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Fiction
Title: Memories Of A Pure Spring Author: Duong Thu Huong Rating:  Must Read!
Publisher: Hyperion Web Page: http://www.hyperion.com Reviewed by: Harriet Klausner |
 
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Though the War with the Americans engulfs the country, music composer Hung and his beloved wife singer Suong are happy. They enjoy working together as they entertain the troops with Suong singing HungÆs compositions. When the war ends, HungÆs friends drop him when he complains about the failure of the redistribution of the wealth among the people. By accident, Hung ends up with boat people fleeing Viet Nam. However, the police catch the dissidents and send them to a re-education camp. Upon "graduating", Hung finds he remains a no man, turning to alcohol to survive and driving his cherished wife further away from him. MEMORIES OF A PURE SPRING is a potent indictment of the misuse of power by the Communists when they united Viet Nam. The story line creates as powerful a human rights defender as one will see in a novel. The prime characters are intriguing and enlightening, but their soliloquies slow down the plot. Though the tale may lose some of its lyrical beauty in the translation, Duong Thu Huong shows why she is considered the Vietnamese voice of conscience. Harriet Klausner
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