Just as the name implies, the book is a memoir about the author’s childhood. However, only after having read the book will we find that childhood so foreign. They are not all happy and innocent memories but ones that signify the unsettlement of an era and the struggle for livelihood along with the rise of a nation to rid itself of invaders. Each 46 chapters are 46 respective fragments that shape a person’s early years. The fragments are reminiscence of daily life, from The Terrain and The Pagoda Gate to Grandmother and Family Members. Not only that, they are also a reminder of those that are precious like The Dog and The Cat and those that are nameless such as A Female Monk or The Son of Duong Village Herald. In addition, the book also contains memories of a bygone era, the highlight of which were the Japanese storming through the village or the tsunami along with entering middle school.
Writing about himself and for himself allowed his stories to not be awkward yet still manages to be moving and sincere. Strangely enough, those emotions reached the readers who are unfamiliar with anything written in the book. Perhaps sometimes we see ourselves and the innocence along with the familial love of the main character so as to feel sorrowful for his pain and misery.
“A Quiet Childhood” embodies 2 contradicting aspects as it is at the same time familiar, due to how the perspective is that of a 15-year-old child with childish thoughts, and novel, because of the ability to let readers experience lifedecades ago when poverty struck every corner of the nation.
The author can concurrently write “Many times mom comes home with a barrel from the market. We know there is nothing in it but we still shouted ‘Mom! You’re back! You’re back!..’” and express the horror of war and the spine-chilling cold from the death of his kin. “That sky pig is squealing again. Never have I seen it and never will I find out when it would stop.”
A childhood so silent yet has the power to agitate and waver your conceptions. To read is to perceive his childhood… To read is to recollect your childhood…
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