what he claimed to hold as a core value causes her to pull away from him emotionally, and then physically, and ultimately, she leaves him.
The two spend much of the rest of the novel wrestling with what their separation means for the future of their family unit, and in particular how the break between them impacts their young daughter. Is it ultimately better for their daughter to be with the parent who tells lies for a living but can financially support his child, or with the parent who stands strongly for the truth but can hardly even support herself on her teaching salary?
The situation grows in complexity when Linh starts up a very public affair with a famous composer, who, unlike her estranged husband, claims to be willing to speak truth to power. Claims he'd remain true to his art before he'd ever be true to the State.
However, unbeknownst to Linh, this composer has designs of his own, and a history of seducing and then tossing aside women. Things comes to a head when a relative of the composer's wife turns out to be in a position to return the composer to his former status within the establishment.
Meanwhile, Linh's increasingly isolated husband, Nguyen, faces a moral quandary head on when he is approached by his boss at the journal where he works to write a completely made-up story to save the reputation of a man accused of a heinous crime.
Throughout the text, Huong is constantly pitting these ideas of truth and honor against the realities of living in an authoritarian regime against each other. She seems to suggest that there is nuance to be found. The comfortable life Nguyen can provide for his wife and daughter is only possible if he writes propaganda articles. He argues that if he stood up to his boss on principle, he'd simply be fired and replaced with someone else, and the only thing that would change would be that his family would quickly become destitute. “How could we have survived if I had remained as pure as you wanted me to be?” (p.53) But even he has limits to what he's personally willing to lie about, though he only feels able to push back once he gives up the responsibility of providing for his daughter. Perhaps he's willing to put <i>himself</i> into poverty rather than bend his morals, but he wasn't willing to do that to his family.
Meanwhile, Linh, in pursuing a life of truth, ends up barely able to earn enough to live off of, often foregoing meals so that her daughter can eat. It is framed as irresponsible and prideful rather than strongly virtuous. One person classifies her pride as 'pathological.'
And of course, there's the irony of the man she has an affair with donning the aesthetics of moral conviction while secretly believing nothing of what he says, and abandoning it as soon as it's expedient to do so because his dislike of the regime was based on spite rather than stemming from an axiomatic belief.
In a strange way, considering the ages of the people involved, ‘Beyond Illusions’ is a coming-of-age story. Linh is constantly classified as very naïve and sheltered in an almost infantilizing way. Some analyses of the novel suggest that she is a stand-in for all Vietnamese people who grew up when revolution was in the zeitgeist and had earnest if ultimately unrealistic, idealized notions of what the new Vietnam could be. Is then the composer an allegory for the Communist Party, reeling these young people in by (in this case literally) seducing them with empty promises of rightiousness? Is Linh's story an allegory for the realization by Vietnam's youth that their dreams of a brave new world were based on lies?
Maybe.
Read and find out.
The novel ends on the somber, but quietly optimistic note that while the only person materially rewarded for their behavior is the composer, both Lihn and Nguyen walk away from the dissolution of their marriage into a life...beyond illusions.