Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice

by Nam Le

A young Vietnamese-Australian named Nam, in his final year at the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop, is trying to find his voice on the page. When his father, a man with a painful past, comes to visit, Nam's writing and sense of self are both deeply changed.
 
Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice is a deeply moving story of identity, family and the wellsprings of creativity, from Nam Le's multi-award-winning collection The Boat.

'A tight and densely emotional journey that sucked me in and contained as much power as the lengthy title.' Killings, the Kill Your Darlings blog

Genres: Short Stories, School, Read For School

20 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Nam Le came to Australia from Vietnam with his parents, when he was less than a year old, as a boat refugee. He went to Melbourne Grammar School and the University of Melbourne, from where he graduated with a BA (Hons) and LLB (Hons). His Arts thesis supervisor was the Australian poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe. He worked as a corporate lawyer and was admitted to the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2003/2004.
However, he decided to turn to writing, and in 2004 attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop in the United States of America where he completed a Masters in Creative Writing. He became fiction editor at the Harvard Review. His first short story was published in Zoetrope in 2006. Nam Le also held fellowships at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown in 2006, and at the Phillips Exeter Academy, in 2007.
In an interview on Australian ABC radio, he said he turned from law to writing due to his love of reading: "I loved reading, and if you asked me why I decided to become a writer, that's the answer right there, because I was a reader and I was just so enthralled and thrilled by the stuff that I'd read that I just thought; what could be better? How could you possibly better spend your time than trying to recreate that feeling for other people". In the same interview he said that his first writing was poetry.
He returned to Australia in 2008, but is moving to Great Britain to take up a writing fellowship at the University of East Anglia.
When asked about his source of inspiration, Nam Le said in 2008 that "I’d say I’m most inspired by my parents for the choices and sacrifices they’ve made. It still boggles me".

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

i sent this to my dad. he's an exacting and reticent man, not unlike nam's father, whose family was massacred and devastated by famine. he moved to iowa this summer, and i spent a month there with him. i asked him if he'd been to summit street like the story mentioned, or seen the japanese restaurant nam told his dad about since i left.

whenever i read stories like this, i always start to wonder if there's something in my dad i've yet to unpack. i wonder, does my dad act like that too, unnoticed by me until this story gave it motion? do i think like that about my dad too, buried under all my other dad-thoughts until this story wrenched it out? do my dad and i actually have those memories too, that relationship too? this story and these characters are so similar to us, and yet not one bit the same. the verisimilitude is haunting.

anyhow, i sent it to him. he told me he got a library card at the coralville library in iowa city. and no, he hasn't been to summit street yet. and please update your devices asap, there's an emergency update for many apple products due to a potential breach of security. and that's when i remember, no, we're not nam and his dad. it's a good story, one between an immigrant father and his second-gen child miraculously set in the state of iowa, one that i almost want to embody just to feel it deeper. but the truth is we're just anne and dad, and anne visited dad in iowa for a month.

[Rob Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful, multi-layered story of a complex father-son relationship.

Nam is in Iowa completing a writing degree after leaving the legal profession. When his father comes for a brief visit, Nam has to face their shared past -- a history he has been running from most of his life in one way or another -- as well as the lives they have lived separately.

Beautiful writing filled with nuance, ambiguity, dark humor, meta reflections on writing and the writing life, and emotionally impactful characters and scenes.

[Tien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only was this story Short with Big title but it also delivers such a Punch! The title says it all, this story is all about Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice . I mean how do you fit all that in 20 pages? But Nam Le has definitely done that. This story portrays what most Asian families would experience, especially those second generation living in the Western world. The struggle with of who we really are; the difficulty in mixing the 2/3 cultures and ideologies. This gap between the Asian parents and their westernised children are sometimes too wide and yet… if you are willing to reach out and compromise, anything is possible.

[Alyssa Bui · Rating 4 out of 5]

needed to get used to the writing style but good story

[Maisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to read this for school, so I wasn't too fond of it, but Le's crafting of the literary relationship between him and his father to mirror his real life personal relationship with his father was really magical in a way. Le spoke for millions of immigrant children with strained and broken relationships with their parents because of generational difference. Le also beautifully writes his dilemma of 'selling out' his culture which we immigrant and first-gen creatives also struggle with. All in all, it was a really intimate piece with immigrants and first-gen children, however it may not resonate with everyone. Nonetheless, it is an important part of literature today and should be held in higher regard.

[Camila]

Not rating this as it's a short story read for school, however, I enjoyed the ideas explored in this text more than I liked the text itself. Very interesting to look back and reflect on, though not a compelling read in itself.

[Lucía · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I had known then what I knew later, I wouldn’t have said the things I did. I wouldn’t have told him he didn’t understand—for clearly, he did. I wouldn’t have told him that what he had done was unforgivable. That I wished he had never come, or that he was no father to me.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genuinely love this story. I feel like it will resonate with a lot of people of multicultural heritage as it did for me. Ended up being a massive inspiration for my EE2 piece for the HSC.

[Sol · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5*

[aleksa🧦💤]

fire

[clownfish · Rating 5 out of 5]

definitely one of my more enjoyed assigned readings that i've had to do, like... ever? i obviously have to get into more of le's work, such as the literal collection this story comes from, as well as works from vietnamese authors, but with this being some of my only limited experience in this department, i hold it very close to my heart! had to do some required assignments revolving around this story, too, and it helped me to pick apart the themes of language, family, trauma, language again, and so forth. le's writing is easy to read, accompanied with sentences here and there that paint wonderful images i would not have come up with myself. big fan of the title of this story as well :D

*4.5

[Dhwani Shah · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There’s a coffee shop downtown,” I said. “And an art museum across the river.”
“Ah, take me there.”
“The museum?”
“No,” he said, looking sideways at me. “The river.”

“I had nothing but hate in me,” he said, “but I had enough for everyone.” He paused on the word hate like a father saying it before his infant child for the first time, trying the child’s knowledge, testing what was inherent in the word and what learned.

I loved the name of the essay so much and amazing how the author fit all of this in 20 pages.

[Ben Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved how this story itself was the real 'migrant story' alluded to within the narrative. I'm amazed by the way Le was able to caricature his inner monologue and feelings, using an emotionally intense backstory only as a ploy to lure the audience into an expression primarily concerned with a father-son relationship.

[ivana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work demonstrates a formidable ability to craft writing that resonates on an emotive level. Examining trauma's impact on the psyche in a nuanced manner, the author provokes profound contemplation of human suffering. Hence why the intricate father-son relationship offered such poignant insight, though its depths left me longing for even more rich interpersonal elucidation. 4.5/5 stars!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was amazing. The description was great and the characters were crafted so well that even though the story was very short you were able to connect to their lives through the horrors of experiencing war and life after.

[Rowan Ji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok this could be really good but idk if the author wrote what he wrote in a manner of parody / self-aware irony (probably is) or if he's just a bit munted. I think its the former. Nice book. Kinda. ITs like 15 pages. 4/5

[Ren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for English - I’m a sucker for familial tension and emotions. Beautiful short story that captures that line of love and anguish in a relationship with a parent, where they’ve done nothing wrong and you hold it against them regardless.

[zannat · Rating 4 out of 5]

“We were locked in all the intricate ways of guilt. It took all the time we had to realise that everything we faced, we faced for the other as well.” The way Name Le writes about his strained relationship with his father punches me in the gut :( It is a well-written short story.

[GianteyeMCSG . · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of potential at the beginning, but a ‘cop out’ ending. 3/10

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even know how to process it. Brilliant. Meta. And deeply personal.

[Marissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ending is confusing because it implies there is more to the story, but we never get it.

[gisela · Rating 2 out of 5]

not my flavour

[ava · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was really confusing and also sad i feel kinda empty

[Karina · Rating 4 out of 5]

id read some again and some never again

[aiyana kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

for period 5 advanced english school. it was kinda boring but not the worst :3

[Lily · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Then he said, “Only you’ll remember. I’ll remember. They will read and clap their hands and forget.”’

and that STAYED with me !!

[Malak Hosny · Rating 5 out of 5]

“You want their pity.”
“I want them to remember.”
“They will read and clap their hands and forget. Sometimes it’s better to forget, no?”
“I’ll write it anyway.”

Genius!

[August Barquin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dnf The Boat, his collected stories, but did enjoy this one (yes the first story-yes ok I gave up early, it was the hemorrhoids story that did me in)

[Tyler Kang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Long name for a short book😂