The colors of world affairs and cultural signs in the village narratives of Pham Quang Long (Village Stories(*) and The season of rươi(**))

The image of the village in Pham Quang Long’s long stories is a purely agricultural land like many other rural areas in the Northern coastal plain basin. Although it is not covered with the “beautiful landscape”, it is still endowed by nature with a diverse ecosystem and unique beauty with harmonious water and soil, rivers, lakes, vast rice fields, countless shrimp, fish, snails, and earthworms… along with many seasonal products all year round. However, like all other rural areas, Dong Hoa village (Village Story) and Hoa Dong (in The Rươi Season) have gone through many ups and downs with the history of the country and homeland: fighting, building, praying for independence, freedom, and enough food and warm clothes... Those villages are miniature paintings of the Vietnamese countryside, reflecting the important events that made up the heroic yet painful history of the nation: the resistance war against the French, the land reform movement, the path of agricultural cooperativization, the war against the US, building/developing new rural areas, etc. At any time and in any place, farmers are considered the strongest force of the revolution but have the least choice. Pham Quang Long's writings about the injustice in land reform, the "who wins who" struggle between the collective and the individual in the early period of building socialism in the countryside as well as the shortcomings in the current new rural development policy are all true and profound. But the most touching and haunting story is the story of the children of farmers who sacrificed their lives on the battlefield, leaving behind endless pain and suffering. That irreparable loss is always a painful wound that never goes away, haunting the emotions and leaving deep marks of pain and regret on the faces of mothers, wives, and younger sisters... During those endless days of longing, they always lived in anxiety and anxious anticipation: "That letter passed through the hands of the two mothers countless times, sometimes in the afternoon, when the two mothers were free, they would sit and read Thuy's letter together, both missing and advising each other to be at ease so that their children would not be anxious" (Village Stories - page 395); and falling into delirium, confusion, and despair when there was no news of their beloved child on the battlefield... (Village Stories - page 460). That is truly a debt that future generations have not/cannot repay. In the post-war period, farmers had to “swallow their tears”, struggle, and find ways to adapt to the changes of the new rhythm of life with great difficulty and no shortage of sweat and tears. The problem of rural economy seemed to fall into an “unsolvable” situation at times because the subjects were farmers who lacked experience, their hearts could not replace their potential, and their will could not replace their knowledge. Farmers were in a helpless situation, and had to submit to the mechanism. Many paradoxes existed. Many moral values ​​of a countryside with strong historical/geographical traces gradually faded away, causing much regret and indignation. Pham Quang Long borrowed the words of the village chief - a "genuine" farmer, a real farmer when answering a question from a district leader to not only express the thoughts and feelings of a farmer but also convey the feelings and thoughts of a writer who is very attached to his "hometown" land: "... The state still owes farmers a lot. Everything depends on farmers, but farmers are the most disadvantaged, farmers' children suffer the most, the countryside gets the least attention, the goods farmers produce feed the whole society but society does not consider farmers anything. Goods sold to farmers are expensive, buying goods from farmers is cheap, farmers' land is taken indiscriminately, whoever likes it makes a decision to reclaim it, but how much compensation is there? What about policies? There are many benefits but also many failures. If everything were correct, the countryside would not be like this... Even our village after decades of change according to your instructions is no longer a village. The name of the village no more… As for other things, valuing money ruins many things. The worst thing is the village spirit nowadays, sir… The whole society exalts money, titles, and benefits, but you tell my villagers not to live like them? If modernization ruins people, then I don’t want modernization at all” (Season of the Worms – page 304).One of the genre potentials that will be novelized and clearly revealed in the work is the style of portraying characters with the meaning of identity. This can be considered the "destiny of the novel", and at the same time, it is also the outstanding aspect bearing the poetic mark of Pham Quang Long. According to the author, both Village Stories and The Season of the Worms are written about the familiar village, where he was born, bathed in the rural atmosphere that is inherently kind, rustic, and warm with village affection. Although he has "joined" the urban community for nearly half a century, Pham Quang Long always plays the role of communicating as a villager who has never left his hometown. He remembers clearly the village scene: the pond, the rice fields, the pagoda; he is well-versed in the lifestyle, behavior, and temperament of farmers. The experiences that permeate every cell of the body and the richness of life have been precious resources that help create the face of rural life, including people and landscapes, in Pham Quang Long's works, always close, genuine and full of life.
Appearing on each page of Pham Quang Long's books are images of farmers of many types and generations: old, young; rich, poor; good, bad; from dignitaries to commoners, from those who still retain their genetic "genes" bearing the identity of farmers to those who have lost their roots, are ungrateful, and deny their roots... Each person has a different fate, and whether they want to or not, they can hardly stand outside of current events, in other words, they are always caught up in the vortex of reality: from bombs and bullets, they have to sew and heal all the wounds of war; from hunger and rags to delicious food and beautiful clothes; from thatched houses, tiled houses, and brick courtyards to high-rise buildings, garden villas... As a sober and sharp writer, Pham Quang Long often looks at the rural situation in the "dual" state of old - new, past - present to more deeply explain the gains and losses after many social changes. Today's rural appearance is reflected/reproduced as a multipolar existence, formed by a multidimensional, multi-layered form of cognitive thinking and life perception.
The characters in Pham Quang Long's rural-themed novels are observed at close range. What is more interesting is that most of the characters with their own personalities, creating strong impressions on readers, are selected from real-life prototypes. They are the crazy old farmer named Thich, the intelligent, studious, resilient and heroic martyr Thuy who sacrificed himself on the front line (Village Story); old Hoan - the "swearing saint" of Hoa Dong village; the character Dinh - a veteran/village chief who was a good fighter, a passionate producer, a reliable support for the villagers in the "land consolidation" campaign and the whirlwind of rural urbanization, and most interestingly, this is the person who knows how to get rich from the famous specialty of his hometown's "rươi" (Rươi Season). The world of these characters reflects the joys and sorrows of the village life, creating the spirit and temperament of the people of a land. The narrative process in each story shows that Pham Quang Long always has an open, warm, equal and democratic view of farmers, and talks to his characters on an equal and “fair” level. Even the characters who are classified as “negative”, are “thorns” in the eyes of the villagers, or even the constant haunting fear of his wife and children, and although the author seems to “read into the hearts” of wise people who think they are the smartest in the world like old Thich and old Hoan, in the end, they still do not cause antipathy for the readers, but instead contain tolerance and the right and wrong in life. In the countryside space, the characters in Pham Quang Long's novels are the embodiment of many colorful, multifaceted aspects of everyday life, interwoven with many extremes of tragedy and comedy, nobility and baseness, good and evil... Through each person's fate, life, he has entrusted all his love, sympathy, sharing every little joy and happiness and living with the utmost pain of his fellow countrymen: "A village as small as a nostril, with 40 households and nearly twenty martyrs and wounded soldiers? I roughly calculated that every household contributed one or two people. In the whole country, there are many. It is truly a mountain of bones, a river of blood..." (Character's words in Village Story - page 464). After the changes of the times, the inevitable collisions and conflicts in a poor countryside, Pham Quang Long has drawn up a code of conduct as a profound, humane philosophy of life: “Life is like that. The village is also a miniature society. If there is this, there is also that. Hundreds of people, hundreds of personalities, each person has a destiny... whoever lives is also paying off a debt to life, everyone is the next life of themselves or someone else and then the previous life of the next person... So when living, just follow the right way to live, easy for others, easy for us, pleasing to the eye, pleasing to the eye. The elders said it concisely and well, looking at each other and living. There is nothing specific, the agreements are only within common sense, but why do they make people upright and kind” (Mùa rươi - page 227). That is the "compromise", inheritance, adaptation to preserve the beauty in interpersonal relationships, conveying the concept of morality, the customs and habits that have created Vietnamese values ​​for generations. Pham Quang Long's novels, accordingly, are "literature that focuses on people". Therefore, they are rich in novelistic qualities - a genre that focuses on personal life and human destiny - and carry messages of humanity and kindness.
When writing about the countryside and rural life, Pham Quang Long is particularly interested in finding and decoding the signs in the cultural life of the land that has nurtured his soul and emotions from childhood to adulthood. Although he has been to many places, held many important positions in the field of university education: Rector of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vice President of Hanoi National University, and was once the "captain" of the cultural industry: Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Hanoi, his mind is still filled with emotions of origin. He wrote about his homeland with the mindset and perspective of a manager and at the same time a cultural beneficiary. Hoa Dong Village or Dong Hoa is also a purely Vietnamese cultural space, from natural scenery to lifestyle, customs, cuisine... Although it does not possess the majestic beauty of the highlands with high mountains and wide rivers, it is soft and graceful with rows of trees, wharves, pagodas, communal houses, ponds, fields... and farmers are both the subjects of the fields and the subjects of cultural behavior here. The identity of a countryside is preserved, kept over time and truly sublimated from the "extremely old", everyday, most ordinary things. Children's games such as marbles, kite flying, swimming, natural products associated with the biologically diverse natural environment such as fish, shrimp, snails, worms... through the processing hands of the indigenous people have been preserved by Pham Quang Long as treasures of memory and become an indispensable part of his soul/self structure.
Among the contemporary prose writers who have a passion for writing about cuisine, Pham Quang Long is the one who has left many outstanding pages of literature. From rustic dishes, through meticulous descriptions, care, and cherishing every detail, through each dish, he has put into it more or less the concept of feng shui and a bit of his own philosophy. It can be said that he is like a highly skilled professional chef introducing a long "menu" in which every dish is delicious, attractive, and enough to stimulate the reader's taste buds. The aroma and flavor of each dish seem to permeate each word, evocative and penetrating: "Just finished boiling a pot of braised perch, lined the bottom of the pot with ginger leaves, took a circle of straw around it, poured in rice husks and burned it until it was smoldering... The perch was that big, two thick loins full of lean mackerel, seasoned with fish sauce and salt to taste, accompanied by a few bananas and old corn braised together, eaten with new rice, delicious beyond reproach" (Village Stories - page 51). The products of brackish water, shrimp and crabs, appear colorfully through the descriptions of a connoisseur and food writer: “Swimming shrimp are bigger than regular shrimp, each one is as big as a thumb, when braised, the meat is firm and sweet, filling the mouth with a bite. But the best are still the swimming crabs, each one is as big as an eggplant, the female ones are full of roe, the male ones are as firm as a rice ball, with a lot of meat… The crabs are picked out and pounded separately, the juice is filtered, the body is cut off, the shell is peeled off, the roe is scooped out, the juice is added to stew, sprinkled with a little chopped betel leaves to create a fragrant smell, the fat floats like stars next to the yellow roe like turmeric. When eaten with new rice, it will burst the pot and float. Not only is it delicious, but it also evokes many stories about the land, people, habits, and ways of thinking” (Rươi Season - page 103). In the menu with many dishes, truly of the countryside, it can be said that the kitchen-dried apple snails and braised rươi are two favorite dishes, unique with a sophisticated cooking method no less than other delicacies: “Old apple snails, mouths full of intestines, pushing the lid out, waxy and opaque under the shell, ten are selected as one, put in a large basket, the mouth is covered with a basket so that the soot can still fall down, placed on the kitchen shelf, a little far from the cooking place to reduce the heat, after a few months to about half a year, they can be taken down to use. Strange for the apple snails, normally in the pond, they always need water, but when placed on the kitchen shelf, they only eat soot and still live, and also become fat and white, each snail is full of meat, fat, some black places are dark black, some white places are ivory white, fat is fat, it looks very eye-catching, where does all the dirt go… The snails are cut off their butts, cooked alive, not boiled, marinated with galangal, turmeric stir-fried with a little pork belly, skillfully grilled tofu. Boil banana until just ripe, stew with stir-fried snails, add a bowl of vinegar, until the water is reduced to just boiling, add green onions, betel leaves, Vietnamese coriander, let the herbs just turn slightly brown, then scoop into a bowl, eat, blow, slurp, that's so enjoyable" (Village Stories - page 345). The famous dish of rươi of Northern cuisine that has been passed down, captivating people through the talented essays of Vu Bang in the first half of the 20th century was once again honored by Pham Quang Long as "the most delicious dish" with all that is fresh, pure, nutritious, not the famous rươi cake that is elaborately decorated, eye-catching. But to achieve a quality finished product requires the same amount of effort and skill from a high-level craftsman: “To braise the rươi, you must use a clay pot; using an aluminum or cast iron pot is no good. First of all, you must take a lot of ginger, lining it from top to bottom, about two layers. But the ginger leaves lining the bottom and sides of the pot must be arranged in several layers skillfully, so that the spice water and rươi powder do not break when boiling and flow to the bottom of the pot, losing the fatty taste and the rươi will be crushed. Thus, the layer of ginger leaves is mainly to support the pot, but when the ginger leaves are cooked, they will give off a fragrant smell, permeating the rươi which is also gradually drying, when eaten, you will feel both the aroma and the light spicy aroma of ginger, which is really pleasant. The light spicy aroma is gentle, delicate, and seductive” (Rươi Season - page 122) etc… and etc… Rambling and rambling like that is also a way to enjoy the flavors of the dishes and fully feel the heart, the love, the interest and the vision of the writer. Because, behind the story of eating and drinking is the signal and integration of elements that make up the cultural identity of the Northern Delta. That culinary art has existed for thousands of years along with the foundation/characteristics of the rice civilization. It appears as a simple, lively piece in the colorful mosaic of the Vietnamese cultural entity.
Along with the embellishment/ dissemination of tangible/intangible cultural images, another extreme of the rural life picture mentioned in Pham Quang Long's novel is the phenomenon of the traditional customs that make up the Vietnamese value system in a large coastal area showing signs of fading and weakening. This is truly a painful concern in his cultural sense. The current state of the countryside evokes many thoughts, worries, even distrust and confusion when witnessing cruel, uncultured/uncivilized behaviors right in the village, a place that is considered to be rich in resistance and highly immune to things that are contrary to long-standing customs and practices. There was a time when people destroyed pagodas in the name of eliminating superstition, but whether intentionally or unintentionally, it was an act of insulting the spiritual life and traditional beliefs that have been a salvation and protection for the Vietnamese people of the past and present: “People have their own ancestors, their own faith. When they no longer believe in anything, it is the beginning of disaster, sir. I am not exaggerating. Worshiping grandparents, ancestors, worshiping Gods and Buddhas for protection and blessing is a human habit that has always existed, so how can it be called superstition? The compassionate Buddha has always only advised people to live virtuously, but never advised living beings to harm anyone” (Village Stories - page 80). The trend of indiscriminate and reckless concreting has not only caused ecological problems and destroyed the natural landscape, but also seriously damaged morality and neighborly relations: “The shape of the village is becoming more and more monstrous. It is bumpy, bumpy, and eroded. People only care about their own houses and have no energy to pay attention to other people's houses and other people's affairs... People's hearts are no longer as pure as they were a few decades ago. Self-interest is changing both the shape of the village and the people a lot. The intact part is less, the dirty and distorted parts are more pronounced... People only pursue a desire to live a happier life and no longer care about living a more decent life (Mùa rươi - p. 336). Even the sound of the kite flute, a clear, melodious, soaring sound in the countryside sky that evokes purity and tranquility, has transformed into pollution because the crowd has "lost in" to a "dumb guy", the orchestra The peaceful, calm song is overwhelmed by the “chaotic” sounds, “like punches in the ears, full of provocation”, “occasionally barking like dogs”… Behind these exposed counter-cultural adversities are worries and reflections on cultural compromises to preserve and promote the Vietnamese value system in the context of a market economy, integration, and open-door exchange.
Regarding narrative art and poetic characteristics, Pham Quang Long has a harmonious combination of traditional writing style and innovative exploration. The space/time image through the two works, although moving according to a linear order model, is not rigid or monotonous but still flexible and diverse. There is a sequential plot time interwoven with co-existing time, nostalgic time, looking back time... And the real space coexists with the mental space, the natural space is present next to the social context space... In addition, the psychological description style is also one of the outstanding advantages that make up Pham Quang Long's style. Not being caught up in the "brain-twisting" writing style, confusing the reader with the labyrinthine structure, the endless, immersive stream of consciousness technique, his novels attract readers with profound psychological explanations and descriptions, understanding human affairs. Therefore, his characters (mainly the main characters) always have a full inner life with complex, multi-dimensional developments. The last thing that cannot be ignored in terms of text structure is the blending and interweaving of moods and levels to create a polyphonic tone: solemnity and humor, sympathy and mockery, compromise and debate... In particular, in the series of "words and speeches" of the characters (both positive and negative), Pham Quang Long did not hesitate to let them freely "swear", but those statements of the characters do not evoke obscenity or disgust. On the contrary, it is like a spice that creates saltiness for the written pages, bringing innocent, refreshing laughter, to relieve frustration; like an effective "stress reliever" when people feel too tired and stressed. Cultural researcher Nguyen Thanh (former Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Thai Binh) shared his deep and affectionate feelings and thoughts about his soulmate: “In most of his novels, Mr. Long wanted to convey his worries and concerns about world affairs and also took the opportunity to promote goodness, beauty and wishes for humanity and the way of life to be revived to be noble and noble as he had been taught and felt since his childhood and youth” (Season of the Crab – page 9). Pham Quang Long’s works are filled with love for the hard-working villagers of all seasons, and writing for him can be considered a gesture, an action to repay his debt to his homeland, “debt to the country”,…
However, in addition to the richness of rural life, Pham Quang Long needs to be more selective and restrained, eliminating the denseness and cumbersomeness to make the plot more concise and "open". In addition, his argumentative, argumentative, and "reasoning" thinking style is sometimes a bit "over the top", making readers feel "tired" and "head-aching"... But that inevitable shortcoming is not an obstacle that reduces the spread and healthy vitality of an enthusiastic, energetic writer.
From the image of a village/original model “as small as a cow’s hoof”, through endless stories about the ups and downs of a land, the joys and sorrows of human life, the belief in goodness and noble human virtues; Pham Quang Long has recreated a whole reality that is both familiar and strange. His novel creatures, therefore, always contain profound humanistic inspiration and open up complex dialogues about national cultural discourse./.
(*) Village Stories - People's Police Publishing House. H, 2020
(**) The season of the earthworms – Literature Publishing House – H, 2022