The genre and main character of a literary story always have an important/decisive meaning for the career of a writer. Whether a writer or a researcher or critic, the choice of genre is not only a forte but also makes up the "destiny" of a literary life. From this theoretical frame of reference, it is easy to see Bui Viet Thang's long-term attachment and enthusiasm for the novel - a genre known as "the main form of linguistic art" since the 19th century, through many stages of movement and development, preservation and adaptation, the "main machine" is still the "facade" of all times and always stands in a key position in the life of human literature. With a sympathetic attitude, choosing the novel as a "young language", a form of thinking associated with the "unfinished present tense", after On the novel (Culture - Information Publishing House 2000), Contemporary novel (People's Army Publishing House 2005), Poetics of modern novels is the continuation of the in-depth line that established the "brand", critical poetics, reflecting the profound, multi-dimensional vision of an expert through each step in parallel with the process of modern and contemporary Vietnamese novels.
From a poetic perspective, in order to interpret the entity of modern Vietnamese novels through a system of symbols bearing characteristic marks, researcher Bui Viet Thang has developed the content of the book into 3 logical parts from theory to practice, from the general to the specific, from general issues to the description of portraits, cases, vivid phenomena... Including: Part 1: Landscape and problems of contemporary novels. Part 2: Novels and ways of reading. Part 3: Works and public opinion. It is from the combination of these diverse perspectives and approaches that the picture of contemporary Vietnamese novels has clearly appeared in its panoramic and colorful nature.
In terms of theory, with mature and sharp scientific experiences, Bui Viet Thang has sought out two great names in the field of novel research, the Russian poetics scholar M – Bakhtin and the French novelist/novelist of Czech origin M – Kundera. In the perspective of interweaving many new theoretical schools introduced to Vietnam, these are two unique scientific portraits, having a great influence on the contemporary novel community, including both researchers and writers. With M – Bakhtin, Bui Viet Thang has had a synchronous reception from artistic thinking to the world of images symbolized by characters – people with fate, from the way of constructing texts to the polyphony, polyphony, dialogic, and multi-voice nature of the narrative language mechanism. With M – Kundera, in terms of inspirational content, he is particularly interested in humanity when the wise researcher links the mission of the novel with the ethical category and considers the act of writing to protect life and further against the oblivion of humanity. In terms of the art of expression and writing style, he emphasizes the art of structure and ellipsis, the model of the short novel and the polyphonic structural form as a “link”, blending the novel and music, to the “call of the game”, “call of the dream”, “call of time”… as typical characteristics of the genre. Penetrating and pondering the thoughts and philosophies contained in famous works such as Theory and poetics of the novel, Some problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics – M. Bakhtin; In the novel art, The Betrayed Testaments – M Kundera…, Bui Viet Thang summarized the issue with a reasonable and interesting comparison: “If M – Bakhtin has both academic and artistic qualities in the way he expresses his scientific ideas, M – Kundera leans towards the artist”… From that discovery, he found a feasible application, suitable for the “range of expectation” of the contemporary interpretive community in Vietnam: “… that makes our reception extremely liberal, but that does not mean that there is a lack of erudition in the way of proposing and interpreting new scientific arguments about literature in general, novels in particular” (p. 26).
Based on his extensive experience in researching novels, combined with the reception of new theoretical trends of the period of integration, exchange, and illumination of the organism of contemporary Vietnamese novels, Bui Viet Thang, with his sharp and scientific literary sense, has summarized a number of basic issues of genre characteristics/poetics: from the concept of novels to the way of constructing the artistic world, from the shift of the system of themes to the blurring of genre boundaries, from structure to language... In the historical and synchronous correlation, the landscape of Vietnamese novels is outlined, recognized, and evaluated first of all in the spirit of innovation in novel thinking. That is, the explanation of innovative signs of genre poetics in the new context all have deep roots in creative consciousness and creative perspectives. When the openness in perception of novel subjects met with great ideologies such as M-Bakhtin, M-Kundera, the entity of Vietnamese novels was fueled by a new and flourishing source of energy. Besides the elements preserved as a "genetic code" of the genre, Vietnamese novels today appear new versions in the direction of modernization. That is the change in genre structure leading to a simplified writing style of characters and plots and the birth of the short novel model, in order to compromise with "economic perspective and new reading mechanism", the return of war themes and historical themes coexisting with the "body" novels and documentary novels about war, spiritual novels, etc. All converging into a flow that cannot and cannot be called defined, but the flexibility in approaches and reliability in interpretation help us visualize the overall appearance of Vietnamese novels in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
In order to project an overview with the theoretical issues opened in the first part, the second part of the book entitled Novels and Ways of Reading is a close-up perspective through the selection/positioning of the author and the work. If in the general theoretical framework, researcher Bui Viet Thang writes in a contemplative, calm style, then in the part examining these specific phenomena and cases, his pen becomes flexible, agile, transformative and creative. The expansion of the field of view proves to be effective in creating/increasing communication channels. However, the problem does not lie in the number, in the wide amplitude of the contact network, but the most important thing is still finding ways of reading, ways of decoding the novel's organism. A large group of modern/contemporary novel writers has been gathered, discovered to form an "intersubject" with the same creative behavior on the basis of a common denominator of genre thinking. Whether we like it or not, behind the simple information about the composition and gender of the writers (young and old, male and female), "reading more slowly", we can feel Bui Viet Thang's consciousness of "arranging" and "planning" the group and faction. Obviously, that is an effective way for researchers to clarify the nature of literature through the writer's identity. With the type of "military writer" author, besides reaffirming the principle of "war is a super topic", "soldiers are super characters", in each specific case, he has his own approach and "interpretation". If the highlight in Trung Trung Dinh's Soldiers is the return of the "crowd character" which is considered to be the property of revolutionary war literature but is portrayed by the writer with a new sense of reflection to clearly express his indignation at the insensitivity, even the atrophy of emotions about "fellow human beings, comrades", comrades... then Chu Lai's Red Rain is "a creative milestone" on the novel journey of a writer with "abundant writing power" and "strong literary personality" who stands out in humanity and the spirit of national harmony. Looking back at his literary career, Le Luu's contribution to the country's literature is in the form of novels and was voted by researchers as one of the five typical prose writers in the transition period from the end of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century. Khuat Quang Thuy is still very energetic and has recently continued to conquer readers with The Deserted Peak - a work written about war with cultural experiences that have deep roots in the Vietnamese consciousness: "The final victory still belongs to the people, to the country... That was the writer's conviction when he wrote The Deserted Peak. But as a reader, I think it was the victory of Vietnamese culture in a arduous and fierce war" (p. 349). Similarly, a number of authors who have "toured" around the topic of war have also been written by him with many thoughts and emotions such as Red Tears in the novel by Tran Huy Quang, The authority of documents seen from the phenomenon of "War records 1, 2, 3, 4, 75" by Tran Mai Hanh, Human blood is not water (reading The river carries fire by Ho Sy Hau), Honest memories (reading Letters about the past by Nguyen Trong Tan), People who come from the forest to write (reading Hungry forest by Nguyen Trong Luan), A way of looking at war (reading Bald sand by Nguyen Quang Vinh)... From a contemporary perspective and sense, Bui Viet Thang's articles on this topic have the appearance of a type of post-war critical discourse, the issues of war are placed in a broad socio-ecological context and imbued with humanity.
In the typological structure of contemporary Vietnamese novels, Bui Viet Thang is also deeply interested in the types/types of authors writing about historical topics, current affairs, love topics, detective topics..., and corresponding to each trend and phenomenon, he has established a reading method and a way of penetration that brings positive aesthetic effects. If the historical novel genre was formed, promoted and developed in the spirit of "reviewing the past to learn new things", using the past to answer the present through Approaching Nguyen Xuan Khanh's novels from the perspective of genre structure, Historical novels by Nguyen The Quang, Decoding the mysteries of history (reading Phung Vuong by Phung Van Khai), Novel "Beauty with the Grassland" by Le Hoai Nam, Novel "In the Endless" by Vinh Quyen,... then the novel genre written on the topic of world affairs with a thesis nature is a way to explain the complicated, chaotic reality with a direct view including Being a human is difficult (reading The Carpenter and the Plank of Heaven by Ma Van Khang), Optimistic tragedy (reading The Shrimp Man by Nguyen Bac Son), Revealing Dang Vuong Hung (reading Those Who Go On by Dang Vuong Hung), Kind stories (reading Lost in the Human Realm by Pham Quang Long), Living and Remembering (reading Human Life by Huu Uoc), Looking for Lost Time (reading Red Line by Truong Duc Giap), A stereoscopic view of life (reading The Bird Joong Bay from A to Z by Do Tien Thuy), Novel "More than love" by Nguyen Truong, How much spiritual food for humans (read Thirsty season by Nguyen Viet Chien), New Three-way society (read Kim Ko Ky Kuac Ky by Tran Nhuong)... In addition, what caught the "green eye" of the researcher were the lovely faces of a number of female writers who had made their own mark in their writing style, except for the respectable case of Dam Phuong Nu Su - a pioneer/progressive representative of the early 20th century female literature in Vietnam, who shortened the distance by using the term "ca nong" in the reading method; the rest were mostly authors who recently appeared on the novel forum. Approaching women's literature, he has subtly felt the color, fragrance, personality, and strengths of each pen through the essays Following the bare feet in the novels Thuy Duong, Pho Thuy (thinking about Do Bich Thuy's Laundry Shop), Blood Jade and detective literature (reading Blood Jade by Tong Ngoc Han), Vietnamese detective novels - The case of Di Li and "Red Flower Farm". Modern love fairy tales (reading Meggie Pham's novel/novel), Outside the sky there is sky (reading Pham Thi Bich Thuy's The Bottom of the Well), Nguyen Thi Anh Thu from short stories to novels... Regarding the way of portraiture, we can mention Nguyen Hieu's stature through novels, Bui Viet Sy: "My literary life is successful thanks to/with novels" etc. etc. Linking those large pieces into a whole screen, the "dynamic structure" of Vietnamese novels has been explored on many levels, from breadth, depth to each individual style and personality, both having stature and being lively.
Part three: Works and public opinion is a response to two articles by colleagues that were modestly "selected" as sharing of research and criticism experiences, and at the same time an objective voice, affirming the efforts, talent and contributions of Bui Viet Thang as an expert in novel theory.
Compared to previous treatises on novels, Poetics of Modern Novels has a synchronous, rather new and more attractive shift in both research thinking, critical inspiration and writing art. Besides critical essays, there are also contributions from scientific papers, interviews, discussions, debates - dialogues, open letters... Although still consistent in the classical and academic theory system, there are many open angles in receiving modern theoretical trends and applying them fluently to interpreting the internal structure of Vietnamese novels. Many of Bui Viet Thang's "titles" are both suggestive and implicit. Many of his comments and assertions are very weighty. For example: “But it would be naive and easy to assume that the transition of literature in general, and novels in particular, has been completed when it shifted from reflecting the “collective” to the “individual”. The 21st century novel shows that from the “individual” to the “entity” is an important transition, because there, humans are discovered more comprehensively, more fully, and more deeply. The proposition “literature is anthropology” that we once thought was outdated suddenly shines, illuminating many mysteries of life” (p. 94). The intertextual theory he exploited as a potential to approach the Tale of Kieu and the subject of Nguyen Du is very reasonable: “The Tale of Kieu is an open text, posterity can read it from many sides (political, economic, social, psychological, ethical, customs, court, war, sex...). Nguyen Du is a person with multiple personalities in the sense of being a major literary character in the work of the same name” (p. 255). The role of communication and the researcher's point of view always shift and change, the narrative distance has been shortened/integrated to create empathy and harmony: "Some people like the way the writer writes about the "deep palace secrets" of the police force (the case of Huu Uoc). I and other impartial readers absolutely do not think narrowly in this way because if so, the work will easily fall into the so-called "petty literary atmosphere". Here, the pain, the ups and downs, the heartbreaks that the main character (and maybe us, collectively called "human life") has experienced" (p. 333). It is this flexible, variable writing style that has resolved the dryness of the theoretical system, creating harmony and response between "theory" and "feeling" in criticism, which is an attractive factor and contributes significantly to "filling" the value of the book.
Accompanying the literature of the time, living and writing with enthusiasm for the development of the country's novel, Bui Viet Thang has brought to today's theoretical forum a collection of critical essays rich in scientific and practical significance: methodical in theory but dynamic and creative in commentary and interpretation; moderate but not conservative; tolerant but not easygoing; innovative but not challenging or aggressive... Those necessary qualities are always coordinated to create the impact of the book and the professionalism in the research and critical style of one of the leading experts on novels in particular and modern Vietnamese prose in general.
If I need to give a note to the author, I think he should pay more attention to the balance between the layout sections and if he had applied M. Kundera's "elevation" in aligning and arranging the content, the book would have been neater, more elegant and more suitable for the contemporary reception mechanism. However, this is just the subjective impression of a reader who always aims for perfection and perfectionism./.
