Ru [Deckle Edge] [Paperback]

Kim Thuy is a writer based in Montreal. Ru, her first novel, won the Governor General's Literary Award in its original French.

Ru is an autobiographical novel that recounts the author's flight as a refugee from Vietnam to Quebec as a young girl, and the culture shocks she experiences as she adjusts to her new homeland.

It is somewhat misleading to label this book a novel, because it is really halfway between a novel - a sustained linear narrative - and poetry - a collection of insightful, finely-crafted and evocative images.

This beautiful book - the hardcover edition is as attractive physically as is the writing - opens with the explanation that "In French, ru means a small stream and, figuratively, a flow, a discharge - of tears, of blood, of money. In Vietnamese, ru means a lullaby, to lull."

And this double-meaning is in fact very appropriate for this book which flows between cultures, between times, between emotions.

The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus observed that "you cannot step in the same river twice" - in other words, there is no being, only becoming - a sentiment conveyed perfectly in this volume.

Thuy recounts the flow from a family life of privilege in Saigon to misery as refugees, the harbinger of impending change sensed by her mother:

"My mother waged her first battles later, without sorrow. She went to work for the first time at the age of thirty-four, first as a cleaning lady, then at jobs in plants, factories, restaurants. Before, in the life that she had lost, she was the eldest daughter of her prefect father. All she did was settle arguments between the French-food chef and the Vietnamese-food chef in the family courtyard (...)

However, far from us blood still flowed and bombs still fell, so she taught my brothers and me to get down on our knees like the servants. Every day, she made me wash four tiles on the floor and clean twenty sprouted beans by removing their roots one by one. She was preparing us for the collapse. She was right to do so, because very soon we no longer had a floor beneath our feet."

Ru is a beautiful, poetic meditation on the ever-changing human condition.

Kim Thuy's Ru won The Governor General's Award for Fiction and was Finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Ru was exquisitely translated by the award-winning Sheila Fischman.

In Vietnamese Ru means lullaby. In French it is a small stream, but also signifies a flow of tears, blood and money. This book is an autobiographical novel.

The young girl is the narrator of this story. Her name is Nguyen An Tinh with a dot under the i. The name means "peaceful Interior" in Vietnamese. Her mother has the same name but without the dot and her name means "peaceful environment". The History of Vietnam flung the accents of their names into the water, when it took her and her family across the Gulf of Siam thirty years ago. The young girl was born during the Tet Offensive in 1968, as the child of an upper class family in Saigon. When she was ten years old, she and her family emigrated out of Vietnam via Malaysian refugee camps, then boarding a boat to Canada. They arrived at Mirabel Airport in Quebec. She spoke very little. She is mute. On the boat, she and her family learned how to travel very light. One gentleman had no luggage, not even a small bag with warm clothes. He had on everything he owned. He had diamonds embedded in his molars, gold on his teeth and American dollars stuffed in his anus. Women had American dollars stuffed in their sanitary napkins. She had an acrylic bracelet, pink like the gums of the dental plate it had been made from, filled with diamonds. Her parents had also put diamonds in the collars of her brothers' shirts.

It is in Quebec, at the Sainte-Famille elementary school that a teacher named Jeanne embraced her nine Vietnamese students. The young girl called the teacher "our good fairy". Jeanne wore a T-shirt and pink tights and a flower in her hair. She liberated the young girl's voice without using words. Jeanne spoke to them with music, with her fingers and her shoulders. She showed them how to occupy the space around them by freeing their arms, by raising their chins and by breathing deeply. Her neck stretched out to form a continuous line with her shoulder, her arm and all the way to her fingertips. Her legs made great circular movements as if to sweep the walls and to stir the air. It was thanks to Jeanne that the young girl learned how to free her voice from the folds of her body so it could reach her lips.

As an adult, the waters again become rough. Now she is married and has two sons, Pascal and Henri. The younger boy is autistic.

What is characteristic of this book are the memories at different stages of her life. They are presented in non-chronological order. The book moves seamlessly from past to present. She now thinks back to her upper middle class childhood in Saigon and her life there, to the sufferings under the Communists, to her life in the refugee camps in Malaysia and how she was welcomed to Canada. She and her family had to adapt to a new culture while holding on to their tradition. Later in life, she returns to Vietnam as an Americanized Vietnamese woman.

After reading this book, I can see why Kim Thuy's Ru has won The Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction. This book is a GEM.

Although it is a sad topic, the author managed not to dwell on the sadness. Kim Thuy writes with delicacy and openness about a childhood marked with brutality and finally, the pleasures of ordinary peace - from violence to survival.

I loved this book. I also loved the poetic and delicate writing. I highly recommend this novel.

The book is beautifully written, but for me it merely scratched the surface of the story. I wanted to hear more details. Each chapter was just a hint and left me wanting to read more about the Vietnam Nam war and the personal stories of those who managed to survive.