14 書香人物 P E R S O N A L I T Y & B O O K S SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2008 • TAIPEI TIMES

[ HARDCOVER: U s ] SUNDAY PROFILE ‘The Boat’ marks the debut of a major writer The publication of Nam Le’s first collection of short stories has made the Vietnamese- Australian author a literary sensation

By BRADLEY WINTERTON Contributing Reporter

The Boat, the first book of Vietnamese-born Nam Le, has taken the English-speaking literary world by storm, certainly in Australia and the US. The author left Vietnam when very young and eventually arrived in Australia. He subsequently began work as a lawyer but gave that up to enroll in creative-writing German conductor Gunther Herbig will guest-conduct three courses in the US. He now divides his time between these concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra this month two countries. The book consists of seven By BRADLEY WINTERTON Photo: Courtesy of NSO Contributing Reporter short stories (itself unusual for a first publication) and each of them is entirely different — in setting, style, and the point of view of the narrator or principal character. Only the first and last Herbig brings his poise to the NSO stories, both immensely strong, feature Vietnam, though neither THE BOAT has it as its principal location. nstrumentalists of the Europe and the US. But how to “The NSO has a young is far higher than in the US. The When I asked Maestro Herbig Others are set in Colombia, Iran, By Nam Le National Symphony Orchestra get our three children out was the spirit,” he continued. “They’re level of instrumental training here what he did for recreation he Japan, Australia and the US. 272 pages I (NSO) like working under problem. Eventually we managed enthusiastic, and they already in Taiwan is exceptionally high.” looked rather surprised. Perhaps Every story is a tour de force Knopf the internationally renowned it, but we were unbelievably have a wide repertoire.” What plans did he have for music was such an all-embracing of imaginative sympathy and conductor Gunther Herbig for lucky. Without the help of the They had a Composer in opera, I asked. passion it sufficed for both work thoughtfulness. The one set in two reasons, I gather. One of US government I believe it never Residence, he added — David “It hasn’t been officially and recreation, as it does with Japan, for example, is entirely them is that he has a natural would have been possible.” Chesky, the only American announced yet,” Herbig said, “but so many musicians. There was phrased in the words of a small authority on the podium that He first visited Taiwan in jazz composer ever to have let’s say that one of the most silence. Did he canoe on the lake girl in Hiroshima in the days It isn’t only that Nam makes them give of their best. 1991, he told me, with the been nominated for a Grammy popular operas ever written will perhaps, or play chess, I asked. before the unleashing of the The other is that, when he stops Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Award in the Best Contemporary be performed by the NSO next “Ah yes, I play chess,” Herbig atomic bomb — she talks with Le“ often writes with the orchestra in rehearsals, he They played two concerts in the Classical Composition category. year. Yes, there was an idea replied laconically. And again, I gentle innocence of butterflies, invariably puts his finger on National Concert Hall. Then last He should certainly widen the for a production of Debussy’s left it at that. flowers, the revered emperor, the immense power. He’s also what’s wrong. The musicians year he was invited to conduct orchestra’s horizons. Pelleas et Melisande, but this has war effort, and the lack of danger understand this because as often two programs with the NSO, and I next asked about musical life now been shelved. The music is Performance notes: posed by single American aircraft uncompromising ... , in as not they too know what the at around that time was asked for classical musicians in the US wonderful, but there’s almost no — they only drop leaflets that it’s particular problem is in advance. if he would be interested in the and Europe. action, and that isn’t much to the Gunther Herbig will conduct two forbidden to read, she muses as deadly earnest, and writes Herbig has recently been post of Musical Director. Because “Standards are very high in the taste of modern audiences.” concerts with the NSO in Taipei, she plays in the dust. appointed the NSO’s Artistic of other commitments he found it US,” Herbig said. “Sponsorship Maestro Herbig has his home this afternoon and on Thursday The Colombia story is set in about the age-old concerns Advisor and Principal Guest impossible to accept, but agreed accounts for around 40 to 45 in the Detroit and Lake Michigan evening, both in the National the drug capital of Medellin and Conductor until 2010, and is to the idea of advising on the percent of funding there, whereas area. I asked him how he liked it. Concert Hall. This afternoon’s is narrated by a teenager with of the greatest artists currently in Taiwan to conduct whole NSO program and visiting in Europe government support Wasn’t it rather industrial? concert features Wagner’s orders from his gangland boss three concerts. The first of these three times a year to conduct. is more usual. In the UK it’s “Oh no. Detroit is the center Prelude to Die Meistersinger, to kill his best friend. Grenades, — love, death, fear, takes place in Taipei’s National He’ll be here again in December, somewhere between the two, with for much of the American Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. pistols and machine guns are Concert Hall this afternoon. and then in late spring 2009. support from the National Lottery automobile industry — General 20 in D Minor, and Brahms’ part of his everyday life, but hope, and the profoundest When I spoke to him earlier “So far virtually all I’ve seen and a little from government in the Motors, Ford and Chrysler have Symphony No. 1. The soloist by an extraordinary effort of this week I began by asking of Taiwan is my hotel room and form of the Arts Council.” their headquarters there. But that in the Mozart concerto is the empathy he’s presented by the human dilemmas. him where he spent his youth. this concert hall,” he said.” But I asked him about classical doesn’t mean that their vehicles 28-year-old Russian pianist Alex author as the adolescent he is, Internet sites had disagreed, I I’m looking forward to getting to music in Asia, and whether it are all built there. They’re built Kobrin. Thursday’s concert will and with an adolescent’s attitudes ” found, one stating it was the know Taiwan’s incredible cultural interested the young. all over the world these days, contain Weber’s overture Oberon, and loyalties, but forced into a disease, broken-down engines, no former East Germany, the other heritage of Chinese art and culture “The young are likely to be including in China. Sibelius’s Violin Concerto and terrifyingly adult predicament. drinking water (let alone food) the former Czechoslovakia. during the times I’m here.” more interested if one of their “We live practically in the Schubert’s Symphony No. 9, “The The story set in Teheran and sharks. Yet curiously there’s “Both are correct in essence,” I asked what the NSO’s peers is appearing, for instance woods. The climate is a central Great.” Leticia Moreno will be features an American woman nothing intrinsically sensational Herbig replied. “I was actually strengths were. as a guest soloist. There are continental type. It’s not unlike the violin soloist. The concert in who’s visiting an Iranian friend about Nam Le’s writing. These born in what is now the Czech “The orchestra has a very high an incredible number of young Taiwan’s in the summer — hot Kaohsiung on September 20 will she got to know in the US. She things happened, and they’re Republic. But we were Germans standard,” he said. “It possesses pianists, violinists and cellists and humid. In the winter it’s very repeat the Meistersinger Prelude labors under multiple levels part of our world, he implies, as and my family later moved to what I call a professional quality emerging at the moment cold — a bit like Siberia.” and the Brahms Symphony No. of incomprehension, and yet are seagulls with their stomachs East Germany where I was — a determination to be as good worldwide, often from Asian Was the proximity of the 1, and add the two Beethoven Iranian society is displayed in torn out by fishermen’s hooks, brought up.” as possible.” backgrounds. Japan used to be an automobile industry in Michigan Romances for Violin and extraordinary detail — the food, child soldiers, and raped and then Born in 1931, Maestro Herbig Didn’t that apply to all orches- important source, and now China good for sponsorship of local Orchestra, and another by Pablo the furnishings, the views from executed children. was able to move to the West in tras, I asked. is coming to the fore. orchestras? Sarasate for two violins and the city, the religious and other In place of sensationalism, 1984. Was that difficult, I asked. “No,” replied Herbig. I couldn’t “It’s true what’s often said, “When the economy is strong, orchestra, played by the NSO’s customs. I found it the least Nam Le looks inside his “We managed it because I had help smiling, but thought it was that the future of classical music yes. But at the moment, well, it’s two concertmasters. satisfying of the stories because I characters. His refugees, for permission to conduct in Western better to leave it at that. lies in East Asia. Interest here rather different.” didn’t understand why it ended as instance, aren’t simply anonymous it did, but even so overall this is a figures but lonely and jealous quite exceptional book. husbands, women with secrets, Nam Le is something of individuals with war-torn minds an intellectual writer — his who set out together on a leaky [ HARDCOVER: U S ] vocabulary is extensive and even wooden ship into mountainous occasionally abstruse, and one seas, with worse to follow. of his greater strengths is giving Nevertheless, this book doesn’t characters the ability to look deep really have any political ax to Haunting words amid claims of ‘victory’ into themselves and ponder on grind. Instead, Nam Le is saying, why they’re thinking as they are. “Just look! These victims, from ‘New York Times’ reporter Dexter Filkins has risked life and limb to gather news in Iraq outside the Green Zone But there’s nothing whatsoever all over the world and often very pale or abstract about these young, were all partway through BY LEE H. HAMILTON Zone it is not just blast walls and American soldiers must greet brutally personal. In Fallujah, stories, none of Colm Toibin’s their real and only lives, yet were NY Times News Service, Washington checkpoints that bind trailers, Iraqis at times with smiles and the author and a photographer willingness to leave stories subjected to laceration and death Numbers have defined milestones buildings and personnel together. at other times with the barrel of head to a bombed-out minaret to without a traditional ending or for reasons wholly beyond their in the Iraq War. More than 4,000 There is also a continuing a gun, perhaps without knowing photograph a dead insurgent. Two of Kazuo Ishiguro’s trademark control or comprehension. And American troops killed, 94,000 conversation, detailing the ebbs which is appropriate until it is Marines precede them to secure understatement. Instead, violence this could be you, or me, and one Iraqi civilians dead, 4.2 million and flows of the insurgency, too late. the minaret, and one, Lance Corp. is everywhere in this book, day it may be.” Iraqis displaced, a US$1 trillion American progress, the stability A lieutenant colonel grapples William L. Miller, 22, of Pearland, sometimes on the surface but, if But even that is too specific. price tag. Though these numbers of the Iraqi government and the with balancing what he was Texas, is shot dead. Filkins not, then just beneath it. Each of these seven stories is are important, in The Forever readiness of Iraqi Security Forces. trained to do — fight — and tries to make sense of it: “Your The opening and closing different, but they do share the War, Dexter Filkins — through And beyond the Green Zone what he has been ordered to do: photographer needed a corpse stories featuring recent results of thinking unflinchingly gut-wrenching and touching there is another conversation, he rebuild. “Sometimes, I wish there for the newspaper, so you and Vietnamese history are on the harsh conditions of vignettes — repeatedly illustrates writes, the Iraqi conversation, the were more people who knew a bunch of Marines went out to terrifying. In the first a student human existence. There are some their limits and reveals the human one that really matters: “a parallel more about nation-building,” get one. Then suddenly it’s there, of Vietnamese extraction is discernible themes — difficult side of war. reality, which sometimes unfolded the colonel admits in a stinging the warm liquid on your face, studying on a creative-writing relations between parent and child Filkins’ stories are those right next to the Americans, indictment of our institutional the death you’ve always avoided, course in Iowa (exactly as Nam is one of them, present in four of a writer willing to endure even right in front of them. And preparedness for the Iraq war and smiling back at you like it knew all Le did — and this ability to be of the seven stories. But there’s hardship, danger and anguish to we almost never saw it.” This for nation-building in general. along. Your fault.” Another Marine quasi-autobiographical in one also the serious writer’s technical paint an accurate picture of war conversation is Filkins’ focus. Later, a pair of soldiers under attempts to console him, saying, story, and then write about a desire to create things that are for the American public. In Iraq Recalling Iraq before civil war his command go to prison for “That’s what happens in war.” country he’s never even been to coherent in themselves, but are the pursuit of a story can cost a engulfs it, he writes of the lies pushing two Iraqis into the Tigris As for the situation today, in another, is part of his enviable also distinct from anything that journalist his or her life, a fate Americans told themselves: “They River, one of whom drowned. Filkins describes early signs of strength as a writer). His father he’s imagined and written before. Filkins, a reporter for the New believed them because it was THE FOREVER WAR Another American who refused the Sunni awakening. An Iraq is visiting Iowa, and he’s made That this book is the debut of York Times, and others have convenient — and because not to By Dexter Filkins orders to join them later reflects insurgent, Abu Marwa, kills two to be a survivor of the My Lai a major writer is unquestionable. tempted each day outside the believe them was too horrifying on his tour in Iraq, saying that “the Syrian members of al-Qaeda in massacre. This enables Nam Le It isn’t only that Nam Le often Green Zone in Baghdad. As I read to think about.” 368 pages gray area in the middle” is where Iraq to avenge the murder of his to juxtapose young American writes with immense power. He’s this book, I could not help but The near-complete American Alfred A. Knopf the grimmer business of war uncle. He delivers their blood in GIs then — one in a bead also uncompromising (and hence contrast his courageous, at times failure to understand Iraq is still occurs. That dissenter is serving vials to his widowed aunt. “She necklace and baseball cap who occasionally difficult to follow), even foolhardy, journalism with evident five and a half years into a two-year prison sentence for drank the blood of the Syrians,” taps his grandfather on the top in deadly earnest, and writes the reportage by those restricted the war. I have seen firsthand the or casualties — but it speaks robbing a Comfort Inn in Ohio Abu Marwa says. “You see. We of his head with his rifle butt, about the age-old concerns of the to the Green Zone or spoon- dearth of Arabic speakers in the volumes. after leaving the military. were for revenge. She was filled then twirls round and slides his greatest artists — love, death, fed information by the Defense US embassy. Still, the concrete This is not, however, a book Filkins wonders, as too few with rage.” These are haunting bayonet into his throat — with fear, hope, and the profoundest Department’s powerful public implications of cultural ignorance about finger pointing. Nor Americans have, about “not only words amid claims of “victory” his contemporaries at Iowa, human dilemmas. relations machine. No doubt such pack a subtle, yet powerful punch. is it about policy failures or what the Americans were doing in Iraq. making jokes about his “ethnic” When asked in an interview commentators take some risks, Filkins describes the Tigris River prescriptions. The author portrays to Iraq, but what Iraq was doing They recall Filkins’ sketch stories and how much money he what the strongest fiction was but Filkins’ experience is of an Park, a US$1.5 million American and sympathizes with the men to the Americans.” As more brave of Kabul in 1998, where, at a can make from them. that he’d read that year, Nam entirely different magnitude. project in Baghdad. An effort of and women facing impossible men and women return home public execution, he hears over The last item features 200 Le replied “Cormac McCarthy’s His prose is as blunt as it is misplaced good will, the new challenges in Iraq. and face formidable challenges loudspeakers: “In revenge there Vietnamese emigrants in the 1980s The Road”. Coming from such powerful. Iraqis, and Afghanis, park deprived Iraqis of several A pamphlet discovered in adjusting to civilian life, this is a is life.” on a fishing boat built for a crew an impeccable source, I for have spoken for themselves, and favored soccer fields in favor of a Ramadi in May 2005 lists 105 question all Americans are duty This maxim is as foreign to of 15. Horror is piled on horror one won’t need any stronger Filkins has listened carefully. “curvy, S-shaped sidewalk.” It is insurgent groups that have bound to consider. American ears as the concept of a — storms, excrement, suicides, recommendation. He observes that in the Green a small incident — no explosions claimed responsibility for attacks. This book is also deeply and forever war.