Read & Meet, part 3; I SEE YELLOW FLOWERS IN THE GREEN GRASS by Nguyen Nhat Anh review
10:28AM - Still in Grab, on my way to Drafts. Late, like the last 2 times.๐ Bringing the following books…
10:48AM - Made it! Not late, because we're just starting the silent reading portion.
2:31PM - Omg, just finished the discussion.
And here ends my update, because I basically forgot. I do want to say that these Read & Meet sessions organized by Alexx are a joy and truly a lovely way to spend Saturday mornings.
A few of us are "regulars" now, but always happy whenever a new person joins the mix.
I was reading I SEE YELLOW FLOWERS IN THE GREEN GRASS, which I've since finished and is honestly a delight. During my turn yapping--and God forgive me, but I yap a lot--talked about how I bought this in Hanoi as I was looking for a bestseller or a beloved book that wasn't declared a beloved book from the lens of Western translators/publishing. I Googled the author, Nguyen Nhat Anh, who turns out to be one of the most--if not the most--prolific authors in Vietnam, with over 100 books published. This specific title is a children's book, and I'd classify it as younger YA. This is one of the author's most popular books and was even made into a movie in 2015 which premiered in the Cannes Film Festival that year.
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| Check out the subtitled trailer here. It looks lovely. |
The book is told from recollections of a 13 yo boy who lives in a small & rural Vietnamese village with his parents and younger brother. It's a very charming and surprisingly hilarious book about their and their neighbors' lives, imbued with innocence, the stupidity of the young, people trying to live their lives despite tragedies that might visit a rural village, and also a few love stories amongst the villagers. The book is told in short chapters with line drawings interspersed throughout.
Interestingly, as I told the group, the narrator is an asshat, and it's his younger brother who's the kind and generous boy. But the narrator also knows this and feels extremely guilty when he gets his brother in trouble, which is not unoften, because he's selfish or is a coward. And yet, despite the guilt, he still does stupid things. I honestly wanted to smack the character on the head, but I don't think I needed to, because it also describes how adults can and do beat up their kids. Which, yes, happens a lot in our region as a form of "discipline," but I hope less so now? The descriptions were quite jarring, if only because it seemed matter-of-fact.
But it was frankly quite moving. I was going to liken it to cozy fiction, though honestly, while it's innocent and charming, I would not call it cozy, except for perhaps what feels like an idyllic setting. And yet the idyllic setting is also underscored by poverty, family tragedies, and natural disasters and their consequences. Through it all, though, is the boys' narrative of hope and despite everything, the joy of just being children.
Anyway, I don't think you can find this book in the Philippines just yet, though I wish it had distribution here. We often get our translated literature in English by way of Western publishers, and while it helps make more books accessible, it does mean that these books are in a way selected and presented from a Western lens. And from experience, the Western lens is quite different from how we perceive ourselves in Asia. And this is not even to speak of the diversity within Asia or just Southeast Asia, and how we also don't entirely know each other. So it's honestly refreshing finding a book that is apparently loved by Vietnamese and translated into English by a Vietnamese publisher, because it feels like a way to get to know Vietnam better on their own terms.
If you're determined to get a copy, though, you can probably order it from a Vietnamese bookstore, like Fahasa. I got mine from The Bookworm Hanoi, and though I couldn't find it listed on their website, you can probably contact them and ask how to get a copy. But also, it's on Amazon, in both print and under Kindle Unlimited, albeit a different edition.
Back to the Read & Meet...
…didn’t take a lot of photos, and just got the one below from Ilia’s stories. Kind of still love how we're reading in a light-filled room with flowers, then listening to each other talk about not just the book we read during the silent reading portion, but also the context behind why we're reading the book and how we're reading it.
Anyway, I am currently reading Wincy Ong's The Indio & The Impaler (though I snuck in George Saunder's VIGIL in between these two books), and have to say, it's quite an entertaining read so far! Maybe more on them later.
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