Leo - RMST 495 (Part. II)

 

I HAVE RUNG through this novel at the till at work more times than I remember. Over the years, I’ve seen it pass through in different editions, though customers gravitate towards the familiar Vintage edition and, more recently, its monochromatic red cover as a Kanata Classics edition printed by McClelland & Stewart. I have also come across it on reading lists for various desired courses (I do stalk the English department’s course syllabus). And yet, despite how often it has crossed my path, I had never felt compelled to pick it up myself (I have even shelved it many times).

That is, until now.

Ru by Kim Thúy is only the fourth work of Canadian literature I have read. The other three are Thomas King’s graphic novel Borders, his short story Totem, and Fatty Legs by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton. It is rather short list, considering that I’ve lived in Canada, my new home, for ten years.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Ru. There are parts of it that resonated with me, while others left me disagreeing, or with a bitter distaste at the narrator’s narration (rather her interpretation of collective memory). However, Thuy’s Ru has stirred in me a desire to read more Canadian literature and to explore the stories that have shaped this country and the people who call it home (whether as settlers, immigrants of forced displacement or voluntary migration or Indigenous perspectives). 

Ru is a novel about displacement, memory, and the difficult process of rebuilding an identity in a new country.

Through the fragmented memories of its narrator-protagonist, Nguyen An Tịnh*, a possible stand-in character for Thuy herself, recounts her family’s forced displacement following the Communist takeover of South Vietnam. Coming from a bourgeois family, they find themselves on the wrong side of a new political order. Their property is confiscated, and the life they knew is gradually taken away from them.

Eventually, the family escapes Vietnam by boat. They spend time in a refugee camp in Malaysia in precarious conditions before making their way to Quebec, Canada. It is here they begin an uncertain process of building a new life, a reconstruction of identity. From stateless refugees, to a new society, wherein they explore a liminal emotional contrast of the old cultural identity in Vietnam and the new Canadian experience. 

Reading about their experience made me think about how much of our identity is tied to the places, the spaces we inhabit. How much of who we are comes from the society that raises us? And what happens when that society no longer has a place for us? The questions raised by this book make me put myself in the place of the narrator. Or rather, through this novel, I see reflected questions that I ask myself: am I now Canadian? What about my old cultural identity? 

A state is never as stable or permanent as we might like to believe. Political systems change, ideologies shift, and governments redraw the boundaries of is accepted or left out, ostracized. Those who once lived comfortably within a society can suddenly find themselves treated as its enemies simply because the prevailing ideology has changed.

For Nguyen An Tịnh’s family, their bourgeois background becomes a reason for suspicion under the new Communist regime.

It is a sobering reminder that belonging can be conditional. Sometimes, the very things that once defined us can become the things we must leave behind to survive. In this way, is the novel speaking of a universal human experience? 

Starting over in a new country is often described as an opportunity: a chance to build a better life, embrace new possibilities, and leave the past behind. But starting over is rarely that simple.

Adapting to a new society can mean learning new customs, adopting unfamiliar ways of thinking, and questioning the beliefs you once took for granted. At times, it may even mean suppressing parts of yourself to make room for the person you are expected to become.

And yet, how much of ourselves can we change before we begin to lose ourselves?

For immigrants and refugees, this question can be especially complicated. There is often an expectation to adapt, integrate, and become part of the society that has welcomed them. But what does integration really mean? Must we abandon the old to embrace the new? Can we belong to a new country without severing our ties to the one we left behind?

Is there a straight-forward answer? 

Although my own experiences are not the same as those of Thúy’s narrator and her family, the novel encouraged me to think more carefully about what it means to call a place home. After ten years in Canada, I still find myself discovering the country through its literature, its histories, and the experiences of people whose lives have unfolded differently from mine. Living somewhere does not necessarily mean knowing it. And sometimes, reading someone else’s story can reveal something about your home that years of living there have not.

I have mixed feelings about Ru, and I don’t want to pretend that reading it was some life-changing experience. Not every book leaves us completely satisfied, and not every story speaks to us in the same way.

But perhaps books don’t always need to.

Sometimes, a book’s value lies in the questions it leaves behind, the histories it introduces us to, or the curiosity it awakens. For me, Ru has done just that. It has made me want to read more Canadian literature, to look beyond the books that are most familiar or frequently assigned, and to discover the many voices that make up the country’s literary landscape (or cannon). 

There are stories of migration and displacement, of Indigenous histories and identities, of language, memory, belonging, and the many different meanings of home. I have barely scratched the surface.

And so, even though Ru did not completely win me over, I am grateful that I finally picked it up after seeing it pass through the till so many times. Now, it has become a small starting point in a reading journey I want to continue.

Perhaps the next time a novel passes through my hands at work, I’ll look at it a little differently. Perhaps I’ll wonder what story it holds, whose experiences it carries, and what it might teach me about the country I now call home.

For now, I think I’ll take this as an invitation to read more ♦

Notes 

*(sorry I don’t know how to write proper name with keyboard — I am aware language is atonal)

Even today, in a way, I’m still in that childhood summer: my soul ceaselessly spins and pulses around it, like an insect around a blinding light.

Elsa Morante, Lies and Sorcery

 

I MUST SAY, the epigraph immediately enthralled me. Donatella Di Pietranio’s novel, L’Arminuta (A Girl Returned), follows a narrator who shifts between her older self and memories of her younger self. This epigraph speaks to the narrator’s coming of age through her core memories. Even though these memories belong to her childhood, they continue to shape who she is as an adult.

Similar to previous novels we have read, such as Ernaux’s The Possession and Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment, there is an exploration of core memories and how they shape one’s current self. Hence Morannte’s epigraph at the beginning of the novel; it introduces the idea that the past never really leaves us. Certain memories stay with us and continue to influence how we understand ourselves and the world around us.

My initial thoughts on the novel were, what in the Judy Blume? In the Alice Munroe? I thought the novel would be a classic puberty story. Instead, we get a novel exploring kinship, memory, class division, and perception.

From the beginning, the narrator speculates about why she was returned to her biological family. After living a more lavish and luxurious lifestyle, she assumes there must be a serious reason behind her return. Adalgisa, the adoptive mother, must be sick. Or so the arminuta thinks. Throughout the novel, however, her perception begins to change. She learns that her mother, Adalgisa, has given her back to her biological family because she is having a child of her own with a different father than the carabiniere.

Many lifestyles are class markers. Language is a lightly touched upon; the arminuta asks Adriana to speak Italian when they visit the city.

Being returned creates a clear before and after in the arminuta’s life. It becomes one of her core memories. She is suddenly forced into a completely different lifestyle. She has to learn domestic chores and share a bed with her sister, Adriana. The life she once knew is completely different from the one she is now living.

I did not expect Vincenzo’s death, particularly given the scenes of incestuous affection between him and the arminuta. Maybe something would develop between them, I thought. His death caught me off guard, his life had given up, gave out. However, perhaps this was an important authorial choice to further develop the story and portray the different dynamics within the family. Vincenzo’s death allows for different dynamics within the family, particularly with “the mother” (biological) who falls into a mourning depression.

Overall, I think L’Arminuta is really about how childhood experiences stay with us and continue to shape our identities. The arminuta’s return to her biological family changes the way she understands family, class, and belonging. What initially feels like rejection eventually becomes an experience that gives her a different perspective on where she comes from. This connects back to Morante’s epigraph because, as an adult, the narrator is still emotionally connected to that period of her childhood. Her past continues to live within her and shape the person she becomes ♦

***

Lastly, this novel strangely feels very Pedro Almodovar-coded, Parallel Mothers, of babies exchanged. Just as previous week’s Days of Abandonment‘s atmosphere felt much like an Almodovar piece, perhaps The Flower of My Secret.

 

These readings are very Durassian; fragmented, older-selves reflecting on younger selves *eye side emoji* let’s see how Thuy, clearly inspired by Duras, reads next week.

Question for the class: Do you think the arminuta’s return changed how she understood what family means? ♦

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