Duong Thu Huong’s “Paradise of the Blind”

“Paradise of the Blind” is a wonderful tale of three Vietnamese women struggling to survive in a society where the women are expected to offer highly respect towards the men and Communist corruption crushes every dream. Through the eyes of Hang, a young woman in her twenties who has grown up amidst the slums and intermittent beauty of Hanoi, the tragedy of her family is revealed as land reform rips apart their village. When her uncle Chinh's political loyalties replace family devotion, Hang is torn between her mother's appalling self–sacrifice and the bitterness of her aunt who can avenge but not forgive. Only by freeing herself from the past will Hang be able to find dignity –– and a future.

The story begins in Russia in the 1980s, as Hang, a young Vietnamese woman, travels by train to Moscow to visit her uncle. As she travels, she recalls incidents from her childhood and adolescence in Hanoi and also tells of life in her mother's village during the communists' disastrous land reform program that took place in the mid-1950s. The novel, which was banned in Vietnam, is essentially the story of three women from two generations whose family is torn apart by a brother who insists on placing communist ideology above family loyalty.

The protagonist, Hang is raised in poverty by her mother and she never knew who her father was. She grows up feeling lonely and miserable. There are tensions within her and the two women that she loves. She sees her hard life, her surroundings and the ugliness of the communist society as the stagnant, murky swamp found in her village. Her determination to break free from the hardship in her life has finally made her to decide to move on and leave the past by rejecting her aunt’s final wish in order to pursue her own dreams and goal.

Nonetheless, the strength of the other two characters, Que and Aunt Tam, must not be overlooked upon. They portray themselves as women who are willing to endure hardship merely due to their desire to preserve family lineage which offers them the strength and at the same time debilitates them. It is through this novel, one can feel the pain and the suffering women have to bear living in a patriarchal society where they are treated unfairly. And it is indeed the failure of communism and the horrors of land reform have led to the suffering of these women who eventually wasted their lives as for the case of Que and Aunt Tam.