Give books

Việt Văn | 07/10/2024 09:08

You said you receive books as gifts every month, mainly poetry, secondly prose, and finally essays and memoirs. The most feared is poetry, it seems like everyone likes to write poetry, even the neighborhood chief hums a few verses of newly written poetry when he goes to buy sticky rice in the morning, and even the newly retired math teacher shows off her first poetry collection that still smells of ink. She said: Math people may not write good poetry but it rhymes well, while literature people write better poetry but they don't know how to solve math problems. And in life, poetry and prose are just to add flavor to the spring, and you still have to worry about calculating to make enough to eat, how important is addition and subtraction compared to division?

You said that after receiving the autographed book, a week later, the author asked for your opinion on whether it was good or not, you always answered briefly: Good. Humanity. If the author wants to hear more in-depth information, then you can say it depending on the audience. But in general, it must be praise, then criticize in the style of "7 merits, 3 sins". If you want to praise, you can praise in any way, if not praise the language, good sentences, then praise the effort, the work of the poet. If not praise the meaning or the depth, then say you sympathize with the sincerity of the idea and the simplicity of the language... If you criticize, you must choose your words carefully, avoid using too strong verbs, in case the author has high blood pressure and has a "stroke", it will be too late to regret.

After receiving too many books as gifts, you no longer have time to read them, so you avoid answering the author's phone calls. The other day, by chance, you asked the maid to clean your room. Suddenly, you noticed a few books that you had not read, even in original packaging, unopened. Suddenly, you saw the author's name written beautifully on a book bag. You remembered that after giving the book to him, he called you timidly in a light voice asking you to review the books when you have time, because he had just started writing.

Then, in the blink of an eye, almost a year has passed. You curiously open the book and skim through a few pages. And then you are carried away, flipping page after page. When you finish reading the last line, it is midnight, the space is silent, you are shocked to realize that this is truly a rough gem that if you spend a little more time polishing, the future will be bright. In the morning, you call him but he does not answer, a long time later a sad female voice tells you that he has passed away after a stroke. You sit there, absent-minded.

Việt Văn