Nothing Ever Dies

Once or twice a year I read a book that dislodges my point of view and drops it somewhere I didn’t know existed. Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (2016) by Viet Thanh Nguyen is one of those books, bursting with ideas and illuminating from striking angles. Nguyen tells us that “All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” He calls for an ethical, simultaneous awareness of our humanity and inhumanity, for equal access to the “industries of memory,” both within countries and among them, and for the ability to “imagine a world where no one will be exiled from what we think of as the near and the dear to those distant realms of the far and the feared.”

What I liked most was Nguyen’s take on, and dissection of, the complex, multilayered relationship between war and art, especially his thoughts on film, mainly by Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Americans. He draws on and develops ideas from Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, Toni Morrison, Le Ly Hayslip, various filmmakers, and many others. It’s an excellent read, rich in imagery and occasionally poetic, from a profound mind and a masterful writer.

This art also shows us, in the words of Toni Morrison, that “nothing ever dies,” an insight both terrifying and hopeful.

—Viet Thanh Nguyen

As an aside

Nguyen’s appreciation for Le Ly Hayslip’s work comes through clearly in this book. As a scholar and intellectual, he highly regards her memoir When Heaven and Earth Changed Places (1989; Oliver Stone’s 1993 film Heaven & Earth is based on her life), the story of a once simple peasant girl caught between, and brutalized by, Viet Cong and American soldiers, and of her eventual forgiveness.

I had the pleasure of meeting Hayslip in the summer of 2003 while working for a Japanese NGO on an around-the-world cruise. She wanted a dance partner, preferably an American (I was told), so she sent one of the staff to fetch me. I was in my twenties, and Canadian but close enough. I can’t remember the dance itself. I’d seen the Oliver Stone film and read her memoir, and I’m sure my palms were sweaty. We had drinks a few nights later and, of all things, talked about prostitution and sex slavery in Southeast Asia, among other things I can no longer recall. She later helped the ship’s captain preside over a Vietnamese-style wedding for two Japanese passengers on the upper deck, after a stop in Da Nang, where she'd gathered everything needed for the ceremony. A courageous, high-spirited and sharp-minded person, with keen eyes and a beatific smile.