(GLO)- It has been a long time since I read such a fierce and intense war novel. That is the book “The Sixth Hour to the Ninth Hour” by writer Nguyen Mot. The space stretches from a province in the Central region - the fiercest place of the war to a locality in the Southeast region, the gateway to Saigon. The time is a few years before 1975. And the characters are farming families in that fierce area with the people in a place called Thu Bien.
Of course, the main characters are still young people, whose fates will be tossed and crushed by war, even though they still live, still love and still exist, even though each person has a different fate and situation.
Nguyen Mot was a witness to that war, because he lived in that fierce area, his family suffered the most brutality of the war. His parents were killed by bullets before his eyes, when he was a young boy, enough to see in his eyes what war was like. He had to follow his uncle to another land and took his uncle's last name, considering him as his father. It was as if his personal circumstances were vaguely present in it, of course, that was also the situation of the entire nation at that time.
A farmer family just wanted to live in peace, work in the fields, and have a herd of buffaloes that were as friendly as people. But then the war broke out, and they split into... 3 factions. One faction wanted to live in peace, and insisted on forcing their children to avoid military service. Of course, that was the parents' "faction". The brothers were divided into 2 factions. They did not divide themselves, but the times forced them to. Guns, bombs, artillery... there were many pages that made people shiver. People emerged from those chaotic nights of bombs and bullets. The climax was the night when the 3 sons, but divided into 2 factions in that family, all died in a major clash. And, the way the two sides held funerals for their soldiers was also impressive.
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The work “From the sixth hour to the ninth hour” by writer Nguyen Mot. Photo: VCH |
With more than 300 pages, Nguyen Mot leads us through extremely suspenseful situations, but strangely, suspenseful in a calm way. The characters have both thrilling and normal fates, their personalities clash bitterly but can stand each other. The tragedies, some of them are so suffocating... but then all are resolved, both by the writer's technical arrangement and also by the writer's humanistic nature, his always looking towards the bright side. So in the end, most of them return and meet each other. The ending is extremely surprising after very mysterious and obscure leads.
There are painful, perfect meetings, there are unfinished, regretful reunions. But even though the war is so fierce and brutal, there is still beautiful love, very beautiful. On this side or that side, love is beautiful. Just so pure, so pure, even though it is difficult, even though it is adverse, even though it is limping, even though it is difficult to explain... but in the end, reason is given to have a happy ending. The love story of Trang and Tam is not beautiful, beautiful and fierce. Fierce even when they reunite, in tears and pain, but beautiful. Beautiful to the point of pain. Is Son Diem's love story not beautiful? Even though at times it makes our hearts skip a beat. It is beautiful in a way... Nguyen Mot, that is, vague, that is, unreal, that is, it is not normal, that is, too beautiful, too fragile, too weak in the midst of the noise of battle.
Nguyen Mot has a very good memory. He recounted many details from 1975 accurately. Many poems by his beloved poet Nguyen Tat Nhien were quoted.
I intentionally did not summarize this novel, because it would lose the fun when reading, especially the suspense due to the author's skillful storytelling. I will only mention a few impressions after I put the book down, after 2 days of reading and 1 sleepless night after finishing it. I almost did not sleep and when I dozed off occasionally, the hauntings of the book, the hauntings of war reappeared. My generation and I were born and raised during the war. I witnessed the war destroying the North, after 1975, I returned to my hometown in Hue to witness the war that had just passed, still vividly remembering the circumstances of my brothers and sisters who had just gone through the war. Nguyen Mot experienced the war in the South, was the "character" of the war face to face. I went to Nguyen Mot's hometown, heard him tell about his strange life, from a boy sleeping with his mother who witnessed his mother being shot dead right before his eyes, to when he moved in with his uncle during a difficult time because he was very poor, but he raised his nephew to be a good person; Even when he was a teacher, he still had to sell ice cream, and then became a journalist and writer like he is today.
It was not until the last lines of the novel that I understood what the sixth and ninth hours had to do with the story he named the novel. It is a verse from the Bible: “And about the sixth hour there came darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And the sun became dark, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two in the middle…”
I read Nguyen Mot's calmness, tolerance and humanistic view of the war and people from this novel, so the cruelty, the violence, the sorrow, the humiliation... finally make us feel moved, less suffocating, even though there is reunion but also separation. It's like the way the main character Son recognizes the mysterious afternoon color of the river...
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