Paradise of the Blind : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: "Paradise of The Blind" is about lives under Communism
Review: When the Vietnamese Communist Party slightly gave people freedom of speech in 1987, Duong Thu Huong cleverly borrowed many stories to analyze what had happened to ordinary people of the northern part of Vietnam under the communist regime. She challenges the communists to look at people's miserable lives that they have made and lured people into. Paradise of The Blind depicts some realities of negative aspects of communism. The story circles around the life of a young lady, Hang, in her relationship with her both mother's and father's relatives. All of them, her mother, her aunt, her uncle, her cousins and herself are all intertwined in a twist of the country without a way out. The story gives readers a mixed feeling of pity, sympathy, hatred and love for these Vietnamese people. However, Duong Thu Huong does not tell the whole truth. She does not point out some crucial details of the horrors the Land Reform Movement had created and of how poor people had been through. For example, these communists and even common people would sacrifice their parents and their siblings for their own fame and future during the Land Reform Movement. Moreover, many communists would not give their immediate families' members a way out. Paradise of The Blind was among the first books written under Vietnamese Communist Regime ever translated into English. I think you will enjoy it. If you are among those suffering and struggling by the ideal or "paradise" of the communists, you will share the same feelings of those people. If you don't know what live under the Communist Regime is like, you may have a great insight about it.