Nora Ephron's last work

My friend came back home from U.S in her vacation and gave me a book of Nora Ephron. Its name is "I Remember Nothing". The book contains some articles and reflections she has published on newspapers and magazines. I think not many people Vietnam know who are her but I'm sure you know some charming movies like When Harry Met Sally... (1989), Sleepless In Seattle (1993), You've Got Mail (1998), and Julie & Julia (2009). She wrote screenplays and directed almost them. I like them a lot and even edited a screenplay book of When Harry Met Sally... in Vietnamese. It's very funny, attractive and witty.


Nora just died few weeks ago (26 June). It's really a bad news. She's a talent in rom-com movies which conquer viewers over the world. Her movies are kind of chick-flick but still make men want to see. In fact, her male characters are not boring. Do you like Jack Nicholson, Billy Crystal, Tom Hanks, and John Travolta, A-list movie stars? All of them played in her few movies. The list has Steve Martin, Kurt Russell, Will Ferrell...

The screenplay book I edited in Vietnamese

Some scenes in When Harry Met Sally... with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan

There are few female stars played in Ephron's movies: Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Cher, Andie McDowell, and Meg Ryan, of course. We could say Meg Ryan used to be the muse of Ephron. Their big hits came when Meg play movies of Nora.

Ephron's movies seem quite soft, not serious and they contain all small things about emotional world of women, the way they seek love, discover men, etc... But they tell the stories in a charming and subtle way. Their message is a calling for love, the communication between lonely people in urban society. Ephron's movies are the treatment for curing and mending broken hearts. Of course, my expression seems quite cliché, but it's true.

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Now I should say about her last work: the book. It was published in 2010. Its content comes from articles in The Huffington Post, The New Yorker, The New York Times and Vogue. I like "Journalism: A Love Story" and "My Life as an Heiress" the most. The former tells about her time in Newsweek and The New York Post around 1962 when she started her career as a journalist. She had to move quiet slowly from position of a mail girl ("my job couldn't have been more prosaic"), then clipper ("after a few months, I was promoted to the next stage of girldom at Newsweek: I became a clipper") - "Being a clipper entailed clipping newspapers from around the country." "Being a clipper was a horrible job, and to make matters worse, I was good at it. But I learned something: I became familiar with every major newspaper in Ameria." Starting with very ordinary jobs, but Nora let the readers learn that she always was an optimist. Her memory was very humorous and lively.

"Three months later, I was promoted again, this time to the highest rung: I became a researcher." It's a kind of fast checking job if there's any mistake in content of articles before publishing. It's not morasse (pre-printing) errors but the correctness of names, places and numbers. During the time of famous 114-days newspaper strike (Dec 1962), she accidentally catch the chance to work for The New York Post as a columnist. Then she worked for it for 5 years. This job perhaps brought her good material in writing. 

All what I could say, Nora Ephron is a valued author to read and study, besides her movies. Reading them, we understand why her books are "national bestsellers" of America. They have the interesting links with the movies, social trends and even history of the country she lived in. Her books are not too complicated but easy to read, even with a foreign like me. It's evidence of power of American entertainment industry.

Trinh Cong Son & Bob Dylan: 2 difference planets

Here's a new book about Trinh Cong Son who is a famous songwriter of Vietnam, but in a kind of comparison with Bob Dylan who is the man-you-know-who. The book includes original essay name Is Trinh Cong Son's Bob Dylan of Vietnam? by Prof. John C. Schafer (retired, Univ. Humboldt, California, USA), now translated into Vietnamese by his wife - Mrs. Cao Thi Nhu Quynh.

Mr. Schafer taught Comparative Literature in Humboldt, and he has been in Hue, Vietnam where he taught English in 1960s. He has written a number of thesis, essays and articles about Vietnamese culture and Trinh Cong Son. But this book is the first one in Vietnam.

From a very  popular statement: "Trinh Cong Son is Bob Dylan of Vietnam" since late 1960s, and when Bob Dylan have a tour around the world "The Never Ending Tour" which came to Vietnam in only night last year with a message from organizer that "to tribute to Trinh Cong Son," Schafer have willing to discovery whether 2 composers are likely each other.



According to Schafer, we have so many myths but not true. Firstly, that statement is not from Joan Baez, one of muses of Dylan when he's young, after she came back from Vietnam where she share the under bombing condition of North Vietnamese in Hanoi in December 1972. She never went to South Vietnam, where Trinh Cong Son lived at that time.

Secondly, Trinh and Dylan write some songs call for peace, but when Trinh has a lot of anti-war songs in whole Vietnam war time, Dylan write a few protest songs in his debuting time. And Dylan didn't like joining any movement which Joan Baez often encouraged him.

Lastly and most important, Trinh wrote under light inspiration of Buddhism, while Dylan is a Evangelicalism and even composed many religious songs. Two this differences religious let them go to two difference directions. While Trinh Cong Son has a soft philosophy full of forgiveness and love on the themes of broken heart loves, Bob Dylan many times criticized women who get in affairs with him though he betrayed them.

The book also includes the introduction of Prof. Cao Huy Thuan (Univ. of Picardie, Paris, France) and close with a short epilogue which he read in a Trinh Cong Son-remembering concert of singer Khanh Ly who is the legendary voice of Trinh's songs. 

Xe máy tiếu ngạo - Joking rider

It's such a long time to come back to you here.

This month I have a new book which names "Xe máy tiếu ngạo" - in English means "Anecdotes about riding motorcycles" or just simply, "Joking rider". In fact, its name is a kind of parody of a very famous Hong Kong wuxi novel of Jin Yong (Kim Dung). Jin Yong novel's name in Vietnamese is "Tiếu ngạo giang hồ". The Chinese title of the novel, Xiao Ao Jiang Hu, literally means to live a carefree life in a mundane world of strife. Alternate English translations of the title include State of Divinity and Laughing in the Wind.

Of course, my book includes almost funny proses to express the state of "smiling". Half of the book contains proses about motorcycles, about the lifetime of some motorcycles I used to ride. I still choose the way or writing which is lightly humorous so bring the readers a fresh angle on some very familiar topic like motorcycles, city lifestyle, street food, and ridiculous matrix of Hanoi streets and alleys.

Underneath those funny lines is my quest for explaining the transform the behavior of urban people under the impact of traffic and living environment. I also bring to the readers a survey to depict during near 100 years since motorcycles appeared in Vietnam, how they has made effect to Vietnamese society, and whether their destiny will end soon or not. We are just the weird culprit of a reluctantly speedy life!

Number of pages: 176.
Size: 13cm x 20cm.
Publisher: Tre Publishing House.
Price: 45,000VND.