This strikes me as more of a formal, academic writing exercise than anything else. A “can I write this way” exercise. One often using elements I either would obviously know nothing about, like the in-jokes of 1990-era Vietnam, or generally dislike, such as dreams and flights of frivolous fancy. I saw some things to admire, mostly in the effect generated by its looping repeated short sentences, but without a better story to serve it was a pretty dull reading experience I have to say.

2.5 if I could give half starts on this app. Why can’t we give half stars. ( )

Told largely in stream-of-consciousness style, a Vietnamese woman living in Paris with her young son reflects on the course of her life from Vietnam to St Petersburg to Vietnam to Paris. Education, marriage, a child, and bad political timing has left her missing everything she really wants despite having a decent job (she hates) in a free country (as an unnaturalizable immigrant without her husband).

I found this book very very slow to read and somewhat difficult to follow. I found it sad and just painful how all the best intentions and hard work can come up against politics and history to cause failure of the intended dreams, even if a modicum of success is achieved. ( )

The Chinatown Chợ Lớn Lover
Review of the Tilted Axis Press paperback edition (2022) translated by Nguyễn An Lý from the Vietnamese language original "Chinatown" (2005)

He said, you can spin whatever yarn you like but don’t skimp on the paragraph breaks, your readers need to catch their breath, and don’t forget a chapter break every few pages so they can practice counting to ten. I chortled, I hadn’t expected my readers to have such exacting demands.

I'll admit that when I first received Chinatown in the summer of 2022 I did not have the appetite for its 'one-long-paragraph' format which I often find tiresome to read. When it was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023 I decided to give it another look. I was especially encouraged by reviews from GR Friends Jola and David.

This time I was completely taken by it and found it to be smooth reading after all. There were in fact some respites to the 'one-long-paragraph' format when the protagonist inserts two extended excerpts from her fictional book 'I'm Yellow' into her stream of consciousness. Those excerpts follow a more conventional paragraph style (following the friend's advice from the above quote).

Thuận (the one-name penname of writer Đoàn Ánh Thuận) novel imagines her protagonist stuck on a Parisian subway train with her young son Vinh while the police hold up the system due to a suspicious package. This extended pause causes her to cast her memory back to her early life in Vietnam, her love for her Chinese husband Thuy (disapproved on by her Vietnamese parents), her years studying in Moscow University and her eventual life in Paris with her son.

The text is very hallucinatory as it draws parallels to Thuận's own real-life & to the story of Marguerite Duras and the Chinese lover of her youth as told in the books The Lover (1984) and The North China Lover (1991) and to the fictional book 'I'm Yellow' inside the book. It is also very taken with repetition in a manner that may remind you of the works of Gertrude Stein. I enjoyed it immensely for all of these aspects and for its humour. Likely many cultural references went over my head, but the translation flowed smoothly and the occasional Vietnamese food and placename references were easy to look up.

I note (although I only examined the Kindle eBook edition) that the North American edition from New Directions is missing the Translator's Afterword which is included in the UK Tilted Axis edition. That is a real disservice to North American readers.

See image at https://blogcuathuan.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/cropped-sach8.jpg
A collage of a selected number of book covers by the author Thuận. Image sourced from her blog at Thuận’s Blog.

I read Chinatown through the Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month subscription and due to its nomination in the longlist for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2023.
Other Reviews

From NPR Books in Translation Three Tales Touching on French Colonialism by Lily Meyer at NPR July 19, 2022 (Note: The reviewer is under the impression the book was translated from French, rather than Vietnamese).

Trivia and Links
The author’s own Vietnamese language blog posts two very interesting reviews of Chinatown for which I’ve linked to English translations as Text Games and Interactions and I’m Yellow: Textual Pleasure. ( )