Huy Bao, who "mainly writes poetry", has published a collection of poems and now a collection of stories. Huy Bao's short stories are like an extended (or expanded) space of Bao's poetry.
The stories are a continuation, complementing and overlapping each other, creating a world that seems to be drawn inwards with endless streams of thoughts. Space thus becomes diluted and blurred.
Until everything turns into poetry. Each story is a part of a poem that has no beginning and no end.
Of all the stories in this collection, none has the title "The simplest is disappearance". Simply it is a common sense. But the disappearance of what? The disappearance of a clear plot? The disappearance of character identity?
Huy Bao symbolizes that disappearance into the image of "vapor": "If I had never loved you, maybe right now I would be vapor. Vapor with no one by my side. But only vapor stays on the window glass a little longer" (story Goodbye Blue Sky).
Even if it lasts a little longer, the steam will eventually evaporate. And with it, the feeling that the characters, the space, and even the author's existence will eventually evaporate. Because everything that exists in this world is simply disappearing.
The state of these pages partly reflects the state of life of youth. A youth that is fluttering and searching for definition. A youth that both wishes to establish itself and wants to erase itself in the hustle and bustle of life that is rising around it.
Therefore, reading Huy Bao is also reading a youth. Even though that youth is angry and sad, we still see the freshness and anxiety that are rarely found in literary works when the writer is older and more experienced.
An unavoidable thing. That's why Huy Bao wrote: "From June to October. And just like that, I grew older" (story From June to October).
Huy Bao writes prose like Huy Bao writes poetry, still looking for something to anchor himself to. In this slim book, sometimes we find images and sentences enough to anchor ourselves from drifting along with the author's wandering, vague flow.
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/doc-mot-tuoi-tre-20251026101033795.htm
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