First Impression Friday will be a meme where you talk about a book that you JUST STARTED! Maybe you’re only a chapter or two in, maybe a little farther. Based on this sampling of your current read, give a few impressions and predict what you’ll think by the end.

Synopsis:

Twenty-eight-year-old Quan has been fighting for the Communist case in North Vietnam for a decade. Filled with idealism and hope when he first left his village, he now spends his days and nights dodging stray bullets and bombs, foraging for scraps of food to feed himself and his men. Quan seeks comfort in childhood memories as he tries to sort out his conflicting feelings of patriotism and disillusionment. Then, given the chance to return to his home, Quan undertakes a physical and mental journey that brings him face to face with figures from his past – his angry father, his childhood sweetheart, his boyhood friends now maimed or dead – and ultimately to the shattering reality that his innocence has been irretrievably lost in the wake of the war. In a voice both lyrical and stark, Dương Thu Hương, one of Vietnam’s most beloved writers, powerfully conveys the conflict that spiritually destroyed her generation.

Happy Friday everyone! Well, technically it is already Saturday, so happy weekend everyone! I just came from the summit of Mt. Rinjani, the second-highest volcano and the tenth-highest mountain in Indonesia. It was a challenging climb but the view at the top was worth it. I guess this explains the late post. The exhaustion has now started to settle in. I am looking forward to a long night’s sleep. Anyway, I hope everyone ended the week on a high note. I hope everyone is having a restful weekend, spending their time with their families, or perhaps pursuing their passions. I hope everyone recuperates after enduring yet another tedious workweek. I hope that your weekend will be productive. More importantly, I hope everyone is doing well, in body, mind, and spirit, not only this week but for the rest of the year.

Woah. On another note, I realized that we are closing in on the sixth month of the year; May is about to draw to a close in a couple of days. I know this has become cliché but I can’t help but reiterate how time flies. Time flows naturally sans any regard for anyone. It does not wait for anyone. With this, how has the year been so far? Has it been treating you well? I do hope that 2025 is going great for everyone. I hope it is going the way you wanted it to. I hope that you are headed to your destination. However, if you are still figuring it all out, it is still fine. There is no need to be in a rush because you will eventually achieve clarity. If the year is going otherwise, I hope you experience a reversal of fortune in the coming months. I hope positive energies, blessings, and good news flow into your lives. I hope you are get to achieve your goals this year.

Reading-wise, I have several goals and I am glad that I am making headways on them. This takes me to my current reading motif. This month, I extended my foray into the works of Asian writers, a journey I started in April. Technically, this reading journey started in January when I spent an entire quarter reading works of East Asian writers. Anyway, I am currently in the South East Asian region. I just finished reading Thai writer Saneh Sangsuk’s The Understory and I just started reading Vietnamese writer Dương Thu Hương’s Novel Without a Name. It is unfortunate to say that Southeast Asian literature is a part of the literary world I rarely ventured into; this includes my very own Philippine literature. However, Novel Without a Name is the second Hương novel I read, after The Zenith.

Originally published in 1991 as Tiểu thuyết vô đề, Novel Without a Name is translated into English in 1995. At the heart of the novel is Quan, a unit commander in the Viet Cong. He and his childhood friends Bien and Luong joined the military in the hopes of making a change for their country. Luong has since risen up the ranks and is now Quan’s superior officer. Meanwhile, Bien, Quan would learn through Luong, has gone insane. At the start of the novel, we meet Quan with his military unit. They recently buried six dead girls they found a couple of weeks prior. This has set the tone for the novel, or at least that is how I perceive it because I haven’t gone far into the story yet. I can sense that there is a war looming if it has not started yet.

Regardless, this is a territory that seems familiar in the landscape of the Vietnamese writer’s oeuvre. The Zenith deals with the same subject. As I just started reading the book, I can’t share that much impression except for the earlier parts of the novel. Nevertheless, I am looking forward to what the novel has in store. Admittedly, I am not that impressed with The Zenith but I am still looking forward to Novel Without A Name. I must say, the writing is quite impeccable. It flows. This is one of the things that immediately captured my interest. Anyway, I am looking forward to how the story develops; it has a decent rating on Goodreads compared to The Zenith. How about you fellow reader? What book or books have you read over the weekend? I hope you get to enjoy whatever you are reading right now. Happy weekend!