The Tale of Kieu: A Bilingual Edition of Nguyen Du's Truyen Kieu

by Nguyễn Du

Book Overview

Since its publication in the early nineteenth century, this long narrative poem has stood unchallenged as the supreme masterpiece of Vietnamese literature. Thông's new and absorbingly readable translation (on pages facing the Vietnamese text) is illuminated by notes that give comparative passages from the Chinese novel on which the poem was based, details on Chinese allusions, and literal translations with background information explaining Vietnamese...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300040512
• ISBN13: 9780300040517
• Release Date: September 1987
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Huyen

I love this book, its great if you want to knowabout the Tale of Kieu. However, I dilike the translation. I don't think they're right in some places. I don't see how they're translated from Vietnamese to English correctly. In some ways, they do not make sense.

An Epic of Surpassing Beauty that Helps Explain Vietnamese Tenacity

Vietnamese, or no, it is difficult not to respond strongly to the tale of Kieu's woes and dignity in the face of misery. Kieu's story is one in which bad fortune, conflicting duties, personal caprices and betrayals, and petty tyrannies all play a role in creating an existence for her that any reasonable person knows would have humbled them to the point of madness and despair--think of King Lear howling as he holds the body of Cordelia in his arms. This is not what happens to Kieu though. Through a life that forces her first to abandon love and to endure all manner of humiliations and heartbreak for the sake of her family's freedom she maintains an integrity and gracefulness that transcends all the suffering the taboos that she breaks. She is a picture of how one can remain strikingly upright in a world where every type of bad fortune from a monsoon to a B-52 air raid carried the temptation to fall down low. Though it seems naïve to make it explicit, The Tale of Kieu is a morality tale peculiarly suited to speak to the sensibilities of any people under the yoke of tyranny; be it foreign or homegrown. The nature of tyranny is its unpredictability and most of the history of Vietnam could be written as a history of tyranny; whether Chinese, French, American backed, or completely native. In a society where little is certain, moral adaptability coupled with a sense of duty is valuable beyond quantification. Though not a hero in the sense that her lover Tu Hai is, a rebel and a fighter capable of greatness, she is a hero whom it is possible for ordinary people to emulate. Fate that has made her life a tale of woe, but she never becomes disgraced by it and she certainly never descends to depths of hatefulness of Scholar Ma, Dame Tu, and the company they keep. Even though turned into a courtesan and blown through several horrifying winds degradation in her fifteen years of exile, she is still as righteous and as dignified as she was when she ransomed herself to save her father and brother--even if it is only the reader and not she who sees it. The profound longing for home and hearth is not something peculiar to the Vietnamese. That longing though became much more to so many Vietnamese in the one hundred sixty years after its publication and could be related to by millions because of the experience of Vietnam under colonialism and decades of war. Kieu never finds peace--and it is only peace, certainly not a happy ending--until she makes her way back to her family and rights the wrong she believes she did to her first love, Kim. Her experience will be like that a leaf in the wind until she is able to reach home. For millions of Vietnamese from the time of this poem's publication down to our exile and uncertainty wrought by forces beyond their control have Kieu's lamentations and experiences parallel their own. Whether in the suburbs of Paris or Los Angeles, a foreign worker in Russia or Germany, or simply forced far from home in Vietnam

A masterpiece.

This is the epic tale of Thuy Kieu, a middle class teenage girl who was as gifted as beautiful. The future, despite its promising outlook turned out to be a life-wrecking nightmare for Kieu. Her travails are beautifully described in this lengthy narrative poem written by Nguyen Du, a 19th century scholar.The work explores the many conflicting virtues imposed on Kieu by a Confucian society and how they affect her life. It is a classic as it is taught in school and quoted by almost any Vietnamese: the verses are even recited at social gatherings. Huynh Sanh Thong has done a great job in translating this work in English.

The Collective Unconscious of Vietnam

This epic poem dates from the seventeenth century and is a cornerstone of Vietnamese literature. Radical in its subversion of traditional Confucian mores (the protagonist is a woman), *Truyen Kieu* defines the boundaries of modern Vietnamese culture. It is necessary reading for anyone who would hope to understand the bittersweet sentiment that undergirds the Vietnamese worldview.

Deep-set in the Vietnamese spirit.

Nguyen Du's Tale of Kieu occupies the role of Shakespeare in Vietnamese literature: children study it in school, adults allude to it in daily conversation. This is a good translation that will let the curious discover a timeless exploration of love, loss, and life. For Vietnamese-Americans struggling to appreciate poetry in their native language, the facing Vietnamese-English format is a boon.