In terms of genre, the author named it a novel, but after reading it, comparing it with Bui Viet Sy's life, I felt like it was an autobiography, like a memoir. The only difference was that the characters' names, places and times were fictional. But why after reading it, I was haunted by the character as if it were the author, as if it were an autobiography but as seamless as a novel. This is the shadow of Bui Viet Sy's life, the shadow of the generation of young Vietnamese people in the 20th century as if they had gone through two wars. Bui Viet Sy and his generation created a turbulent 20th century Vietnam. Many issues of the times were raised.
Evacuation is an interesting and profound topic. Evacuation (temporarily leaving the place you live to go to another place farther away from the war to avoid war accidents. The term has been used since the anti-French period, after 1946) is the most complicated issue for the capital when France returned to invade Vietnam. Bui Viet Sy wrote about evacuation very vividly, different even in a specific Hanoi family.
The problem is that people think according to the times. The soldier went to fight the French: His pure thought was to join the army to gain independence. When you are independent, remember to save money (Remember - Hong Nguyen). Go out to buy a cup of coffee and then go fight the French for nine years before returning. How simple the thinking was at that time. Even his parents did not know where he went.
The greatest achievement of the work is that it reflects the thoughts and feelings of the young generation during the French war. The soldiers were very carefree, carrying their backpacks and setting out without calculating their families and gains and losses. Many of them were still illiterate.
During the time of the American war, social issues were different. The thinking of those who carried backpacks to fight the enemy was more mature. Young people used their own blood to write applications to join the American war. But the government had to consider. If a family had only one son, they would not be forced to join the army. If a family had 2 or 3 people in the army, they would be exempted from military service.
In the final years of the resistance war against the US to save the country, social issues were different. Those who studied in Europe brought back bright red university degrees, luxurious associate doctorates and were then promoted to the positions of dean, deputy director, director, general director...; when those who went to work abroad sent back cars, money...; and those who went to the battlefield sent back death notices and a set of bones mixed with soil, the ideological battle became much more intense.
About the author's image. I seem to see the image of Bui Viet Sy in the novel "The Pebble Paving the Road". The novel carries the image of the author, that is a stroke of luck, that is a truth that has been artisticized, that has been fictionalized. That work will live forever over time.
Our era, the era of fighting against America to save the country, the years of hardship and subsidy will never return. Those memories were recounted and described by Bui Viet Sy, artistically turned into a work for life.
About old Hanoi. Old Hanoi was recreated in the novel through the images of Long Bien Bridge, Bang co dia (the name of Lo Duc street in the eyes of children at that time), the images of storks, birds, grasshoppers... long ago along the banks of the Red River, told by Bui Viet Sy but now no longer exist. Our childhood memories, those of Bui Viet Sy, have passed and will not return, and are vividly recreated in the novel. Bui Viet Sy has a wonderful and intelligent memory when he reuses the nouns of the subsidy period: State Trade, the Unmanned Vehicle, Bon Nac, Nhac Vang...
The "greed" of writer Bui Viet Sy. The author wants to tell everything about his life, but that is unnecessary. It is necessary to save topics. Just about evacuation, it has become a very good novel about the time of fighting against the French. Just about evacuation, it has also become a good novel, but if you put everything in a book, it will become a mess and the problem that has been talked about and then talked about again will become boring.
Reforming private capitalist industry and commerce, a matter of our success and failure, did not mobilize the great strength of the capitalist economy. By the time of renovation, it was too late. The war on transportation, Road 20 Quyet Thang..., Bui Viet Sy's strengths, but he only mentioned a small percentage.
The issue of currency exchange was introduced by Bui Viet Sy into the novel as a passing detail (page 268), although it was a major issue leading to social problems in Vietnam over the past 70 years.
Romanticism in the novel "The Pebbles Paving the Road". Reading the novel "The Pebbles Paving the Road" is very attractive because of its romanticism. Bui Viet Sy describes a romantic childhood like a vivid poem, like life and very dusty but very profound, very Hanoi. The childhood love affairs during school days are described by Bui Viet Sy as very real, very unreal, very romantic. The songs of the past were considered out of place, petty bourgeois yellow music, but now reading them again are extremely attractive, those songs became very good Bolero songs, but at that time they were considered petty bourgeois and were not allowed to join the Youth Union. I was like that too! The childhood love affairs, the beautiful girlfriends who thought they would marry a suitable person but then married someone who was not good. Even the very good students who thought they would be successful later became very ordinary people. Even the opportunists who rose to this position or that very quickly were described by Bui Viet Sy as very romantic, very beautiful.
Closing the book, I imagined the meaning of the book was to educate patriotism. The issues of merit and injustice, through this work, showed that the issues that needed to be addressed after decades of war were also raised, but the problem was not solved by the writer but by the country's manager. That was the greatest success of Bui Viet Sy.
At nearly 80 years old, "Pebbles on the Road" is like a gift for the younger generation to see the extraordinary working capacity of writer Bui Viet Sy, which is truly precious.
