It’s been almost exactly two years since my last piece of writing here. Two years! So, hello again, my friend, and thank you for taking the time to read this.
To recap: In those two years, I somehow managed to finish my Ph.D. and started a job as a postdoc. I still read, or at least try to read as often as I can. I could only manage to read and write the things I learned in my notebook, and somehow that already feels like an achievement.
What is so different about today?
There is this book that I have spent a great deal of my time reading and mulling over, where the ideas are neatly organized in the most coherent and systematic way possible. The original name of the book in Vietnamese is Tôi Tự Học, translated closely into English as I Self-Study. It was written by Thu Giang Nguyễn Duy Cần, an influential scholar of Vietnam in the 1950s-1960s. This is not a quick read in any way, since the book is packed with wisdom and provocative questions and ideas. I try my very best not to miss an idea or concept in the book, hence spend a lot of time reading and re-reading the passages.
If you know me personally, and we talk often, I probably brought up this book in one of our conversations at some point. I think about it often.
Today I picked up the book and started where I left off the last time– I stopped at The Mind of appreciation - Óc thán thưởng. I remember calling my mom after finishing that chapter just to talk about what I had learned and how cathartic it was for me. I remember reading to my mom the highlights, and she said something that was mentioned in the book but I had not read that part to her. She is that sharp. Today I read about Reading - Đọc sách. More specifically, learning through books–very important in this century–can be summarized in two conditions: Only read good books, and know how to read them.
One of my habits while reading is to connect new ideas with those I have encountered before. I call this “joining the dots”, it’s like connecting the dots, but make it an Arctic Monkeys song. Today is a day that I was able to connect this piece of advice from Margaret Atwood, to what was introduced to me by the author, and to the wisdom of a French author named Jean Guitton. All are associated with reading and the perspective of the writer. It started with this:
Những sách "gối đầu giường" phải là những bộ sách mà bất-cứ ở hoàn-cảnh nào đều có thể giúp cho ta một vài ý-tưởng thích-nghi và an-ủi, những sách đưa ta lên cao bằng những tư tưởng thanh-thoát [...], những sách giúp cho ta biết hoài-nghi suy-nghĩ thêm, biết đặt vấn-đề, biết làm cho lòng ta nhẹ-nhàng và phấn-khởi, khôn-ngoan và trong-sạch hơn. Có người nói rằng: “Quyển-sách đẹp nhất có lẽ là quyển-sách viết ra không phải để mà đọc, và chỉ in ra khi nào tác-giả đã qua đời, và nhờ vậy, nó có tánh-cách của một bản “di-thư” tinh-thần, không có một ẩn-ý gì là chiều-chuộng hay làm vui lòng độc giả.”1
The quote in 1 was originally written in French by Jean Guitton in Le Travail Intellectual, which has the English translation roughly as follows:
“The best book is the one that is not meant to be read; it should only be printed after the author's death. The only work that is absolutely pure is the one that no one has ever seen. It is the one that was written in a surge of passion, without any concern for publicity, and that remains, so to speak, intact, preserved from the wear and tear and criticism of men.”
That reminds me so much of Persuasion, my favorite novel by Jane Austen published posthumously six months after her death. That was also one of the books I read in the last two years. In the same vein, the idea of writing regardless of reception, regardless of the inner- and outer- critics, reminds me of:
“The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.”
I once told myself when I was (very) deep into writing poetry: I write, first and foremost, for me. Performing poetry along with the thrills of it has its own merits, but the words I write, I need them to make sense to me first. And by making sense, I will end this writeup with this quote from Tôi Tự Học, about reading:
Phải chăng đọc sách là một cái thú thâm-trầm khi chúng ta tìm thấy trong một tác-phẩm, giãi-bày một cách chu-đáo và đầy-đủ những tư-tưởng mà chính mình đã nghĩ qua, đã hoài-bão lâu ngày và băn-khoăn tha-thiết.
“Isn’t reading a profound pleasure when we find in a work a careful and complete expression of thoughts we ourselves have pondered, cherished for a long time, and deeply yearned to understand?”
Till next time,
From the attic of my friend’s house,
Huyen