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Ru

3.74 of 5 stars 3.74 · rating details · 1,371 ratings · 262 reviews

Une femme voyage à travers le désordre des souvenirs : l'enfance dans sa cage d'or à Saigon, l'arrivée du communisme dans le Sud-Vietnam apeuré, la fuite dans le ventre d'un bateau au large du golfe de Siam, l'internement dans un camp de réfugiés en Malaisie, les premiers frissons dans le froid du Québec. Récit entre la guerre et la paix, ru dit le vide et le trop-plein, l...more

Broché, 144 pages

Published January 5th 2010 by Liana Levi (first published 2009)

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Lists with This Book

2012 Giller Prize Longlist

4th out of 13 books — 28 voters

Governor General's Award Winners

11th out of 29 books — 19 voters

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Jan 01, 2013 Friederike Knabe rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Finished it in one go. A totally absorbing memoir/reflection on life in Vietnam, escape with the boat people, finding something like a home but not really in Quebec... Unusual in structure, rich in imagery, the interconnected vignettes paint a portrait of the heroine, her family, her country and what it means to be connected and uprooted at the same time.

Towards the end of the book, looking back on her earlier life, the narrator muses "...after only thirty years I already recognize our old selv...more

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Feb 23, 2013 Sue rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: bio-memoir readers, Asian hx and culture readers

Shelves: canada, historical-fiction, library-book, vietnam, immigrant-exile-refugee, read-2013, around-the-world-in-52

Kim Thuy has created a very different fictionalized memoir based in her past growing up in Saigon , living a life of privilege until that city's fall. Then the story changes to deprivation, re-education, escape, the new, cold world of Canada. She has chosen an unusual format for this book, a series of one and two page vignettes from her life, not in order of occurrence but some order that is internally important to the author and protagonist.

The writing is wonderful (my over-used, fall back word...more

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Jan 11, 2013 Krista rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, can-lit

In the preface to a print copy of The Darwin Awards, it warns to only read a couple of the stories per day in order to get maximum enjoyment out of them, and it's true that the stories tend to run into each other and lose whatever poignancy they might have if you slowed down and savoured them individually. I felt that Ru could have benefitted from the same warning.

The title, "Ru", is defined as: in French, a small stream, but also signifies a flow -- of tears, blood or money; in Vietnamese, a lu...more In the preface to a print copy of The Darwin Awards, it warns to only read a couple of the stories per day in order to get maximum enjoyment out of them, and it's true that the stories tend to run into each other and lose whatever poignancy they might have if you slowed down and savoured them individually. I felt that Ru could have benefitted from the same warning.

The title, "Ru", is defined as: in French, a small stream, but also signifies a flow -- of tears, blood or money; in Vietnamese, a lullaby. This seems to be the first of the koans one encounters, something to mull and turn over like a gumdrop in your mouth, sucking off the sugar before getting to the chewy center. Every vignette that follows, at a page or two in length, is like a koan; a riddle that might need some further thought, often ending in a gorgeous turn of phrase that cries for a savouring on the tongue, but since the scenes are so short and the next one starts right there on the next page, I found myself skipping ahead, chewing away at the sweet centers, before fully unwrapping and enjoying each treat as it came along.

Moving forward and backwards through time and space, from childhood to adulthood, Vietnam to Quebec and back again, Kim Thúy paints pictures both beautiful and ugly, and when you realise that this is essentially a memoir, the heart breaks for the disrupted childhoods, the loss of homeland, the refugee experience that Thúy describes, that Thúy has known, and the title, in both senses, is fitting and true.

It may require a reread to savour the sugar. It begins:

I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chains of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of machine guns.

I first saw the light of day in Saigon, where firecrackers, fragmented into a thousand shreds, coloured the ground like the petals of cherry blossoms or like the blood of the two million soldiers deployed and scattered throughout the villages and cities of a Vietnam that had been ripped in two.

I was born in the shadow of skies adorned with fireworks, decorated with garlands of light, shot through with rockets and missiles. The purpose of my birth was to replace lives that had been lost. My life's duty was to prolong that of my mother.

A koan, a gumdrop, a stream, a lullaby…
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Jan 09, 2013 Barbara Skuplik rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: asia, fiction, historical

I first learned of this book while I was watching the Giller Awards (she was among the nominees for best book). After hearing the description of the book, and hearing Kim Thuy (the author) speak, I immediately put it on my "to read" list. I am so glad I did.

It took me a while to really get into this book; each page is its own vignette or memory, for lack of a better description. Once I got used to her writing style, I was swept away by her beautiful prose. Truly an interesting and unique perspec...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Minutepapillon rated it 4 of 5 stars

"J'aime le cuir rouge du divan d'un bar sur lequel j'ose me mettre à nu auprès d'amis, et parfois d'inconnus, à leur insu. Je leur raconte des bribes de mon passé comme si elles étaient des historiettes, des numéros d'humoriste ou des contes cocasses de pays lointains aux décors exotiques, aux sons insolites, aux personnages parodiques." Voilà ce que nous dit la narratrice de ce court roman dans les derniers chapitres et son récit est empreint de cette propension à la bribe, à l'historiette, au...more

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Mar 30, 2013 Ken rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Poetic and Powerful.

I too, am writing a memoir, and this book Ru has inspired me to include a lot more material about Vietnam.

A person from the writers workshop brought with him this book as he came to my place to pick up The House of Cards tv series. I had come across this book previously and was not interested. Quietly thinking how best to return it to the kind hearted man who thought I’d be interested in Vietnam, I could not give it back to him right there since that would probably be impolit...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

The word RU, in Vietnamese, means a lullaby. A song. And indeed, Kim Thuy’s RU is a form of lullaby, evocative, lyrical, beautifully composed.

This is not a novel, at least in the conventional form. In non-chronological order, Kim Thuy offers up memories and musings at a distance – some stunningly rendered (“My parents often remind my brothers and me that they won’t have any money for us to inherit, but I think they’ve already passed on to us the wealth of their memories, allowing us to grasp the...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Noralo rated it 3 of 5 stars

The vignettes that compose this book are only vignettes because instead of paragraph breaks, they begin on new pages with extra capital letters (what are those called?). They could easily not have been vignettes if there had been a sentence or two of segue between each "vignette". It's ok for a book to jump around without it being vignettes. So that annoyed me.

The other reason that the vignette format bothered me is it made the book far too poetic for my taste. The love was so full of need and s...more

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Jan 20, 2013 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ru is a moving, delicate story of the refugee experience. Nguyen An Tinh tells how she came to be a mother in Quebec, having begun life in a middle class family in Saigon. The story is partly horrifyng, partly inspiring - but most of all it is a story of transition and new order. The experience of fleeing Vietnam in unseaworthy boats was a leveller. People lost their status, their savings and their dignity in the journey, and the capacity to rebuild was as much about luck as ability.

The story is...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: east-asia_southeast-asia, immigrant-experience

Reflections of a woman who fled Vietnam as a child and settled in Canada. Beautiful writing (so, kudos to the translator as well as the author). This is one of those books that conveys a lot with few words.

Structurally, this is a collection of one- or two-page impressions. They're not arranged chronologically but they cover 30-some years of the narrator's life. A fairly well-off childhood in Vietnam. Soldiers occupying part of their house and taking the family's possessions. A terrifying escape...more

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Jan 03, 2013 Mark Staniforth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kim Thuy’s 'Ru' – in French, a discharge of tears, blood or money; in Vietnamese, a lullaby – is a lovely, heartfelt little book that proves size that hardly matters: you can wisp through its series of mainly single-page vignettes in a handful of hours, but its beauty will linger much longer.
Thuy’s book essentially tells the story of her life from her birth at the time of Vietnam’s Tet Offensive in 1968, through a post-War childhood under increasingly strict communist control, and eventually her...more

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Dec 03, 2012 Ru rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A whimsical look at the author's Saigon past and Quebec present & future. In some ways, this book serves as 2 love letters to Vietnam and Canada. Thúy speaks of many things in both countries, usually with adoration and a forlorn remembrance of her origins, but also as someone who cherishes what Canadian life has provided that life in the East could not.

There are also memories of the hardships of life as a child a world away, during a time of war, and under the reign of Communism. These are p...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2012, philosophy-and-religion, in-my-library, non-fiction, favourites, fiction-in-english, contemporary, fiction-from-other-countries

Jag kunde inte komma ifrån att det kändes som en sådan fruktansvärd ära att få läsa Ru. Det var en sådan underlig och känslosam upplevelse. Boken handlar som hur hennes familj tvingas fly från kommunismens Vietnam till ett nytt liv i Kanada. Väl i Kanada försöker familjen att anpassa sig till en ny livsstil samtidigt som de måste försonas med sitt förflutna. Kommunismen i Vietnam är något som jag vet mycket lite om, faktiskt ingenting alls, så det var intressant att ta del av deras historia hur...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Helynne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Vivid, but random and non-chronological memories of a middle-class childhood in Saigon that turned into a nightmarish experience under the communist regime and a harrowing survival in a Malaysian refugee camps are contrasted in this contemporary memoir by Kim Thuy with her life over the past 30 years as a now-North Americanized writer and mother in Quebec. Thuy has explained in recent interviews in both English and French that French has become the language of her adulthood as well as her litera...more Vivid, but random and non-chronological memories of a middle-class childhood in Saigon that turned into a nightmarish experience under the communist regime and a harrowing survival in a Malaysian refugee camps are contrasted in this contemporary memoir by Kim Thuy with her life over the past 30 years as a now-North Americanized writer and mother in Quebec. Thuy has explained in recent interviews in both English and French that French has become the language of her adulthood as well as her literary medium of choice. “I speak Vietnamese, of course, but it is the Vietnamese of childhood or cooking. The language in which I think and feel most is French.” Thuy explains in her preface that her chosen title word “ru” means in French “small stream . . . of tears, blood, or money,” and in Vietnamese “a lullaby or the verb to rock.” Both of these definitions will become an integral part of this moving personal memoir as she presents her three principal themes. First, is the pain and determination of survival, specifically during the trauma of living in Saigon during what she calls in a glaring oxymoron “la paix chaotique” of late 1970s Saigon, which is indeed at times a stream of blood, tears, and (a mostly illegal exchange of) money. The second is the bewildering, but mostly positive, experience of readjusting with her parents and other extended family members to a cold climate and the vastly different, albeit friendly and welcoming, culture of Granby, Quebec. Third, and probably most important, is Thuy’s disturbing realization that 30 years after her escape from Vietnam, 1979-2009, (and even though she had returned to her native country to work for three years in Hanoi as a young adult), her memories of her original culture and her whole Asian identity are fading, and how she must struggle now to keep the whole of her ethnic persona and perspective alive and functioning as a part of the Quebecoise writer, translator, and scholar she has become. Although she would later express regrets about her memories of her first 10 years becoming more faint and fleeting, her narration goes back randomly but with rich detail as she describes her family members, including those left forever behind, their customs and relatively comfortable lifestyle, fun with aunts, uncles and cousins. Then, the appropriation of their property and the stupidity of the young jungle-bred soldiers who occupied what little living space they had left. Now, after the boat experience, the Malyasian camp, and the grateful integration into Quebec society, nearly all of Thuy’s family members who were able to immigrate, have risen phoenix-like in the soothing, rocking motion of the Quebecois Ru. While Thuy and her expatriated extended family all value their adopted country beyond measure (144), she notes that each family member had to struggle not to let these successes eclipse the awareness of his/her original identity because the understated theme is that behind these phoenix stories—to borrow from a pop song—their native culture was the wind beneath their wings.

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Jul 18, 2012 Bonnie Grove rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read Ru in three short sittings over two days. It reads quickly. The book is a compilation of short (often less than a page) vignettes, glimpses into a life incomprehensible even to the woman who lived it. The sparse style of the novel is a testimony to the unknowableness of life, even one's own life. A life of here and there, of vanishing, and not knowing what is worth holding on to and what should be let go of. A bracelet concealing diamonds, a home, a nation, a language, a man, family. Whic...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Steven Langdon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: super

"One horizon always hides another and it goes on like that to infinity, to the unspeakable beauty of renewal, to intangible rapture." Kim Thuy gives us what is almost a stream-of-conciousness novel, a multi-layered rumination on the people, the tragedies and the history that shape the life of Nguyen An Tinh, a ten year old Vietnamese girl. She moves from wealthy childhood to harsh seaborne escape, then grim refugee life, followed by surreal transfer to bewildering but welcoming small-town Quebec...more "One horizon always hides another and it goes on like that to infinity, to the unspeakable beauty of renewal, to intangible rapture." Kim Thuy gives us what is almost a stream-of-conciousness novel, a multi-layered rumination on the people, the tragedies and the history that shape the life of Nguyen An Tinh, a ten year old Vietnamese girl. She moves from wealthy childhood to harsh seaborne escape, then grim refugee life, followed by surreal transfer to bewildering but welcoming small-town Quebec -- from which she later returns as a UN official to a posting in Hanoi. This narrative story is not "told," though. It surfaces and glides in and out amongst a set of interconnected vignettes, tracing itself simply, then retracing itself more deeply, then cutting even more profoundly through the characters of Nguyen and her close family members.

This is a moving and powerful book on so many levels. It is beautifully written, with almost poetic phrasing, and a lyrical flavour -- but with sharp, hard insights that suddenly snap out to slap your face. Like the description of the American GIs who buy blocks of ice to put under their beds when they return to Saigon after time fighting in the jungle -- "They needed the cool breezes of Vermont or Montana. They needed that coolness so they could stop suspecting, for a moment, that a grenade was hidden in the hands of every child who touched the hair on their arms." But then the tough final sentence . . . "They needed to be cold to leave the women who were carrying their children without ever returning to see them again, without ever revealing their last names."

It is remarkable, too, that this is a book written originally in French, a language Thuy didn't know before she reached Quebec. Yet the grace with which she now writes the language is so fine (and translator Sheila Fishman, of Montreal, has done such a good job.) Thuy has said this is a novel, because she has changed a few small facts (her birth was just after the Tet offensive, not on that date, for instance.) But it is at its core a memoir. And the stark honesty with which it is written, especially with respect to the sexual lives of the main characters, is also breathtaking.

Perhaps what is most compelling about this book is the way it shows our world coming full circle on Vietnam. The brutal conflict there led to searing literature by expatriates, from Graham Greene to Marguerite Duras. Canadians, too, were caught up in interpreting what was happening -- such as Camilla Gibbs and David Bergen. But now superb literature is beginning to come from those communities caught in the heart of the conflict. Vincent Lam's The Headmaster's Wager is an excellent novel rooted in the experience of Vietnam's Chinese community -- and now Ru provides a whole different perspective from the Vietnamese side. Some of the comments from Nguyen's period in Hanoi are especially striking in the new viewpoints they offer -- such as the suggestions from some that Nguyen must be Japanese, she could not be Vietnamese because she was too forthright and robust in her health. I was especially struck, too, by Thuy's discussion of how sacrosanct the head is to Vietnamese -- how touching someone's head is considered a huge insult, and how love is seen as a state of mind (with many varied words for many varied sorts of love in Vietnamese.)

Kim Thuy has said that this book was written originally as one long paragraph, and some may find its lack of narrative structure an impediment at first. But as one horizon merges into another in the writing, and the poetry traps you, this book will in the end overwhelm you -- just as it convinced the judges who named it Canada's best novel in French in 2011. (less)

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Feb 05, 2012 Cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian, vietnam, e-book, quebec

Wow. Beautiful.
An elegiac and lyrical autobiographical novel of a family that fled Vietnam in the 1970s. They arrived in Canada, via Malaysian refugee camps, and eventually settled in Quebec.

The story is prefaced with an explanation. "In French, 'ru' means a small stream and, figuratively, a flow, a discharge--of tears, of blood, of money. In Vietnamese, 'ru' means a lullably, to lull.

The narrator was ten years old when 'the History of Vietnam' ended her "role as an extension of my mother." He...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Cmorice rated it 4 of 5 stars

Une femme voyage à travers le désordre des souvenirs : l’enfance dans sa cage d’or à Saigon, l’arrivée du communisme dans le Sud-Vietnam apeuré, la fuite dans le ventre d’un bateau au large du golfe de Siam, l’internement dans un camp de réfugiés en Malaisie, les premiers frissons dans le froid du Québec. Récit entre la guerre et la paix, Ru dit le vide et le trop-plein, l’égarement et la beauté. De ce tumulte, des incidents tragi-comiques, des objets ordinaires émergent comme autant de repères...more

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Nov 18, 2011 Amandine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20e-et-21e-siècles, nouvelles-et-courts-récits

Par petites touches éparses, dans des chapitres très courts (jamais plus d’une page et demie), Kim Thúy relate ses souvenirs, au gré de sa mémoire : son enfance à Saigon, entourée de sa nombreuse famille, l’arrivée de la guerre, suivie de la paix non moins brutale, sa fuite en Malaisie, puis au Québec, son retour temporaire au Vietnam des années plus tard. Son récit n’est pas chronologique, les évènements et les personnages s’entremêlant, mais se comprend aisément et compose une fresque aux coul...more

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May 05, 2013 Ted rated it 1 of 5 stars

Kim Thuy's Ru was shortlisted for the 2012 Giller prize, Canada's most prestigious literary award and yet I give it a scant one star rating. In truth I never finished it. There were another fifty or so pages but I had to abandon it as it wasn't an enjoyable read to me.

Ru is an immigrant story, which I usually enjoy and this one has vivid descriptions of escape from Vietnam after the American defeat and adjusting to life in a new country.

But I found the structuring of the book vexing. This may be...more

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Nov 14, 2012 Shirley Schwartz rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: prize-winners

Kim Thuy was ten years old when she and her family emigrated out of Vietnam to Canada. They spent some time in a camp in Malaysia before boarding a boat to Canada. They ended up settling in Montreal. This book tells Kim's experiences in a series of very lyrical and descriptive little vignettes in this book. Ru's writing is very descriptive and there is a definite undercurrent of wit in the pages of this little book. And the journey isn't in a regular timeline. She slips back and forth from the r...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Jennifer D. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-books, books-i-own, canadian

So...we lost power for over 24 hours (super storm sandy) and i decided to re-read this beautiful novel.

Kim Thúy's novel, Ru was shortlisted for this year's Giller Award. Released in its original French in 2010, it won the French-language Governor-General’s Award that same year, and has secured foreign rights in 15 countries. (Though according to a rep at Random House Canada, I have been told a U.S. publication date has not been established.) The English translation has been crafted beautifully...more So...we lost power for over 24 hours (super storm sandy) and i decided to re-read this beautiful novel.

Kim Thúy's novel, Ru was shortlisted for this year's Giller Award. Released in its original French in 2010, it won the French-language Governor-General’s Award that same year, and has secured foreign rights in 15 countries. (Though according to a rep at Random House Canada, I have been told a U.S. publication date has not been established.) The English translation has been crafted beautifully by Sheila Fischman. While I was reading, I sensed the tenderness and integrity Fischman brought to this project. (But I would now like to read Ru in French!)

Ru is a fictional memoir told in beautiful vignettes that weave us through An Tinh's escape from Vietnam to her time in a Malaysian refugee camp to her new life in Canada. The novel begins with a note on the meaning of ru. In French, it denotes a small stream or a flow – of water, blood, tears or almost anything else. In Vietnamese, ru means a lullaby.

The opening that follows, gives us a good idea of what's in store:

I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chains of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of the machine guns.

I first saw the light of day in Saigon, where firecrackers, fragmented into a thousand shreds, coloured the ground red like the petals of cherry blossoms or like the blood of the two million soldiers deployed and scattered through the villages and cities of a Vietnam that had been ripped in two.

I was born in the shadow of skies adorned with fireworks, decorated with garlands of light, shot through with rockets and missiles. The purpose of my birth was to replace lives that had been lost. My life’s duty was to prolong that of my mother.

I love the form this book takes and feel that the way Thúy tells us this story really captures how we remember events from the past. Our recollections help form the big picture but it's the snippets of memory, of moments along the way, that piece together like a puzzle and create the full picture of a life. even in its entirety life can be messy but whole, disjointed and connected at the same time. but from the chaos and uncertainty, physical and moral strength and endurance can emerge and sustain us.

Thúy did a Q & A with CBC Books.(less)

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Mar 19, 2012 Sandra Paire rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: easy-to-read, novel, will-read-again

"I believe war and peace are actually friends who mock us" said Kim Thuy in "Ru".
Beautiful collection of memoir, gracefully written. Easy to read. And a fantastic reminder that life under easy circumstances cannot, should not be taken for granted.
Take a look at the people around you: you'll find a gem or a surprise in every person you talk to.

I grew up with several Vietnamese refugees in Africa; being a kid, I just marvelled at their ability to study, draw, and be "perfect" while I was just fool...more

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Feb 05, 2012 Eniko rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

J'ai appris de l'existence de ce livre en écoutant une entrevue avec l'auteure à la radio anglaise CBC, on venait de le traduire en anglais. Il me semblait que ce serait un livre très interessant. Malheureusement, je constate qu'on a discuté des meilleures parties du volume à la radio. J'ai reconnu ces parties en lisant, mais, malheureusement, tout ce qu'il y avait à dire sur eux avait déjà été dit à la radio.

Je trouve que ce livre d'anecdotes a traité trop rapidement du sujet. De plus, le style...more

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Jun 21, 2012 Miz Moffatt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: canadian, literary-fiction, non-linear, translation, governor-general-award-winner, qu-b-cois-e, favorites

Full review posted on Across the Litoverse

Ru traces the life of one woman swept from her home in the wake of Vietnam's war and taken to Quebec to rebuild her life without wealth and without a common language. As a young girl, our unnamed narrator lived in a peaceful, luxurious world until the Communists invaded Saigon and overturned the Vietnamese government. In the aftermath, her parents and two brothers escape to an overcrowded, muddied refugee camp in Malaysia and later make the dangerous sea...more Full review posted on Across the Litoverse

Ru traces the life of one woman swept from her home in the wake of Vietnam's war and taken to Quebec to rebuild her life without wealth and without a common language. As a young girl, our unnamed narrator lived in a peaceful, luxurious world until the Communists invaded Saigon and overturned the Vietnamese government. In the aftermath, her parents and two brothers escape to an overcrowded, muddied refugee camp in Malaysia and later make the dangerous sea voyage to Quebec, where our narrator becomes a deaf-mute girl in a country dominated by French- and English-speakers. As an adult, she returns to Vietnam for a three-year period and finds she's an outcast once again. Then, as a mother, she takes on greater challenges after her two sons are born, and she must learn to shape her love around her youngest son's autism.

Kim Thúy's narrative flows effortlessly between past and present, threading Vietnam's history with a young girl's stolen memories, while honouring the many people who helped the girl and her family reach a newer, safer future in foreign lands.

Ru caught me off-guard with its devastating details and its non-linear, poetic approach to capturing one woman's tumultuous life. I gravitate toward episodic narratives, and I appreciate well-crafted literary fiction—in Ru, Kim Thúy uses the ideas and memories of her protagonist to dictate the structure of the narrative itself, and connects brief moments throughout this woman's life in a thematic, stream-of-consciousness framework.

In the French-speaking world, Ru has won a bevy of Grand Prix across the board, and now, thanks to Sheila Fischman and the folks at Random House Canada, English-languauge readers can share in this remarkable work for the first time—and trust me, you'll want to do just that as soon as possible.

Ideal for: Fans of Canadian literary fiction and memorable immigration narratives; Readers who love non-linear, poetic writing or vignette-structured narratives; Readers fascinated by representations of the Vietnam war in fiction; Folks keen on exploring Quebec's tremendous (and contemporary) literary scene.(less)

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Dec 11, 2012 Mj rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs-bios-autobios, non-fiction

Ru is a wonderful read. While it is a small book, it is a well deserved recipient of numerous literary awards. The writing is that good. In an interview, the author calls them writing awards. Her book is full of that same humility, insight, dry wit and candour. It is hard to believe that this book was originally written in French as its structure and word choices in the English translation are so amazing. The words themselves have energy and life and carried me along on a wonderful sensory, poig...more Ru is a wonderful read. While it is a small book, it is a well deserved recipient of numerous literary awards. The writing is that good. In an interview, the author calls them writing awards. Her book is full of that same humility, insight, dry wit and candour. It is hard to believe that this book was originally written in French as its structure and word choices in the English translation are so amazing. The words themselves have energy and life and carried me along on a wonderful sensory, poignant and informational journey of discovery. Kudos to the author Kim Thuy for creating such lyricism and poetry in a memoir and to Sheila Fischman for her translation.

Ru is the story of the author’s memories and life over a thirty to forty year time span. She was a child of privilege in Vietnam before the war, spent time in a Malaysian war camp, before coming to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, her new adopted homeland, as one of the numerous Vietnamese dubbed “boat people” who immigrated to Canada and elsewhere as refugees.

Her story is told in small vignettes – a half page to two or three pages in length. The time line isn’t linear. One story, and often just one word or memory leads to another thought, memory and story, perhaps years before or later, down the street or an ocean away. I thought the format enhanced the memoir – demonstrating people, environment and global connectedness. I also felt the circuitous pattern mirrored well how the mind often works and how lives unfold. I quite enjoyed the stream of consciousness style, one story or word spawning another and the fluidity and intertwining of the various memories into one book. Other readers obviously felt the same way as the book received international recognition and an award for its structure.

I can’t describe all the memories but you will learn much and relish reading them. They are smatterings from everywhere – war camp, the ocean voyage, first days at school, a large extended family, parents who set examples and high expectations, aunts and uncles who nurture Ru, visits back to Saigon, children of her own etc. There were numerous sharings and observations of moments in time by the author throughout – all packed full of visual imagery, smells, sounds, touch. All the senses and one’s mind and imagination get activated. You really do get transported to another time and place.

Thuy is brutally honest and her descriptions are quite graphic. And yet despite some of the harsh realities described; the way Thuy fashions their telling makes you understand what really happened but at the same time softens it and has you truly amazed by the obvious optimism, gratitude and resilience of the Vietnamese people described. It is the Vietnamese people’s truth and Thuy’s craftsmanship that makes this happen.

On page 27 as an example, she writes about the war camps. “I walked directly on the clay soil where maggots had been crawling a week before. With every heavy rainfall they emerged from the cesspit in the hundreds of thousands, as if summoned by a messiah. They all headed for the side of our hill and climbed it without ever tiring, without ever falling. They crawled up to our feet, all to the same rhythm, transforming the red clay soil into an undulating white carpet. There were so many that we gave up before we’d even started to fight. They became invincible, we became vulnerable. We let them extend their territory until the rains stopped, when they became vulnerable in return.” Can you not just imagine being there? The situation and horribleness is very well described and yet the beauty of the imagery makes it more palatable to the reader and we are even drawn into experiencing and relating to the maggots’ daily struggles in life.

Despite the harshness of many of her experiences, Thuy writes with so much grace and with such clarity, respect and optimism that one cannot help but be inspired by her positive attitude. Thuy also shares many fonder memories. Her stories of her parents and adopted homeland in particular are filled with gratitude. On page 141 she writes “I moved forward in the trace of their footsteps as in a waking dream where the scent of a newly blown poppy is no longer a perfume but a blossoming: where the deep red of a maple leaf in autumn is no longer a colour but a grace; where a country is no longer a place but a lullaby.”

I hope you get a sense of the author’s gift of crafting words. I watched a video clip of Thuy in an interview on the CBC when she was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller prize and she talked about spending so much time evaluating word choices and looking at words from many different angles – melancholia versus sadness as an example. She expressed insecurity about writing in a new, not-first language and was afraid of missing the nuances. The readers are the beneficiaries of her thoughtful word and life memory choices. It added up to a tiny book that is overflowing with imagery and inspiration. Well worth reading to learn more about life as a Viet Nam refugee and how powerful, well chosen words can be.

If I was able, I would likely have given the book 4 1/2 stars, primarily due to its brevity. I deliberated about rounding up or rounding down and decided that any book where words and memories resonated so much from the page, no matter how short and how many more vignettes I would have liked to have read was deserving of 5 stars. Don’t take my word for it. Hopefully I have whetted your appetite and you will choose to savour the book like I did.
(less)

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May 05, 2013 Ann Marie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Once again I feel the base for the story is where the stars have been given. One is required to give four or five stars or be labeled as unfeeling. But I could not feel for the actual character and therefore the plight. The story for me read rather like a skeleton - without the meat and muscle to hold it together or actually become something solid that I could relate to rather than just read. The story is written in short groupings, like snapshots one might say - which are then all strung togeth...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Diane S. rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a book of short connecting vignettes, all pertaining to Ru's life past and present. The detail in these stories and the wonderful prose kept me reading. The story goes back and forth, from Vietnam, to a Malaysian refuge camp and than on to Quebec. She comes to understand more things about her mother when she has children of her own. The war in Vietnam, to the struggle to acclimate in a foreign country and than her struggle with her autistic child are all related. In fact it is amazing h...more

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Dec 24, 2012 Galina rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Ру" ме остави със смесени чувства. Това не е книга, към която ще се връщам и ще отварям отново, защото някак не успя да заговори на моя език и да ме направи съпричастна с написаното вътре. От друга страна, не съжалявам, че ми попадна, не твърдя, че е загубено време. Просто... това не е литературата, която аз чувствам близка, въпреки че имаше красиви мисли, облечени в красиви думи.
На първо място за мен това категорично не е роман и съм склонна да споря с корицата, която толкова убедено го заявяв...more "Ру" ме остави със смесени чувства. Това не е книга, към която ще се връщам и ще отварям отново, защото някак не успя да заговори на моя език и да ме направи съпричастна с написаното вътре. От друга страна, не съжалявам, че ми попадна, не твърдя, че е загубено време. Просто... това не е литературата, която аз чувствам близка, въпреки че имаше красиви мисли, облечени в красиви думи.
На първо място за мен това категорично не е роман и съм склонна да споря с корицата, която толкова убедено го заявява. Това е поток на мисълта, посока на спомените, облечени във вербални одежди. И точно тук аз и "Ру" се разминахме. Смятам, че щом повествователната форма ще е "аз", а сюжетът ще се върти около личните преживявания, то следва авторът да бъде напълно убеден, че историята му си заслужава да бъде разказана (предполагам всеки автор е на мнение, че неговата история си заслужава да бъде описана; но аз като читател не смятам, че всяка история си струва да бъде прочетена).
Историята на Ру прилича на толкова много други - тя събира в себе си пътя на всяко човешко същество, принудено да напусне географската територия, наричана "родина". Тя следва пулсациите на който и да е индивид, осъден да живее във време с промени, с личностни и национални катаклизми. И толкова. Една идея непознати за мен обичаи, едно голямо семейство, в което има различни навици и съдби, но има и общо ядро; разминаващи се и отново откриващи се роднини и приятели - това е "Ру".

А на мен това явно не ми стига. Или поне не винаги.(less)

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soul Чакам с нетърпение ревю. :) Четох откъси от нея, не звучеше зле - безспорно затрогваща лична история. Но ми е интересно извън нея и след нея какво би...more
Dec 23, 2012 02:40am

Galina Е чак пък да твърди! И чак пък непрекъснато!
Освен това каквото и да твърди човекът, от време на време се оказва, че любопитството е по-силно от самона...more
Dec 23, 2012 03:04am

soul В едно доста дълго интервю при гостуването й тук (преди месец-два) споделя за това, че да си играе с думи й е хоби, че чете постоянно и много, носи ви...more В едно доста дълго интервю при гостуването й тук (преди месец-два) споделя за това, че да си играе с думи й е хоби, че чете постоянно и много, носи винаги по няколко книги, но не познава написаното и издаденото почти до края на миналия век. Не че в последните години не се издава нищо добро, но доста трябва да се рови в тоновете похабена хартия, за да се открие заглавие с потенциал за бестселър. Повечето са набедени такива, далеч от качествените книги и си вървят из издателствата непроверени с този си етикет - примерите и по рафтовете тук са в изобилие. :)

Много съм чувствителна на тема новоизлюпени гении, сензации и бестселъри. :) Обикновено не ги чета или ако да - след дълго прелистване и препоръки от проверени хора. Твърде е възможно да греша точно за тази книга и авторката да има потенциал и талант.

Само че това, което някой чете, възпитава в голяма степен мирогледа му, начина му на изказ, говорната и писмената му култура и т.н. И особено ако самият той претендира да е автор, дори добър, не знам как би се получило при такава голяма празнина и залагане само на съмнителни като качество прясно сътворени книжлета. Имаме си добър пример с родни писачи, наблягащи в четенето твърдо на един жанр и резултатът при собствените им творения никак не е блестящ, а дори смехотворен на моменти, както и мненията им за доказали се във времето книги.(less)
Dec 23, 2012 04:21am

Dec 28, 2012 Mohawkgrl rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The vivid images described by the author of a Vietnam remembered and revisited, have no chronological order but are connected nonetheless to a landscape and people devastated and ravaged by war. Her landscape also includes her first Quebec winter where I have lived for the last 30 years.

Reading this memoir, I couldn’t help but remember images that I’d seen on TV and in newspapers, growing up in the U.S. I distinctly remember the fall of Saigon and the thousands of displaced refugees vying to le...more

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About Kim Thúy

Kim Thúy arrived in Canada in 1979, at the age of ten. She has worked as a seamstress, interpreter, lawyer and restaurant owner. She currently lives in Montreal where she devotes herself to writing.

Her debut novel Ru won the Governor General's Award for French language fiction at the 2010 Governor General's Awards. An English edition, translated by Sheila Fischman, was published in 2012 and was a...more

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Quotes from Ru

“A Saigon Proverb: Doe la chine tran, neu buon la thua. Life is a struggle in which sorrow leads to defeat.” — 3 people liked it

“If a mark of affection can sometimes be taken for an insult, perhaps the gesture of love is not universal: it too must be translated from one language to another, must be learned.” — 2 people liked it

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