Dang Thi Hanh - A life of passion for books

I once heard somewhere that a person's soul, personality, and intelligence are shaped from a very young age and perfected over the following years. Dang Thi Hanh is no exception. In memoryGirl looking at the rainwritten at the age of 75 (published in 2008), when recalling her childhood years, she imagined herself through the image of “a little girl about two or three years old sitting on a small pole” looking out into the yard watching the rain, “the raindrops falling faster and faster and chasing each other”; and a little older, still a little girl wandering around the threshold, breathing in “the bitter, sweet comfort of the medicines stored in drawers” ​​at her grandfather’s house; later when she reached school age, then became a lecturer, researcher, translator, both in high school and university, the image of the little girl watching the rain every day still returned, surrounded by books, notebooks, and pens. Books have been Dang Thi Hanh’s bosom friends and confidants for a long time, so long that they have shaped a character in her. The most beautiful images of her, up to now, are still just photos of her sitting in front of, behind and around books, at her desk, or in the library. That habit gradually turned into a personality. Dang Thi Hanh is a person who loves "static movements", likes to read more than write, likes indoor spaces more than outdoor spaces, likes to live introverted more than picnics. I remember, when I was still working in the same department at the Faculty of Literature, University of General Sciences, every time I persuaded her to go to a crowded place, even a place like the TV station, it was extremely difficult. When the department held the scientific conference "100 years of the death of Victor Hugo" (1985), the French writer she loved so much, I had to struggle to "pull" her away from her reading table, at her private house in Lieu Giai area, to the TV station studio on Nguyen Chi Thanh street, only a few hundred meters away. I had to persuade her many times before she agreed. On such occasions, she often had an excuse to explain, “I look bad on camera, I’m not photogenic, don’t make me appear on air.” Even when she was nearly 50 years old and had been teaching for nearly 30 years, she thought teaching was no longer a problem for her. However, one time, around 1978, when she was assigned to teach an in-service class in Hung Yen, Ms. Dang Thi Hanh cleverly persuaded me: “Hey, there’s an in-service class in Hung Yen, you go teach instead of me. They pay you there.” Knowing that at that time, I was “eager” to go to class to improve my teaching ability (and also wanted to earn some extra income), she was still worried about “showing off” her persuasion skills, for fear that I would not accept.
Dang Thi Hanh is a person who is afraid of "movement", only likes friends and books, and likes to have time to read books.Girl looking at the rainShe told me over and over again how books had become her close friends. The books around the door, scattered all over the house, that her father, Professor Dang Thi Mai, said, my children only need to pick up those books to fill their professional knowledge. Then she told me about the days of reading books at the library on Uml Street, at the University of Pedagogy in Paris, France. As the number one expert on Hugo (having written several books about this writer), but during the period of preparing materials for the monograph Victor Hugo, books about this romantic writer were piled up on her bookshelves, on her desk, on her chairs, and on the dining table, to the point that her father, Professor Dang Thai Mai, once came to visit and had to exclaim: "Hey, so now French literature only has Victor Hugo?" Knowing that her father asked cleverly to remind her to "expand her scope of activities", not to focus only on a few authors, French literature researchers understood a little. But Dang Thi Hanh was a very difficult person to change. Moreover, at that time, she was determined to complete the research project that was taking up too much of her time, so she just let it be.
Indeed, in Vietnam at that time, Hugo was the most famous writer, next to the realist Onoré de Balzac. Meanwhile, Vietnamese researchers and teachers had not yet had any work of the same caliber about either of them. Because she did not have the opportunity to read much Balzac, she wanted to focus on Hugo. Before that, around the 70s, Dang Thi Hanh had published a book about Hugo as a celebrity. The second book about the same author was truly the most in-depth and systematic treatise on the author's prose writing. Only after completing the book about Hugo, Dang Thi Hanh changed direction to expand to other writers. In the History of French Literature (5 volumes) of the Department of Western Literature in collaboration with the University of Paris 7, a textbook for students, she wrote about the authors: Alphonse de Lamarrtin, Alfred de Vigny, Alfred de Musset, Gérard de Nerval, George Sand (volume 2, 19th century), André Breton and Surrealism, Marcel Proust, and the chapter on the Summary of the 20th Century. She was also the editor-in-chief of the 20th Century book.
Dang Thi Hanh's research direction has since expanded day by day. In a book entitledSome faces of 20th century French prose(Da Nang Publishing House, 1978), new names in 20th century French literature appeared in her research list:“Proust from the end of the century”,“Margueritte Duras's Lover, a Rewritten Story”(written about the novel The Lover of North China”,“Childhood memories in some award-winning works of 1995”(about the writer Andrei Markin), “Western detective literature, para-literature and “authentic” literature”, “Write in a language other than your native language” (on some African writers Francophe), “Autobiography and the 20th-century French novel”(on Duras and Sartre), “The Fortune of the Novel”(quoted from section “20th Century Summary” in the History of French Literature). Recently, she also published papers at the Kafka Scientific Conference, translated Michel Tournier, Macel Proust... Clearly, Dang Thi Hanh is a diligent and hard-working scientist, regardless of time and age. It should be remembered that administratively, Associate Professor Dang Thi Hanh officially retired in 1990, although at that time, the school proposed to extend her working time. But Dang Thi Hanh still asked to resign. She believed that it was not only the time at work that one could work. In addition, her girlfriend and closest colleague for many years, People's Teacher Le Hong Sam, had also retired at that time. Retirement did not mean stopping work. Her love for France and French literature was always overflowing.
Since then, more than 33 years have passed, meaning nearly a third of a century. The “resilient” woman with a “thin, austere” appearance has been working persistently, constantly “cultivating” her “field of words”, not for any “profit”. Although she works very slowly. All because of her love of books, a “love” of caution, precision, fairness and honesty. Dang Thi Hanh is not like some other researchers of the same time, she is not “greedy” or “over-committed”. For that reason, with her profound and erudite knowledge, Dang Thi Hanh did not leave behind many works and writings. She only wrote what she truly loved and understood. In her scientific statements, Dang Thi Hanh always knew how to restrain her understanding. Even when instructing and giving comments on students' theses and dissertations, she only says what is within her expertise, speaks honestly and directly, without beating around the bush or evading...
In life, Dang Thi Hanh is as simple, friendly and warm as she is in science, she is strict, straightforward and strict. I remember, once she told me that she resolutely refused the invitation of the Ministry of Education and Training to review a doctoral thesis on the British writer Hemingway, with the very simple reason "that is not my area of ​​expertise". Dang Thi Hanh is probably the one who understands better than anyone, God does not give anyone all knowledge and power. Therefore, each person in this life needs to know how to control and adjust themselves. Human capacity is limited. Only giant minds like Einstein, Newton, Hugo or Balzac ... can spread their strength evenly throughout their lives. The rest, the majority, can only do a limited amount of work. With her humble virtue of "knowing others and knowing yourself", Dang Thi Hanh "bravely" put aside all other unnecessary desires. She had only one love: science, literature, books, France. That habit was also shown in her concern for her children and grandchildren. During the times I visited her house to chat, I often heard her talk about a son who worked far away, whom she loved. She said: "He is very passionate about his articles in scientific magazines, has very strange thoughts, unlike anyone else. But he is very passionate, my dear. While his monthly income is very low." She often talked about her son with a very proud voice. There was no complaint or criticism. Recently, during several visits to her home, I often heard her confide: "Her dream is to see you once before she closes her eyes."Girl looking at the rainreappears”. At first I was very surprised. In all her research and translation works, although not many, why did she only like one memoir? Thinking back, I see that her choice was reasonable. So that person “diligently working in the field of words” only dreamed of seeing her own story again, told by herself. I understood her sincere wish. Because,Girl looking at the rainnot just a picture of an individual's life, but the lives of many: relatives, friends, colleagues, the country. BeforeGirl looking at the rain, Dang Thi Hanh once wroteGrandma and grandchild. Not every grandmother in this life writes about her grandchildren with such affection. In this special memoir, although it is a true autobiography, there is very little “favoritism and bias” towards individuals, relatives, and even the “heroes” around her. In the book, Dang Thi Hanh calls them “my soldiers” in a simple, discreet way. Very different from the typical conventions of the autobiography genre. Writer Nguyen Ngoc calls it “a quiet history”. As a woman, a wife, a mother in the family, Dang Thi Hanh’s most important mission is to create balance in life, so that her relatives can develop and be most useful…
In 2013, France did not forget to award Associate Professor Dang Thi Hanh the Academic Palm Medal, a medal reserved for those who have made great contributions to spreading French culture to the wide reading public. Associate Professor Dang Thi Hanh deserved it. From the moment she was born until her “soul flew to heaven”, she was always the same: not “flamboyant”, “passionate” to the end about books and French literature. It is impossible to say everything about her in just these short lines. But I believe that, in the far horizon, she can still read and smile. Because she loved books all her life.