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The Zenith
Memory is the one who builds you a permanent court of justice. Memory is the one at your side from whom you cannot run...
A sweeping tale of thwarted love, political intrigue, and the price of power--"The Doctor Zhivago of Vietnam" (Boston Globe)--about Ho Chi Minh, the founding father of modern Vietnam, a man beloved by millions but shrouded in controversy and mystery
Vietnam's most popular dissident writer, Duong Thu Huong has won acclaim for her exceptional lyricism and psychological acumen, as well as for her unflinching portraits of modern Vietnam and its culture and people. Built on 15 years of research, The Zenith imagines the final months in the life of Ho Chi Minh--president of North Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969--at an isolated mountain compound where he is imprisoned both physically and emotionally.
Complex, daring, and elegiac, Huong's novel weaves Ho Chi Minh's story together with narratives of members of his inner circle and a village elder, illuminating the personal costs of political struggle, the addictive quality of power and influence, and how a tragedy can threaten to engulf not just one individual but an entire nation. Most radically, it is a multidimensional portrait of Ho Chi Minh himself; a man who is often painted as a saint, martyr, or puppet, but whom Huong portrays as a real person whose life encapsulated humanity's capacity for vision, greed, pain, love, and fallibility.
An epic masterpiece that is both a gripping political thriller and a haunting excavation of the human heart, The Zenith is an unforgettable novel that leaves readers unsettled, transformed, and closer to life's fundamental mysteries.
A sweeping tale of thwarted love, political intrigue, and the price of power--"The Doctor Zhivago of Vietnam" (Boston Globe)--about Ho Chi Minh, the founding father of modern Vietnam, a man beloved by millions but shrouded in controversy and mystery
Vietnam's most popular dissident writer, Duong Thu Huong has won acclaim for her exceptional lyricism and psychological acumen, as well as for her unflinching portraits of modern Vietnam and its culture and people. Built on 15 years of research, The Zenith imagines the final months in the life of Ho Chi Minh--president of North Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969--at an isolated mountain compound where he is imprisoned both physically and emotionally.
Complex, daring, and elegiac, Huong's novel weaves Ho Chi Minh's story together with narratives of members of his inner circle and a village elder, illuminating the personal costs of political struggle, the addictive quality of power and influence, and how a tragedy can threaten to engulf not just one individual but an entire nation. Most radically, it is a multidimensional portrait of Ho Chi Minh himself; a man who is often painted as a saint, martyr, or puppet, but whom Huong portrays as a real person whose life encapsulated humanity's capacity for vision, greed, pain, love, and fallibility.
An epic masterpiece that is both a gripping political thriller and a haunting excavation of the human heart, The Zenith is an unforgettable novel that leaves readers unsettled, transformed, and closer to life's fundamental mysteries.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
40 people are currently reading
655 people want to read
About the author
Dương Thu Hương
31 books190 followersDương Thu Hương (b. 1947) is a Vietnamese author and political dissident. Formerly a member of Vietnam's communist party, she was expelled from the party in 1989, and has been denied the right to travel abroad, and was temporarily imprisoned for her writings and outspoken criticism of corruption in the Vietnamese government.
Born in 1947 in Thai Binh a province in northern Vietnam, Dương came of age just as the Vietnam War was turning violent. At the age of twenty, when she was a student at Vietnamese Ministry of Culture’s Arts College, Dương Thu Hương volunteered to serve in a women’s youth brigade on the front lines of “The War Against the Americans". Dương spent the next seven years of the war in the jungles and tunnels of Binh Tri Thien, the most heavily bombarded region of the war. Her mission was to “sing louder than the bombs” and to give theatrical performances for the North Vietnamese troops, but also to tend to the wounded, bury the dead, and accompany the soldiers along. She was one of three survivors out of the forty volunteers in that group. She was also at the front during China’s attacks on Vietnam in 1979 during the short-lived Sino-Vietnamese War. However, in the period after Vietnam’s reunification in 1975, Dương became increasingly outspoken and critical about the repressive atmosphere created by the Communist government. Upon seeing the conditions in the South – compared with the North – she began speaking out against the communist government.
Dương moved to Paris in 2006. In January 2009, her latest novel, Đỉnh Cao Chói Lọi, was published; it was also translated into French as Au zénith.
Born in 1947 in Thai Binh a province in northern Vietnam, Dương came of age just as the Vietnam War was turning violent. At the age of twenty, when she was a student at Vietnamese Ministry of Culture’s Arts College, Dương Thu Hương volunteered to serve in a women’s youth brigade on the front lines of “The War Against the Americans". Dương spent the next seven years of the war in the jungles and tunnels of Binh Tri Thien, the most heavily bombarded region of the war. Her mission was to “sing louder than the bombs” and to give theatrical performances for the North Vietnamese troops, but also to tend to the wounded, bury the dead, and accompany the soldiers along. She was one of three survivors out of the forty volunteers in that group. She was also at the front during China’s attacks on Vietnam in 1979 during the short-lived Sino-Vietnamese War. However, in the period after Vietnam’s reunification in 1975, Dương became increasingly outspoken and critical about the repressive atmosphere created by the Communist government. Upon seeing the conditions in the South – compared with the North – she began speaking out against the communist government.
Dương moved to Paris in 2006. In January 2009, her latest novel, Đỉnh Cao Chói Lọi, was published; it was also translated into French as Au zénith.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
August 3, 2016
This novel was first published in 2009, translation copyright 2012 by Stephen Young and Hoa Pham Young. It is an anguished account of a much-lauded government leader who is surprised to find the country he thought he was leading has turned into something else without his awareness. The ideals of the party, the movement, has been corrupted in practice, all while he was concentrating on consolidating the revolution.
Dương Thu Hương was once one of Vietnam’s most respected novelists. Most of her work has been censored in her home country and was originally published in the 1980’s and -90’s outside of Vietnam. Once a proud communist, she was expelled from Vietnam’s Communist Party in 1989 because of her criticisms about what the government had become. This novel, beginning with a highly imaginative and sympathetic fictional account of the death of Hồ Chí Minh in a remote mountain outpost where he was imprisoned, is contrary to fact.
There are a number of other threads in the novel, but I admit I found it difficult to follow. From the cover copy we learn that Hồ had a very young mistress (wife in some accounts) who was killed by Communist party bosses, Hồ's underlings. Citing this novel and interview testimony of Dương Thu Hương, Britain's The Guardian calls the novel "explosive" with lurid claims about Hồ's private life that would place the government in Hanoi in a difficult position. Dương places much emphasis in her work on the beauty of the setting, and the words of characters are elliptical and flowery, representing something that resembles conversation but is perhaps meant to have more context. In a short story or a play, such a style might be successful. In a 500-page book, the author relies on readers’ stamina to overcome the lack of coherence.
In the Author’s Note at the start of the novel, Dương writes “It is beyond me to write only from my imagination. Everything I have ever written has built upon true events. Even so, one needs to remember the hard fact that fiction is still fiction.” So Dương is unlike other novelists we may read with pure pleasure in mind. She has a point, rewriting history. She was unhappy with the way political change manifest after the promise of the revolution in Vietnam, and how the leadership after the fall of Hồ allowed power to feed the human capacity for greed. “…in everyone’s life, greed is the one predominant drive. It is greed that blurs our conscience…” are words she places in the mouth of a Buddhist nun with blackened teeth.
The world has so many examples of this precept, it is hard to argue with its truth. What is a little easier to argue with is the form of a successful novel. Because this novel gives us so much South Asian sensibility and style, Western readers who dismiss its convoluted storyline and embellished phrasing may simply be struck by the differences in culture. However, one might argue that differences in style do not negate the need for a embracing storyline. One may read political screeds but one rarely falls for them the way we do for an illuminating fiction. And a mix of the two make one distrust one’s judgement.
I hesitate to recommend this title. It was tough reading and tougher understanding.
Dương Thu Hương was once one of Vietnam’s most respected novelists. Most of her work has been censored in her home country and was originally published in the 1980’s and -90’s outside of Vietnam. Once a proud communist, she was expelled from Vietnam’s Communist Party in 1989 because of her criticisms about what the government had become. This novel, beginning with a highly imaginative and sympathetic fictional account of the death of Hồ Chí Minh in a remote mountain outpost where he was imprisoned, is contrary to fact.
There are a number of other threads in the novel, but I admit I found it difficult to follow. From the cover copy we learn that Hồ had a very young mistress (wife in some accounts) who was killed by Communist party bosses, Hồ's underlings. Citing this novel and interview testimony of Dương Thu Hương, Britain's The Guardian calls the novel "explosive" with lurid claims about Hồ's private life that would place the government in Hanoi in a difficult position. Dương places much emphasis in her work on the beauty of the setting, and the words of characters are elliptical and flowery, representing something that resembles conversation but is perhaps meant to have more context. In a short story or a play, such a style might be successful. In a 500-page book, the author relies on readers’ stamina to overcome the lack of coherence.
In the Author’s Note at the start of the novel, Dương writes “It is beyond me to write only from my imagination. Everything I have ever written has built upon true events. Even so, one needs to remember the hard fact that fiction is still fiction.” So Dương is unlike other novelists we may read with pure pleasure in mind. She has a point, rewriting history. She was unhappy with the way political change manifest after the promise of the revolution in Vietnam, and how the leadership after the fall of Hồ allowed power to feed the human capacity for greed. “…in everyone’s life, greed is the one predominant drive. It is greed that blurs our conscience…” are words she places in the mouth of a Buddhist nun with blackened teeth.
The world has so many examples of this precept, it is hard to argue with its truth. What is a little easier to argue with is the form of a successful novel. Because this novel gives us so much South Asian sensibility and style, Western readers who dismiss its convoluted storyline and embellished phrasing may simply be struck by the differences in culture. However, one might argue that differences in style do not negate the need for a embracing storyline. One may read political screeds but one rarely falls for them the way we do for an illuminating fiction. And a mix of the two make one distrust one’s judgement.
I hesitate to recommend this title. It was tough reading and tougher understanding.
December 4, 2017
i keep expecting Duong Thu Huong's name to surface at least during discussions of the Nobel Prize, but I am inevitably disappointed. Few writers have given their nation more: a Northerner, she spent years on the front lines of its wars, including underground, entertaining, nursing and burying the troops. But she is that rarest of all things: someone who expected the revolution to fulfill its promise and is willing to expose, with brutal honesty, how it does not. "Paradise of the Blind" criticized the land reforms of the early fifties and "Novel without a Name" was a soldier's story of a war without heroism. "The Zenith" takes on no lesser a figure than Uncle Ho himself in his last days, which she depicts as the great man worn out by age and regret, and marginalized by those who have taken possession of the government. It is not a quick read nor an easy one; in addition to the narrate of Uncle Ho's decline, Huong pauses on this broad canvas to flesh out stories surrounding the old lion: the most loyal of his old comrades, the brother-in-law of the President's murdered wife; a woodcutter who dies in the village below where the great man is kept, isolated from power. The wife and her vicious murder are Huong's invention, but that is part of her point: she indicts Ho for failing to safeguard a beloved woman who stands in for the nation, its revolution, its youth and its ideals. This is a terrible world, one in which allies are killers, husbands abandon wives to be murdered, children turn on parents. It is a Vietnam in which the Marxists have not so much overthrown a predatory monarchy as replaced it; she refers to the new kings and their imperial palaces. As one character states to the loyal functionary, "This revolution, aside from what it did to emancipate the people, neither brought freedom nor expanded productive capacity; on the contrary, it totally destroyed all the valuable culture that had made our nation... the revolution only accomplished a disgusting dredging up of layers of mud from the bottom of the pond to pollute its surface." Huong's uncompromising vision has been rewarded with exile. Which proves at least part of her point.
August 23, 2019
This is one of those situations where the book is smarter than the reader. It is the final weeks of Ho Chi Minh’s life. He is in a secluded mountain top Buddhist monastery under the watchful eye of party officials where he spends his quiet days reflecting on his sacrifices, the times when he did his duty rather than what he believed to be right. His primary regret is abandoning his young mistress and children to serve the party in leadership. In the thoughts of this old man, we find one who is powerless despite his position of power, who has a tender conscience despite the harsh and pragmatic policies that flow from his office, a hollow man manipulated by those behind the scenes despite his title and accolades. Woven around these final days are numerous other stories, a family feud in a nearby mountain village, the marital tension of a lower ranking official loyal to Ho Chi Minh, stories of past sacrifices of a number of characters. I was often confused by the shift in story line and time frame. I never did figure out the point of the family feud which occupied a majority of the center of this novel. Part of the problem is my limited understanding of the cultural expectations and world view of the people of Vietnam. Much of the concerns and regrets and motivations in this novel were lost on me. I want to read more by this leading voice in Vietnamese literature, but I anticipate that those reads, like this one, will be more work than pleasure.
January 24, 2013
Ho Chi Minh, the President looks back as a 70-year-old man at parts of his life with regret. He regrets the lack of contact with children that he fathered and the loss of a woman he loved, he regrets the distance that has come between himself as a man and the people he sought to represent.
Wishing to retrieve something of that contact, he attends the funeral of a woodcutter to pay his respects, only to realise the suffering his presence will have caused because of his distinguished position and the expectations that are carried with it should he grace them with his presence. He despairs at having lost sight of that which motivated him to first become involved in the revolution, to bring equality to all.
Things pick up in pace and interest when we learn more of the story of the woodcutter, his family and village, this one story perhaps seen to represent various stages in the country's own experience of communism, both its idealistic benefits for the community and its destructive elements against the weak and innocent, when power, greed and envy are present within its leadership, turning even family members against each other.
The story-telling reaches its zenith and had me totally convinced of the authenticity of the relationship between the wise sixty-something father/grandfather Mr Quang and his new 18-year-old bride Miss Ngan and relishing the way they managed the reactions of close family and their community with their provocative yet bona-fide marriage.
It highlights the enormous gap that can grow between those who rule and have power and/or wealth and those who are trying to survive, just like the distance between rich and poor in a democratic society, similarly it exists between those who yield power and those who don't in a communist society, trust breaking down within a community as people become increasingly desperate and open to being corrupted while others live in constant fear.
This is not a book to be read quickly, nor even understood immediately. I continue to think about what I read and what it attempted to portray about society, leadership, workers, family and the effect of power and its oft great distance from the reality of how people live, the destructiveness of jealousy and the perseverance of those who will never be compromised, who will always fight for what they perceive is good and right.
The country, its writers and message continue to allure and despite all the suffering, both past and present, there remains for me a quiet tranquility that pervades it, a steadfast patience and determination I admire.
Full review here at Word by Word
Wishing to retrieve something of that contact, he attends the funeral of a woodcutter to pay his respects, only to realise the suffering his presence will have caused because of his distinguished position and the expectations that are carried with it should he grace them with his presence. He despairs at having lost sight of that which motivated him to first become involved in the revolution, to bring equality to all.
Things pick up in pace and interest when we learn more of the story of the woodcutter, his family and village, this one story perhaps seen to represent various stages in the country's own experience of communism, both its idealistic benefits for the community and its destructive elements against the weak and innocent, when power, greed and envy are present within its leadership, turning even family members against each other.
The story-telling reaches its zenith and had me totally convinced of the authenticity of the relationship between the wise sixty-something father/grandfather Mr Quang and his new 18-year-old bride Miss Ngan and relishing the way they managed the reactions of close family and their community with their provocative yet bona-fide marriage.
It highlights the enormous gap that can grow between those who rule and have power and/or wealth and those who are trying to survive, just like the distance between rich and poor in a democratic society, similarly it exists between those who yield power and those who don't in a communist society, trust breaking down within a community as people become increasingly desperate and open to being corrupted while others live in constant fear.
This is not a book to be read quickly, nor even understood immediately. I continue to think about what I read and what it attempted to portray about society, leadership, workers, family and the effect of power and its oft great distance from the reality of how people live, the destructiveness of jealousy and the perseverance of those who will never be compromised, who will always fight for what they perceive is good and right.
The country, its writers and message continue to allure and despite all the suffering, both past and present, there remains for me a quiet tranquility that pervades it, a steadfast patience and determination I admire.
Full review here at Word by Word
June 24, 2012
Four stories, all about Ho Chi Minh in their own way.
Never confusing, always engaging. Despite the huge amout of pages (at least, in Dutch) it was difficult to put aside.
It's a story about love and power. About how one can interfere with the other. Shocking at times, exciting at other moments, tragic at all times. amazed but not surprised to see how strong leaders are also just human.
This book was a nice suprise. The Vietnam war was nothing new, but a new point of view is always good.
Never confusing, always engaging. Despite the huge amout of pages (at least, in Dutch) it was difficult to put aside.
It's a story about love and power. About how one can interfere with the other. Shocking at times, exciting at other moments, tragic at all times. amazed but not surprised to see how strong leaders are also just human.
This book was a nice suprise. The Vietnam war was nothing new, but a new point of view is always good.
September 26, 2022
An amazing book on many levels. Absolutely should be read.
First, it is a long meditation on power, and more specifically the evils of absolute power enjoyed by Communist despots in the 20th century (and, alas, beyond in some cases). It is a deeply felt cry of rage, torn from a genuine love of Vietnam and its people. There are times reading "The Zenith" where I wondered if this wouldn't become a "War and Peace" in the next 100 years, with its layers of characters, its movement across Vietnam's beautiful and mysterious landscape of craggy mountains and jungle. But it is marred by its length in sections and too many cliched descriptions of feelings and emotions.
The book is also oddly structured. Its main character is Ho Chi Minh, isolated and essentially imprisoned atop a North Vietnamese mountain top in 1969. He ruminates on his life and the revolution, both of which have gone off the rails and ended in a warped, bloody version of the rather inchoate and naive view of the future he held. One thing Duong Thu Huong is great at is showing how leftist revolutionaries are only good at tearing down, only focused on smashing and vast revenge; clueless at construction.
Outside of Ho Chi Minh, however, the book's sections don't finish satisfactorily, at least to this reader. The second section takes place in Woodcutter's Hamlet, a peasant/farmer town at the foot of Lan Vu mountain where Ho lives in guarded isolation above. I loved this section. It is warm and funny. The villagers function like a Greek chorus, riffing constantly at whatever is happening. They are full of petty spite and the profound wisdom of the ages; the common sense and time-proven knowledge handed down through generations for more than a thousand years. Mr. Quang is the star here, and he is a charismatic, hugely able man eventually murdered (we believe) by his eldest son, a low-level Commie rat, warped by his own Party power.
But his tale simply ends; we never return to it. I was so engrossed in it that when suddenly a new section came, and we were back with Ho, I'd almost forgotten he was atop the mountain.
Then there is the character Hoang An (formerly Chi Van Thanh, formerly something else), who has an amazing personal odyssey through the war and the jungle, but whose story line just disappears, save for a cryptic final scene.
And there is Vu, Ho's best friend, who shares the shattered idealism and suffers a breakdown as he confronts the hideous reality of what Vietnam's Communist Party has done.
"Elder Brother, the great task has turned rotten," are his last words to Ho, muttered brokenly over the phone.
I can't speak for the historical accuracy of "The Zenith," although in an author's note Duong Thu Huong lets readers know that with the exception of one character there is more truth in "The Zenith" than one might imagine.
But in her profound musings on power and the evil of Communism she gives "The Zenith" its great, lasting power.
There are wonderful passages where Ho hallucinates and imagines conversations with Mao, or with himself as a younger revolutionary in Paris. Mao is contemptuous of Ho's naivete:
"Between a king and his subjects there is no equality, nor any trust. There is only use or rejection. The word 'comrade' I borrowed from the West to direct the mandarins and the little people exactly as a magician directs his army with charms and spells. It was like a lemon rind, a ghost's shadow, and yet you believed it to be the meat and fruit of a real personage. Oh, 'comrade'! A fancy word created by a few guys with beards. Do you see how I treated those who I call 'comrades'? I suck the blood from their veins as a farmer releases water from a field. I take their blood to clean the steps that lead to the throne, because the color red is the color of power and glory. Nothing can represent the color red better than human blood. Those who stand to the left and right of the king are always the warriors in his bedchamber. You have to know how to kill them right away before they take the time to think about hiding knives in their shirtsleeves."
Woven throughout is the story of his forbidden (by the party, and by the brutal system it has established) love. It's impossible to capture the emotion and depth Duong Thu Huong puts into this, ending with her final cry for freedom written 2 January 2007 in Paris:
"However, since the second day of September, the year of the rooster, 1969, a sword has hung dangling in the Hanoi sky; a huge and visible sword. One can clearly see it on fall days when the skies are a cloudless, crystal blue after a stormy rain. That sword blade aims straight down at the flagpole in Hanoi, waiting for destiny to fall at any time and cut down the red flag with the yellow star, to end the fraudulent and brutal regime, to destroy those monsters who sucked blood from the necks of the very people who had nurtured them."
And finally, here is a taste of Ho's meditation. He is recalling a Politburo meeting at which he realizes his personal life has been ruined by the artificial image the Revolution has created of him, and his own failure to grasp the essential nature of dictatorships:
"Yesterday, they had still been comrades fighting for an ideal. Now they were sitting there thinking of other schemes. The war of yesterday was over. Today was when the generals divided up the war booty in the palace. Yesterday in the woods they had all received the usual portions of rice and water from the springs, there was nothing to envy or to scheme for. Today, things were different. The social rank of each one sitting there needed to be accompanied by thousands of measurable and immeasurable rights. They were no longer concerned with the things that concerned him, because personal interests are always closest to us and seduce us the most effectively. The things that bothered him that day, to them had become tasteless or even incomprehensible. A whole machine was now serving their own persons or their families irrespective of time or limitations. They lived absolutely in accordance with the golden principle of communism. And that golden principle was meant for only one group of people and excluded the rest of the nation."
First, it is a long meditation on power, and more specifically the evils of absolute power enjoyed by Communist despots in the 20th century (and, alas, beyond in some cases). It is a deeply felt cry of rage, torn from a genuine love of Vietnam and its people. There are times reading "The Zenith" where I wondered if this wouldn't become a "War and Peace" in the next 100 years, with its layers of characters, its movement across Vietnam's beautiful and mysterious landscape of craggy mountains and jungle. But it is marred by its length in sections and too many cliched descriptions of feelings and emotions.
The book is also oddly structured. Its main character is Ho Chi Minh, isolated and essentially imprisoned atop a North Vietnamese mountain top in 1969. He ruminates on his life and the revolution, both of which have gone off the rails and ended in a warped, bloody version of the rather inchoate and naive view of the future he held. One thing Duong Thu Huong is great at is showing how leftist revolutionaries are only good at tearing down, only focused on smashing and vast revenge; clueless at construction.
Outside of Ho Chi Minh, however, the book's sections don't finish satisfactorily, at least to this reader. The second section takes place in Woodcutter's Hamlet, a peasant/farmer town at the foot of Lan Vu mountain where Ho lives in guarded isolation above. I loved this section. It is warm and funny. The villagers function like a Greek chorus, riffing constantly at whatever is happening. They are full of petty spite and the profound wisdom of the ages; the common sense and time-proven knowledge handed down through generations for more than a thousand years. Mr. Quang is the star here, and he is a charismatic, hugely able man eventually murdered (we believe) by his eldest son, a low-level Commie rat, warped by his own Party power.
But his tale simply ends; we never return to it. I was so engrossed in it that when suddenly a new section came, and we were back with Ho, I'd almost forgotten he was atop the mountain.
Then there is the character Hoang An (formerly Chi Van Thanh, formerly something else), who has an amazing personal odyssey through the war and the jungle, but whose story line just disappears, save for a cryptic final scene.
And there is Vu, Ho's best friend, who shares the shattered idealism and suffers a breakdown as he confronts the hideous reality of what Vietnam's Communist Party has done.
"Elder Brother, the great task has turned rotten," are his last words to Ho, muttered brokenly over the phone.
I can't speak for the historical accuracy of "The Zenith," although in an author's note Duong Thu Huong lets readers know that with the exception of one character there is more truth in "The Zenith" than one might imagine.
But in her profound musings on power and the evil of Communism she gives "The Zenith" its great, lasting power.
There are wonderful passages where Ho hallucinates and imagines conversations with Mao, or with himself as a younger revolutionary in Paris. Mao is contemptuous of Ho's naivete:
"Between a king and his subjects there is no equality, nor any trust. There is only use or rejection. The word 'comrade' I borrowed from the West to direct the mandarins and the little people exactly as a magician directs his army with charms and spells. It was like a lemon rind, a ghost's shadow, and yet you believed it to be the meat and fruit of a real personage. Oh, 'comrade'! A fancy word created by a few guys with beards. Do you see how I treated those who I call 'comrades'? I suck the blood from their veins as a farmer releases water from a field. I take their blood to clean the steps that lead to the throne, because the color red is the color of power and glory. Nothing can represent the color red better than human blood. Those who stand to the left and right of the king are always the warriors in his bedchamber. You have to know how to kill them right away before they take the time to think about hiding knives in their shirtsleeves."
Woven throughout is the story of his forbidden (by the party, and by the brutal system it has established) love. It's impossible to capture the emotion and depth Duong Thu Huong puts into this, ending with her final cry for freedom written 2 January 2007 in Paris:
"However, since the second day of September, the year of the rooster, 1969, a sword has hung dangling in the Hanoi sky; a huge and visible sword. One can clearly see it on fall days when the skies are a cloudless, crystal blue after a stormy rain. That sword blade aims straight down at the flagpole in Hanoi, waiting for destiny to fall at any time and cut down the red flag with the yellow star, to end the fraudulent and brutal regime, to destroy those monsters who sucked blood from the necks of the very people who had nurtured them."
And finally, here is a taste of Ho's meditation. He is recalling a Politburo meeting at which he realizes his personal life has been ruined by the artificial image the Revolution has created of him, and his own failure to grasp the essential nature of dictatorships:
"Yesterday, they had still been comrades fighting for an ideal. Now they were sitting there thinking of other schemes. The war of yesterday was over. Today was when the generals divided up the war booty in the palace. Yesterday in the woods they had all received the usual portions of rice and water from the springs, there was nothing to envy or to scheme for. Today, things were different. The social rank of each one sitting there needed to be accompanied by thousands of measurable and immeasurable rights. They were no longer concerned with the things that concerned him, because personal interests are always closest to us and seduce us the most effectively. The things that bothered him that day, to them had become tasteless or even incomprehensible. A whole machine was now serving their own persons or their families irrespective of time or limitations. They lived absolutely in accordance with the golden principle of communism. And that golden principle was meant for only one group of people and excluded the rest of the nation."
September 15, 2015
Đọc xong vừa thấy chắc chắn mà lại cũng hoang mang về cái đất nước mình. Tác giả thì khẳng định sách viết dựa trên factual research, 15 năm kinh nghiệm từ bao nguồn khác nhau, tính cả vào tù ra tội rồi người này người kia. Hoang mang lắm. Lần nào các bạn quốc tế hỏi chuyện lịch sử, chiến tranh, nhân vật thì cũng đều quay lại cái cảm giác này cả. Từ bé đến lớn học sử qua sách giáo khoa, lớn lên mới biết hoá ra còn những nguồn tin khác. Thành ra lúc nào cũng ở trong tâm trạng chả biết đâu mà lần. Giờ cứ phải theo Active Citizens, học cách hold assumptions lightly.
Em đặc biệt thích cái tiêu đề vì tự lòng vốn đồng ý với chuyện đã là người thì phải có những tình cảm cá nhân, những chuyện sinh lý hay mưu cầu hạnh phúc này kia, cớ sao mà sách vở báo đài lúc nào cũng chỉ tô vẽ Bác với cái hào quang chói lọi tận trên tầng 5 cái tháp Maslow mà chả bao giờ cho phép bàn về những tầng ẩm thấp căn bản ở dưới. Ngày xưa vậy, giờ vậy, mà còn lâu lâu nữa sau này chắc vẫn vậy. Ngay đến mấy trang mạng bàn về vài vấn đề ẩm ương này, dù tiếng gì đi nữa, có bấm vào bằng IP Việt Nam thì 99% là ắt không truy cập được.
Cảm quan chung về sách: Đọc chương đầu chả thích tẹo nào. Chả hiểu do cốt truyện hay đơn giản chỉ là giọng văn cách dẫn truyện, cứ thấy cái nhìn bị tiêu cực và phiến diện thái quá. Nhưng những mấu chuyện chương sau, tưởng chừng không liên quan, thế mà hoá lại liền một mạch với nhau, ráp vào nhau như mảnh ghép hình thành ra kể được toàn bộ câu chuyện, thành ra lại hoá wow moment nên cứ theo nhịp mà đưa chuyện đi đọc tiếp. Đọc hết gần 300 trang xong bỗng thấy hiện lên toàn là các ông bố đau khổ từ chương đầu đến chương cuối. Bất kể bố già hay bố trẻ, mỗi ông khổ một đường, mà đa đến chết mà cái bất hạnh vẫn còn bám theo không cho yên thân. Sách viết năm 2007 mà giọng điệu ai chua, thùng thình, chau chuốt như văn chương đầu thế kỉ 20.
Đọc xong quyển này thì đọc được một đoạn tả về Dương Thu Hương trong Hồi kí Nguyễn Đăng Mạnh, một bác em chả thích nhưng vẫn nể phục. (Oen bác ngày xưa nhờ bác mà có bao nhiêu tư liệu và cũng có cái nguồn quan điểm mới mỗi khi làm luận định văn chương.) Ôi hoá ra Dương Thu Hương tính tình mạnh bạo, ngang tàng, thẳng thắn thật. Vận vào văn, viết những đoạn kể cả mưa gió nước mắt luyến luỵ đến mấy thì vẫn thấy có cái không khí cứng cỏi, ngàng tang thoang thoảng đâu đây. Trang Hạ chắc có máu hậu duệ tính khí của bà. Nói chung là tính rất hay, nếu văn chương không luỵ vào chính trị thì có lẽ em đọc sẽ hiểu được cái quan điểm của bà rõ hơn và thấu đáo hơn.
Tiếp theo có lẽ nên đọc cả quyển Hồi kí Nguyễn Đăng Mạnh quá. Bỗng dưng lên cơn nhớ văn thơ ngày xưa. Tác giả tử tế mà đọc thì càng đọc càng yêu nước vì thấy nước có nhiều người giỏi.
Em đặc biệt thích cái tiêu đề vì tự lòng vốn đồng ý với chuyện đã là người thì phải có những tình cảm cá nhân, những chuyện sinh lý hay mưu cầu hạnh phúc này kia, cớ sao mà sách vở báo đài lúc nào cũng chỉ tô vẽ Bác với cái hào quang chói lọi tận trên tầng 5 cái tháp Maslow mà chả bao giờ cho phép bàn về những tầng ẩm thấp căn bản ở dưới. Ngày xưa vậy, giờ vậy, mà còn lâu lâu nữa sau này chắc vẫn vậy. Ngay đến mấy trang mạng bàn về vài vấn đề ẩm ương này, dù tiếng gì đi nữa, có bấm vào bằng IP Việt Nam thì 99% là ắt không truy cập được.
Cảm quan chung về sách: Đọc chương đầu chả thích tẹo nào. Chả hiểu do cốt truyện hay đơn giản chỉ là giọng văn cách dẫn truyện, cứ thấy cái nhìn bị tiêu cực và phiến diện thái quá. Nhưng những mấu chuyện chương sau, tưởng chừng không liên quan, thế mà hoá lại liền một mạch với nhau, ráp vào nhau như mảnh ghép hình thành ra kể được toàn bộ câu chuyện, thành ra lại hoá wow moment nên cứ theo nhịp mà đưa chuyện đi đọc tiếp. Đọc hết gần 300 trang xong bỗng thấy hiện lên toàn là các ông bố đau khổ từ chương đầu đến chương cuối. Bất kể bố già hay bố trẻ, mỗi ông khổ một đường, mà đa đến chết mà cái bất hạnh vẫn còn bám theo không cho yên thân. Sách viết năm 2007 mà giọng điệu ai chua, thùng thình, chau chuốt như văn chương đầu thế kỉ 20.
Đọc xong quyển này thì đọc được một đoạn tả về Dương Thu Hương trong Hồi kí Nguyễn Đăng Mạnh, một bác em chả thích nhưng vẫn nể phục. (Oen bác ngày xưa nhờ bác mà có bao nhiêu tư liệu và cũng có cái nguồn quan điểm mới mỗi khi làm luận định văn chương.) Ôi hoá ra Dương Thu Hương tính tình mạnh bạo, ngang tàng, thẳng thắn thật. Vận vào văn, viết những đoạn kể cả mưa gió nước mắt luyến luỵ đến mấy thì vẫn thấy có cái không khí cứng cỏi, ngàng tang thoang thoảng đâu đây. Trang Hạ chắc có máu hậu duệ tính khí của bà. Nói chung là tính rất hay, nếu văn chương không luỵ vào chính trị thì có lẽ em đọc sẽ hiểu được cái quan điểm của bà rõ hơn và thấu đáo hơn.
Tiếp theo có lẽ nên đọc cả quyển Hồi kí Nguyễn Đăng Mạnh quá. Bỗng dưng lên cơn nhớ văn thơ ngày xưa. Tác giả tử tế mà đọc thì càng đọc càng yêu nước vì thấy nước có nhiều người giỏi.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 25, 2023
Duong Thu Huong is the most famous diaspora Vietnamese author but I've never been drawn to her work, despite generally wanting to read almost anything about Vietnam out there. But her books are all so relentlessly about The War -- an understandable choice given her age and experiences but it's a subject I just find uninteresting -- that it was always hard to feel excited about trying one.
Still, I finally mustered up enough enthusiasm to give this a try. I figured I owed it to myself to at least try one of her books.
This did not convince me.
This is a completely fictional portrait of Ho Chi Minh in his last days. It isn't "inspired by true events". It is completely made up, with the key fabrication -- and the heart of the entire book -- being that he had a son with some lover in the past but never had contact with the son. And now he's old and regrets it and thinks about it constantly.
Okay, whatever. It's a weird hook to the story but I was willing to give it a shot.
But it was just extremely boring without being leavened by actual great writing. This is the kind of Literature that you expect to be slow moving, with little dialogue, and just lots of prose. But the prose is beautiful, the characters evocative.
There's none of that here. For example, here's the dialog that opens the book. A teenager has seen his father fall and sustain a grievous, life-threatening injury:
Or later on while thinking about this son he has never known
Or in another scene between different characters
The writing is just so incredibly stilted there's no joy in reading this. I'm inclined to blame the translators for giving us an overly literal translation from Vietnamese that feels stilted in English. ("Suddenly he said that?" sounds much more natural in Vietnamese.)
So: slow, meandering plot. Stilted writing. And I'm just not interested enough to push through 500+ pages of a weirdly fictional take on Ho Chi Minh's last days.
Still, I finally mustered up enough enthusiasm to give this a try. I figured I owed it to myself to at least try one of her books.
This did not convince me.
This is a completely fictional portrait of Ho Chi Minh in his last days. It isn't "inspired by true events". It is completely made up, with the key fabrication -- and the heart of the entire book -- being that he had a son with some lover in the past but never had contact with the son. And now he's old and regrets it and thinks about it constantly.
Okay, whatever. It's a weird hook to the story but I was willing to give it a shot.
But it was just extremely boring without being leavened by actual great writing. This is the kind of Literature that you expect to be slow moving, with little dialogue, and just lots of prose. But the prose is beautiful, the characters evocative.
There's none of that here. For example, here's the dialog that opens the book. A teenager has seen his father fall and sustain a grievous, life-threatening injury:
“Oh, Father, Father, Father…”
“Oh, Father…will anybody save my father?…Hey, folks…Anyone, please save my father…”
Or later on while thinking about this son he has never known
“He will never cry for me, because he doesn’t know whose child he is. Forever, he will never know who is his birth father.”
Or in another scene between different characters
“How did he insult you?”
“He told me that I am a bastard, and a moocher.”
“Suddenly he said that?”
The writing is just so incredibly stilted there's no joy in reading this. I'm inclined to blame the translators for giving us an overly literal translation from Vietnamese that feels stilted in English. ("Suddenly he said that?" sounds much more natural in Vietnamese.)
So: slow, meandering plot. Stilted writing. And I'm just not interested enough to push through 500+ pages of a weirdly fictional take on Ho Chi Minh's last days.
February 8, 2016
'His voice was soft and high, like that of a homosexual.'
The Zenith is the worst book I have read in a long time, and made me seriously question my policy of finishing every book that I begin. I was persuaded in continuing the masochistic pursuit of reading this mammoth pile of turgid wankery by the vaguely interesting chapter 'The Woodcutters Hamlet' - anyone considering this book should start and finish with this chapter, as it represents a seed of what is promised in the blurb (and what is not delivered anywhere else).
Conversations in The Zenith sound more like chopped up political essays stuffed down characters throats and regurgitated as pompous and unbelievable dialogue. Much of the 500+ page bulk of the book is made up of overblown swathes of monotonous monologue, which are over-indulgent, stiflingly pretentious and deadly boring. The characters themselves are unforgivable in both their bland personalities and sociopathic behaviours - presented to the reader as admirable acts of self-sacrifice.
The amount of positive reviews from French institutions tempts me to point to the English translation as being at fault, but regardless of where the blame lies, The Zenith was a painful, eye-rolling read that I wouldn't touch again with a ten foot pole on fire.
The Zenith is the worst book I have read in a long time, and made me seriously question my policy of finishing every book that I begin. I was persuaded in continuing the masochistic pursuit of reading this mammoth pile of turgid wankery by the vaguely interesting chapter 'The Woodcutters Hamlet' - anyone considering this book should start and finish with this chapter, as it represents a seed of what is promised in the blurb (and what is not delivered anywhere else).
Conversations in The Zenith sound more like chopped up political essays stuffed down characters throats and regurgitated as pompous and unbelievable dialogue. Much of the 500+ page bulk of the book is made up of overblown swathes of monotonous monologue, which are over-indulgent, stiflingly pretentious and deadly boring. The characters themselves are unforgivable in both their bland personalities and sociopathic behaviours - presented to the reader as admirable acts of self-sacrifice.
The amount of positive reviews from French institutions tempts me to point to the English translation as being at fault, but regardless of where the blame lies, The Zenith was a painful, eye-rolling read that I wouldn't touch again with a ten foot pole on fire.
January 28, 2022
Slow paced and confusing at times. Being translated could definitely be a factor.
February 13, 2024
I wanted to like this more but it was really hard to get through. The different story threads were sometimes confusing and it wasn’t always clear why we were following a certain character and their relation to the main plot. There was a theme of older men (like 60 yr olds) marrying/falling in love with barely adult women so heads up if that’s something you want to avoid in a book.
February 8, 2013
I won this book through the first-reads giveaways and I would actually give this book 2.75 stars. My rating system is 2 = okay and 3 = liked it. There were a lot of things I found interesting and liked about this book. It was an interesting perspective on the end of Ho Chi Minh's life. The life of his political ally, Vu was also very interesting. My favorite part was the story of Mr. Quang's family. But, it had the least amount of tie in to Ho Chi Minh's life. I confess to having very little knowledge of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and the war. I did have to do some Googling to learn about Ho Chi Minh and the author. It is obvious there is a lot that she wants to share about her feelings about politics and power in Vietnam. What I don't know is if she truly believes that Ho Chi Minh had changed his feelings about Communism at the end of his life or if she just wants to believe that as she wants it to end in her country. It was a difficult read for me and a lot to wrap my mind around, but it was interesting so I am giving it the benefit of the doubt in my rating.
March 2, 2013
Another wonderful novel from the pen of Durong Thu Huron, although I did find this one a little long and somewhat preachy...her version of President Ho was very interesting as was her take on the men around him and her belief that they undermined his goals and future of Vietnam. I must say that I think that the change of translators may also have effected the book, I did not find the floe of English and the dialogue, both actual and internal was as well done in her past novels..but she is still one the best living writers in the world...
August 17, 2018
After enjoying the first two Anne of Green Gables books, I decided to try something harder - one of the books that I’ve been thinking of reading for the SEA Reading Challenge. And now that I’ve finished it, I can confidently say that if not for this challenged, I would not have picked up this book or finished it.
The Zenith is a confusing story. As far as I can make out, there are two plot lines. One follows the aging president of Vietnam as he slowly dies in isolation, supposedly loved and respected but really under house arrest, and his relationship with one of his subordinates (who has his own relationship issues). The other follows a family in the Woodcutter’s Hamlet, as the father remarries and brings strife (and lots of gossip to the village).
As it turns out, the patriarch of the family in the woodcutter’s hamlet is the guy who died in the opening of the book. I’m sure that they referenced it somewhere at the start, but I didn’t make the connection until much later.
Looking back, I guess there was some action in the story, but it just felt so long. Everyone seemed inclined to make a speech about politics or sex or sex and politics/marital relationships which dragged the story out. I think that if all the speeches were cut out, the book would be half it’s length and at least twice as interesting.
Although I’m not sure if that would help because the story about the president bored me. The characters were unsympathetic and not very interesting, and it felt like the message of “all ideals will be corrupted by power and politics” was hammered into every speech. In fact, the times where I considered giving up on this book happened mostly during the section about the president and his party officials.
I suppose that if this book was only about the family in the Woodcutter’s Hamlet and without speeches, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. There is, after all, some romance and lots of family drama inside. But as it is, this book felt like a thinly veiled political essay and that isn’t really what I wanted to read
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
The Zenith is a confusing story. As far as I can make out, there are two plot lines. One follows the aging president of Vietnam as he slowly dies in isolation, supposedly loved and respected but really under house arrest, and his relationship with one of his subordinates (who has his own relationship issues). The other follows a family in the Woodcutter’s Hamlet, as the father remarries and brings strife (and lots of gossip to the village).
As it turns out, the patriarch of the family in the woodcutter’s hamlet is the guy who died in the opening of the book. I’m sure that they referenced it somewhere at the start, but I didn’t make the connection until much later.
Looking back, I guess there was some action in the story, but it just felt so long. Everyone seemed inclined to make a speech about politics or sex or sex and politics/marital relationships which dragged the story out. I think that if all the speeches were cut out, the book would be half it’s length and at least twice as interesting.
Although I’m not sure if that would help because the story about the president bored me. The characters were unsympathetic and not very interesting, and it felt like the message of “all ideals will be corrupted by power and politics” was hammered into every speech. In fact, the times where I considered giving up on this book happened mostly during the section about the president and his party officials.
I suppose that if this book was only about the family in the Woodcutter’s Hamlet and without speeches, I would have enjoyed it a lot more. There is, after all, some romance and lots of family drama inside. But as it is, this book felt like a thinly veiled political essay and that isn’t really what I wanted to read
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
August 9, 2021
This book captures such a skill in storytelling that likened it to One hundred years of solitude for me. Duong takes an interesting spin on the end of Ho Chi Minh's life, taking us into the depths of his sentimental and personal life, punctuated with regret. Because it is translated, there are moments where the plot progression and dialogue seem a little disjointed, but the feat itself was done mostly well. Duong is also very conspicuous about her political views (hence being banned in Vietnam) which is both surprising and refreshing. Four stars because sometimes the reveries are little abstract and lose my attention, but overall, a truly amazing read that weaves different people's lives together and complicates public discourse on Vietnam.
May 26, 2025
Gros roman, romanesque qui met en scène par longs chapitres Ho Chi Minh reclus à la fin de sa vie dans un monastère bouddhiste dans les montagnes, Vu un cadre du Parti qui assure l’éducation du fils caché de Ho Chi Minh , le frère de la jeune femme de Ho Chi Minh assassinée par les sbires du parti et enchâssée dans le tout, l’histoire d’un riche paysan et de sa jeune femme. L’autrice prévient dès le début des libertés qu’elle va prendre avec la réalité des personnages historiques puisque elle partage avec nous les réflexions d’Ho Chi Minh et de Vu. Ho Chi Minh s’interroge sur sa lâcheté qui l’a laissé perpétrer l’assassinat de son épouse et laissé ses « lieutenants » dévoyer son idéal révolutionnaire. Vu, sur le choix d’une épouse cruelle et acariâtre. Il faut accepter ce principe et se laisser porter ainsi par le récit d’autant que la langue est magnifique et que les évocations de paysage , de repas et de leur fabrication sont particulièrement poétiques.
March 27, 2020
500 exhausting yet beautiful pages. I took a day to finish reading it because what else can I do in my apartment. This is a very long novel. It revolves around the re-imagined final years of Ho Chi Minh, the late President of Vietnam and his weak devotion to his young wife and his followers' blind devotion to him. The narration is just extremely detailed and descriptive. So so poetic. The writer is quite famous and is often persecuted by the government. I can see why. Her words are bold and brave and the issues she writes about are provocative and truthful. Gah.... I am tired now. It is raining outside. Okay... Back to staring at the wall.
September 27, 2020
I've had this book for about 1,5 years, meanwhile I started and stopped reading thee times. It took me a fourth shot to persevere and actually finish the book. Though some parts were definitely interesting, the overall feel of the book was very overwhelming. It contains so much information, from historical point of view and personal information of all the characters, I just couldn't memorize it all and had to re-read some parts to grasp it all. I'm glad I finally finished it - because I really wanted to read this book - but I doubt I would recommend it. This would've much easier been spread into multiple books, instead of this one explosion of information.
April 13, 2019
J'ai lu la traduction fançaise de ce roman. J'ai aimé sa dimension spiritualité, l'atmosphère contemplative qui se dégage des réflexions des personnages et de leur regard sur leur vie. J'ai senti qu'il me manquait beaucoup d'informations sur l'histoire vietnamienne pour bien comprendre ce roman, ne serait-ce que pour savoir si l'histoire du livre s'inspire un peu de la réalité ou pas du tout. Ça m'a donné envie d'en savoir plus ce pays !
November 27, 2018
I didn't particularly like this book.
At times I had difficulties keeping apart whether the president was talking, or the other man.
I probably am not enough informed about the typical (political) circumstances in Vietnam, for many points to things that happened or people, known issues, went past me. That made it quite a hard read.
At times I had difficulties keeping apart whether the president was talking, or the other man.
I probably am not enough informed about the typical (political) circumstances in Vietnam, for many points to things that happened or people, known issues, went past me. That made it quite a hard read.
October 8, 2022
I’m struggling with wading through the misogyny and heavy-handed characterisations of Ho Chi Minh. It doesn’t help that neither of the English translators seem comfortable writing literary fiction - the writing keeps switching between florid prose and oddly informal phrasing. This might be first book I’ve ever given up on finishing.
November 21, 2025
Une plongée dans la pensée d'Ho Chi Min, vieillissant, se souvenant de son amour et sa tragique fin, organisée par ses camarades du comité central.
Vision sans doute totalement romanesque, mais on saisit bien la réalité de la vie du Vietnam, et l'âme de ses habitants, au travers de la destinée parallèle des nombreux personnages.
Vision sans doute totalement romanesque, mais on saisit bien la réalité de la vie du Vietnam, et l'âme de ses habitants, au travers de la destinée parallèle des nombreux personnages.
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March 10, 2022Tác phẩm này đề cập tới nhân vật chính là Chủ tịch, người nhìn lại quãng đời về già của mình sau khi qua nhiều vinh nhục, ông cảm thấy cô đơn và trống vắng. Chủ tịch cảm thấy tủi nhục khi từng leo lên đỉnh cao chói lọi nhưng không đủ sức để bảo vệ người yêu của mình
May 10, 2024
Long but good in a way.
I felt I learned a lot but it was slow going. The themes were good but I often felt frustrated and am confused about whether a lot of the gender stuff was a commentary on gender roles and violence against women in Vietnam.
I felt I learned a lot but it was slow going. The themes were good but I often felt frustrated and am confused about whether a lot of the gender stuff was a commentary on gender roles and violence against women in Vietnam.
December 6, 2025
Très poétique mais beaucoup de longueur. Pour un lecteur non-vietnamien, lés références à la politique et à l’histoire peuvent être difficiles. J’ai lu 25 % avant d’arrêter par manque d’intérêt. J’ai déjà lu un autre livre de cette autrice et je l’avais aimé davantage.
November 24, 2018
Ik kwam hier gewoon niet doorheen...
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August 16, 2022Je n'ai pas aimé
July 10, 2025
The worst book I have ever read in my entire life.
July 12, 2025
Sách của phản động lưu vong, xuyên tạc lịch sử.
August 6, 2025
Dài một cách vô lý, và nhảm nhí một cách buồn cười.
Thực không hiểu "15 năm khảo cứu" của Dương Thu Hương có ích gì?
Thực không hiểu "15 năm khảo cứu" của Dương Thu Hương có ích gì?
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