The Stars, The Earth, The River: Short Stories by Le Minh Khue

by Lê Minh Khuê, Hoai Tran Bac (Translator), Wayne Karlin (Editor)

This collection of 14 stories—each a harrowing sketch of the Vietnam War and its aftermath—offers American readers a glimpse of familiar territory, but from an unfamiliar perspective. Often writing from a young woman's point of view, Le Minh Khue, a war veteran who served in the Youth Volunteers Brigade, uses simple, understated prose to describe numbing horrors. Her stories explore themes such as love and war, the tangles of family relationships, and the complexities of post-war life. Khue gives readers a look into Vietnam before, during, and after the war with the United States.  The Stars, the Earth, the River contains an excellent introduction by the translators, grounding the stories in Le Minh Khue's personal history. You simultaneously feel the rage of the author and the narrator when Khue disparagingly notes that the conversations around her center on luxuries, motor scooters, and business deals. Of what use, these stories ask, is such suffering? How can a culture honor the losses of war?

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Asian Literature

232 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

Lê Minh Khuê sinh ngày 6 tháng 12 năm 1949, quê ở xã An Hải, huyện Tĩnh Gia, tỉnh Thanh Hóa.

Trong kháng chiến chống Mĩ, bà gia nhập thanh niên xung phong và bắt đầu viết văn vào đầu những năm 70.

Lê Minh Khuê là cây bút nữ chuyên về truyện ngắn. Trong những năm chiến tranh, truyện của Lê Minh Khuê viết về cuộc sống chiến đấu của tuổi trẻ ở tuyến đường Trường Sơn.

Sau năm 1975, tác phẩm của nhà văn bám sát những biến chuyển của đời sống xã hội và con người trên tinh thấn đổi mới.

Từ 1978 đến khi nghỉ hưu, bà làm biên tập tại Nhà xuất bản Hội Nhà văn

Reviews

[Nick]

Le Minh Khue fought in the war that we call Vietnamese and they call American as a Northerner. For four years, she was a member of a bomb squad on the Ho Chi Minh trail and later a war correspondent. But like many an American veteran, her sense of loss for fallen comrades and admiration for those who fought is tempered by a disillusion with the peace that followed. The book opens with three war stories, the second and third of which focus on the cynicism of news-gathering and the looming post-war materialism. The following stories show how prosperity divides the country, as the pursuit of money--not even wealth--divides wartime comrades, neighborhoods, even families, dividing them with cynicism even turning them into murderers of kin. It is Chaucer's Pardoner's Tale, sketched out across a society. Resident Westerners and dollars are a powerful influence, in the most extreme case when a family of thieves traffics in American remains. The Northerners do not fare much better, as cynically vicious bureaucrats, corrosive and dangerous. In the longest and most powerful story (marred slightly by a twist worthy of a telenovela), introduces Uncle Tuyen, who rose to power and riches despite the mistakes that cost hundreds of lives. In retirement, "the life of ordinary citizens was like some dirty straggling stranger worming its way" into his house. He speaks for blame-shifters everywhere. Interviewed by a journalist niece, he says, "I wasn't alone in this... I couldn't have done anything. One day you'll understand... Why do you dig up things that make life more complicated?"

I will take a moment here to note the passing of a great small press, Curbstone, which was sold to Northwestern University Press. Curbstone consistently published Vietnamese literature in translation that would otherwise be inaccessible. At this point, Northwestern seems to be keeping the Curbstone Vietnamese backlist in print.

[nhi]

my parents are southern vietnamese. the stories that i am fed as a child are biases against the north. if you’re mien nam you know what they are. for a long time, even till now, it is hard for me to perceive northerners as the same as me, or my parents. though vietnam is united, i think that it’s a far cry to say that the wounds between northern and southern vietnamese have really healed.

for me le minh khue’s short stories give me a momentary view of what life is like in post war vietnam, especially for north vietnamese people. i like that some of her stories are quite simple, i like that some of them end abruptly, and of course i like those that are beautiful and tragic, and i like that others are somewhat mediocre. what i like most is that vietnam is the quiet, nonchalant background for her characters, who go about their day to day lives in the country. even in the stories of war (some of which dealt with the women who fought for the people’s army, a criminally understated point of the war!), the main idea was not so much war-torn vietnam but the fragile relationships women forge with one another.

i love this short story compilation. i don’t think one should go into this with some wild preconceptions—that each short story is going to convey some clear meaning, or even a clear ending—but for one who would like to learn more about vietnamese identity, women in post war vietnam, etc, this is a wonderful place to start.

[Kassandra]

An uneven collection, and it is hard to tell if the unevenness is in the author's work or the translators'. (Since I don't know Vietnamese, it makes no practical difference to me.)

One of the stories, "Tony D", is one of the best stories of any type that I've read from any author, of any nationality or any period. Several more are fascinating, beautiful, haunting. Enough are frustrating to drag the collection down.

[Lluc Vinyeta]

Ho puntuo alt no per l'escriptura, que és tirant a fluixa, sino per la perspectiva que ofereix a través de petites històries d'un Vietnam devastat per la guerra i les conseqüències, sobretot sociològiques, que la sobrevenen.

[Bookaholics™ Mangalore]

Review by Suryanarayana NK

8/10.
'Distant Stars' is one short story which I read decades ago, yet the light transmitted from it still gently pulsates.
I read Kannada version of it in Navakarnataka's Vishwakathaa Kosha(of Vietnam series).

During horrible long drawn Vietnam War, 3 young patriotic adventurous girls volunteer and join a special squad. Bit like SOR (Survillience, Observation, Reporting) Unit of covert operation by Vietnam.
These 3 cheerful ebulliant youth's main role/duty is to check and report how much damage occured (within few minutes or hours) due to bombing, how much earth/soil needed to fill up the giant concavity on land where bombs fell and blasted, the shape of type of unexploded bombs, whether Vietnam Army personnel are suffice in that bomb hit or bomb zone locality or dunes to do the needful for civilians----
Sounds interesting and quite simple job, but at the risk of life and limbs.
These girls hide in caves, true or artificial, poke the nose out to cheer or wave at valuant Vietnam soldiers making sly moves in that war zone- no love letter exchanges at all- and all or many war torn soldiers just love to hear the voice of these 3 'Sisters' or 'Distant Stars' over phone, while communicating information or expressing their over caring concern toward these young ladies. Inside the cave or hide out, these 3 girls, talk and exaggerate a lot about these good soldiers and take pride in their role of National service.
Despite caution, youbgest one hurries out to count the giant holes due to bombs just exploded and another bomb explodes quite near her. Other two rush out in dust and fume, at last find her body- alive-buried beneath debris and heaps of mud, with wounds and dirt, no fracture, but smile on her eyes. To blame or treat her?. These 3 girls have none to fight with or care for, at such remote places, despite soldiers (with their own horrible issues and deferred stress) are ever ready to assist them, have no option but to fight with and care for each other.
Marriage, family etc matters they raise too vauguely, sometines in semi convulsion-dreamy state, but the next early morning, forgetting fatigue-exhauation, the 3 girls, bounce back to action in war torn/bomb blasting zones.
Vietnam Soldiers know who these girls are and what they are doing.
These 3 Vietnam girls knew what these solduers are and almost what they are doing.
Whether ration/food/water arrives in time or not, these 3 volunteered girls (there might be many such girl patriots) report at right time over phone and their giggles travels far beyond the deafening sounds of bombs which explode from stone's throw away distance from them.

One Young Soldier, making it sure that, the 3 girls hiding at late evening in cave would hear what he says to other soldier, points at cave and tells the other new soldier quite loudly to the effect that, 'Do you know, 3 distant stars exist in that cave' and they march forward to jungle. His words make that chilling cold cave warm and the eyes of 3 girls shine like stars at that dark hour also.

[Suzanne Ray]

This unusual piece, translated from Vietnamese, puts you into another culture's thought patterns in an interesting way. The translators have tried to capture the feel of both the language and the characters of the stories of Vietnam both during and after the Vietnam war. At first, I felt that the people were barbaric and shallow, but, after more thought, I realized that their apparent barbarism and shallowness are present in our culture in different ways. The most prominent theme is the desire for material goods that followed the war and the great divide between the haves and the have nots.

[Sreena]

"Are we merely fragments of stardust, destined to return to the cosmos from which we were born?"

What sets this collection apart is Khue's ability to interweave philosophical musings into her stories. She explores profound questions about the meaning of life, the nature of existence, and the interconnectedness of all things.

What I really loved about reading this book.

[Enzo]

If I were asked to, I would present Lê Minh Khuê’s “The Distant Stars” as an example of how the socialist realist genre managed to inspire a generation of people to fight for liberation.

It was the first short story in this book and also stuck out to me the most.

[Jeff Koloze]

Among these contemporary Vietnamese short stories, Le’s “Scenes from an Alley” is most interesting for its depiction of disrespect for life (of that of a foreigner, a pregnant woman, and an elderly man).