log
1 finished a long and speaking silence by nghi vo. i've read everything by nghi vo so far. shame, i didn't like it. spoilers ahead. think the books in the singing hills cycle all suffer from triteness. but in this it's particularly felt. it's cowardly in two ways: first, it doesn't respect the reader; secondly it doesn't trust itself. the issue itself is complex, but chih's stance is so unearned and so clean and politically correct it's unnatural and seems like it's sentimentalising rather than empathising. it's particularly stark when they think:
[...] stifling an urge to protest how unfair it was. Whether due to tyranny, flood, fire, or war, people displaced were people displaced, but they weren’t sure they could convince Sovann of such a thing.
when sovann is speaking of differences in how refugees behave and present themselves, being a descendant of a refugee. very simplistic, clean, and completely not engaging with the situation at all.
would be improved with a mentor figure or at the very least some sort of challenge to chih's worldview, else saying chih's a novice reads as a weak preemptive defence rather than a reasoned narrative decision.
the only possible interesting narrative movement was resolved prematurely by a hailstorm.
additionally, too ambitious. many story threads--aside from the one i mentioned--that cannot be tied or woven together given the novella's length.
prose is still pretty. food sounds good. chih is already here, an unrepentant meat lover despite being a vegetarian cleric. just it was mind-numbing.
2 think this ties also into my general feeling in the world that open discussions that may lead to greater understanding and progress have been subsumed by superficial virtue-signalling. where one says empathy and sensitivity but means closed eyes, mouth, and ears, where one means i'm politically correct; this is the morally superior thing to say. and when valid, hard truths are raised, these are called cynicisms, bigotry; and are dismissed. this is likely something that has been around since humans could talk, especially in times of inequality, but perhaps has become more obvious or perhaps worsened in the age of social media. empathy i think requires compassion despite difficulty. one should beware of pity.