#19 Hiroshima- Nam Le

#19 Hiroshima (2008) Nam Le

This is why I wanted to alternate between two authors.  Sometimes unlikely connections or comparison can be made.  Hiroshima and yesterday’s Vermont Tale are both stories written from the perspective of children. I did not care for Vermont Take at all (as I’m sure you gathered from my write-up) but I’m completely floored by Hiroshima.

Yesterday I couldn’t exactly pinpoint what I didn’t like about Helprin’s narration, but it took this story to help me see what was missing. Helprin wrote like an adult trying to represent what the child saw, but Le wrote like he was remembering what the child saw. Helprin was using an adult voice with adult imagery but occasionally slipping in a child inspired thought, which lead, for me at least, to a cognizant disconnect.  I think that’s why I felt it lacked emotion.  I never knew who to connect with, the child or the adult.

Children pick up a lot, but don’t know how to describe it. They say what they see in simple terms, not by what their adult selves interpret them to be years later.  That’s what I like about Le’s approach vs. Helprin’s.  Let the child describe their world, the adult reader can filter the details themselves. 

Hiroshima is a story about a third grade Japanese girl in the days leading up to the bomb. War is war but life goes on and children are resilient.  Reality is just what’s around them. The constant stream of imagery is compelling. The sound of cicadas, the cold water, bomber planes overhead, state radio programs repeating war slogans, school games, boys training in Morse code, girls making straw sandals, cold food, smell of the gingko trees, pine oil, and chrysanthemums, demolition rubble being cleared from the street, older people saying over and over that they are safe.

This is a much different style of writing than the others in this collection. Its not quite stream of consciousness, but more like a running remembrance of her thoughts, long paragraphs with no true dialogue, at least not in the traditional sense.  This helps get into the mind of the narrator.  Instead of being like a listener of a story, it’s like hearing her remind herself what it was like.  Ambitious style but well executed by Le.

Notable Passage: “We are at war and some people don’t like to be reminded of the gods”

Rating: 9-8-9-9 Total =35