Good book: Sounds from the war without gunfire

For a long time, there have been many works written about war - a theme that has shaped many generations of modern writers, inseparable from the continuous flow of a literature that accompanies the resistance war to defend the country. The reason for saying so is because the writer himself was also a soldier who directly went to war. As a writer, that is the precious material to create pages that move people's hearts. Once writing about war, depending on the stance and perspective, each person has a different way of expressing it. There can be sacrifice, death, victory, defeat, hardship, blood and fire... with all colors, all sounds: When losing, arrows fall, bullets stray / Flesh and blood fall on the battlefield / Alone in the corner of the sea and the horizon / A handful of ownerless bones, where to bury them? ... In the war, human lives are like trash / Fate is decided, bullets and arrows fall. The flickering will-o'-the-wisp flame / The sound of injustice echoes in the dark sky, making it even more pitiful.

Good book: Sounds from the silent war - Photo 1.

Cover of the novel Lost in Paradise

Photo: Q.Tran

Poet Nguyen Du's soul-calling prose, each sentence as if carved and painted, as if crying and sobbing, has partly helped the next generation feel the fierceness of war. When seeing the horrifying face of death, people cherish the days of living in peace even more. We think that another work written about war will be something that readers will not be indifferent to, because today's young people, although looking forward, also want to look back to the past, to see that history is a continuity, not a break, if not "reviewing the past" how can "know the new"?

The novel Lost to Paradise (Ho Chi Minh City General Publishing House, 2025) by writer Doi Xuan Viet is also inspired by this. However, he chose a different way of writing. War in this novel is presented from a different perspective. If readers want to find depictions of fierce battles, planes, ships, and volunteers, then this is probably not the right work. But if readers want to read about human love and camaraderie, they will be captivated from the very first pages.

Oh, to do that, writer Doi Xuan Viet must create a thrilling and attractive situation?

Yes, it is. Well, it's not.

That, in the summer of 1972 in Quang Tri , a B-52 plane appeared in the sky: "Phuong turned around to get into the bunker when at that moment a bomb like a big black dot was flying towards Phuong's bunker. Phuong was cold, numb, his limbs were limp, he had no strength to react. He sat still in front of the bunker door. A gust of wind rushed in, pushing him down at the same time the bomb flew down in front of the bunker door, lifting his bunker up. The air pressure pressed on Phuong's chest, making him suffocate. The bunker shook and collapsed, crushing Phuong. The bomb did not explode, but rocks and dust swirled up in clumps, rushing into Phuong's nose and throat. Phuong suffocated and fainted...".

The story begins to unfold so that the reader will be drawn in. It can be read in one sitting. We are surprised after waking up, Phuong is no longer Phuong, no, it is still Phuong but he lives in a state of half-awake and half-asleep, although he still exists in the mortal world but thinks he belongs to the underworld.

How to awaken this "ca"?

It must be said that Doi Xuan Viet is a screenwriter, has won an award from the Vietnam Cinema Association, has written and directed films that have attracted audiences to packed theaters. With his inherent strengths and talents, he has applied them in Lost to Paradise . With coherent continuity, he skillfully takes you along the inspiration of the work.

In the case of the character Phuong, with the writer's sensitivity, Doi Xuan Viet cleverly finds a way to resolve the issue that is not only reasonable but also logical. Reasonable here means that comrades always care and worry about each other. Reasonable is in the sense that..., but you just keep reading to see how the writer resolves the "knot". Is this solution reasonable? It is also an open-minded thought when readers come to the novel Lost in Paradise.

A work written about war like this is strange. I would like to praise the writer Doi Xuan Viet for finding a different perspective. Above all the details, what remains for the reader is the love of soldiers in the midst of war. This bright color scheme, at a time when life has many changes in human relationships, is even more meaningful. We have the opportunity to return to the past as a way to remind ourselves in the present. Although it depicts a war without gunfire, when we close the book, we can still hear many beautiful sounds echoing from human love and camaraderie.

Good book: Sounds from the silent war - Photo 2.