Our elders once said: “Come invaders as they may, for even women shall fight”. But for Nguyen Thi Ut, even Southern women holding their children in their arms would retaliate with only the bottom hems of their pants. For working for a landlord at the time, being stripped naked and beaten to a pulp is of the norm; but the unyielding spirit lying in her body was set freed the moment she went against the landlord’s orders. As a result, she joined the rebellion as she grew up and wreaked havoc upon all enemy bases and battlefields. Despite being pregnant, she still insisted on participating in the war: “Is there anyone who waits for the enemy to raid them themselves?” and “If we suffer now then our future generations will thrive, to do that first we must get rid of all raiders otherwise they will slaughter our children for sure!”
By creating a role model, the author has managed to define an entire generation as every single citizen of Viet Nam resemble her. Even future generations would follow suit seeing as how young children closely held their parents’ desire to reclaim their homeland in their heart.
The book contains 2 main arcs: one about Nguyen Thi Ut and the other about her children. If you follow the story closely, you’ll notice the flexibility of the author’s writing. If the first part is fast-paced and relentless like an actual battlefield witnessing the glory of a petite woman, then the second part blends reality with fantasy to describe the budding of patriotism in the hearts of those kids seeing their mother at war. The pacing slows down, almost gentle, but still filled with pride; especially when the children discuss among themselves about their mother, their homeland and the war.
In the end, the book still carries the characteristics of the Southern regions, from the village scenes to the dialogs, all to recreate a as vivid as possible image of the Viet Nam War during 1965.
And that is the attractiveness that draws in people to spread the pride of Vietnamese history and our forefathers even further.
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