A Book that Shocked Me to the Core

Have you ever read any books that are from other countries and translated into English? Except for manga. If you had, I think it is great because it is such a great opportunity to learn more about other cultures and their precious pieces of literature throughout so many centuries. For me, literature is a way to talk about the situation of society whether it is bad or not; a way to talk about the life of every person living in that society. How they are suffering, how they try to overcome, how they are alienated from good to bad, or how some part of society tried to destroy the long-time culture to change into a foreign culture. I want to introduce you to the literature of Vietnam before 1945. It was the time that every author had the same voice as every person who lived under the regime of French people and powerful Vietnamese people who worked for the French and hurt their own Vietnamese folk. The main characters in every story are farmers, poor people, rich people, prostitutes, and women. The stories, the books, and the column in every newspaper back then were such valuable archives for the next generations because after so many years, those stories are still true nowadays.

Among so many great literature masterpieces, there is one book that I found interesting and I have read it 5 times before because of its attractiveness in storytelling. And like the name of this episode, it shocked me to the core by its contents. It is called Dumb Luck (or in Vietnamese, it is called Số Đỏ) written by Vu Trong Phung.

Dumb Luck book cover in the United States.

Vu Trong Phung was considered “the king of North Vietnam reporting”. He was a journalist for a newspaper publisher in Hanoi. He wrote famous reports like “Human Traps” (Cạm Bẫy Người), “The Industry of Marrying a European” (Kỹ Nghệ Lấy Tây), “Jackpot” (Trúng Số Độc Đắc)… Currently, those reports have not been translated into English yet.

In 1936, that was the year Vu’s career was at its highest point. He introduced to the public 4 famous novels whose impacts of them are still important nowadays. “The Thunder” (Giông Tố), “Being a Prostitute” (Làm Đĩ), “Breaking Dam” (Vỡ Đê), and the most famous one, “Dumb Luck” (Số Đỏ), which we are going to talk about today. Throughout his literary career, Vu Trong Phung used his talent to describe the Vietnamese society before 1945, a society that was rotten to the core, rich people stepped on poor people, the problem of sexual activities, the nature of humans, and the flames of desire. He did not mind digging deeply into one story so that people can see the naked truth of depravity. At the highest point of his career, Vu Trong Phung passed away at the age of 27 because of tuberculosis.

Dumb Luck is a satire. In this book, there are many funny situations that make me laugh but behind that laugh, there is something bitter about the way people live. Vu exposed the ugly truths about a society being brainwashed by foreign culture, the idea of being civilized by eliminating the cultures of Vietnam, and the alienation of people when they fell into the swamp of something that they called social reform and modernization during Vietnam’s late-colonial. One chapter of this book is printed in the 11th-grade Literature book to teach students in Vietnam and it is also one topic that appears in the National test in Vietnam. Dumb Luck was published in English in 2002 and the Los Angeles Times considered it one of the 100 best books in 2003.

What is the reason that makes this book so popular with every Vietnamese like that?

All right, let’s go to the world of Dumb Luck.

Dumb Luck book cover in Vietnam

Red-haired Xuan (Xuân Tóc Đỏ) is the main character of Dumb Luck. He did not dye his hair. It is because he spent much time under the sun and his hair is like burning up. But that is something like fate has brought to him. Red is the color of luck. Red-haired Xuan had red hair and his life after is also red as a rose. He met the destiny of his life which he could never expect. Red-haired Xuan was nobody. He lost both of his parents when he was a child. He wandered from this to that every time. He used to work for a local pharmacy selling medicine even though he did not know anything about medicine. But he was a true talent seller and his way of marketing was so unique that could attract the customer come to buy. Then, he lost his job. He worked for a tennis field collecting tennis balls. Pho Doan, a middle age lady, saved him from the police station after Xuan was arrested for sneaking a woman into changing clothes. The moment Red-haired Xuan met Mrs. Pho Doan, his life changed. From a man who had nothing to a man with everything in his hands.

Dumb Luck had drawn a perfect but naked picture of Vietnamese society in the time of social reform. The nature of human beings was changed terribly. I feel like everyone with money did not want to be Vietnamese, they hated the traditions that our father had built before, they wanted to adapt the European culture into Vietnam and forced everyone to follow it. They hated people who were foggy and did not want to change anything. They called themselves “revolutionists” because of what they were doing and they had created a society with greed, envy, bawdry, betrayal, and corruption which no one could save. But look at the reality and the change they brought to that society, how many people actually were actually happy with that change? Those “revolutionists” lived on the lives of every poor people’s taxes, those “revolutionists” lived under the silhouette of European people with no shame. There was no word to describe those animals than Vu Trong Phung. I must say that the image of Vu Trong Phung and his legacy is still important and inspiring to everyone nowadays and still correct in any society.

Oh, you know what, suddenly I remember something. When I read Dumb Luck, it reminded me of one movie that I love the most. Parasite. I used to mention this movie in the first episode of season two. Parasites had a deep impact on today’s world. If talking about this movie, there will be one word to describe it. Magnificent. I must say never in my life I have watched a movie that is perfect in every single detail and I’ve watched it 8 times. From acting to directing. From the production design to editing. From wonderful screenplay to every metaphor scene. All of those made the masterpiece “Parasite”. This is not a horror movie. It is drama/comedy. It is similar to Dumb Luck in a way that when you’re watching or reading, you will never know or predict what’s ahead of you. They are both about the big gap between the rich and the poor. It seems like each world will never be understood by others. There is one scene in the movie that I like the most. The stair scene. Stairs go up, stairs go down. You should watch it and you’ll understand why I love that scene. Also, the name “Parasite” means to me that in order to survive in this world, each parasite must find its host to hold on, to get the goods from the host. In the movie, I can see that the rich rely on the poor because the rich cannot do things that normal people can do; the poor rely on the rich because the poor need money. I really admire the talent of Bong Joon Ho when he directed this movie and he won an Oscar for best director in 2020.

A book with so many stories and situations like Dumb Luck will stay with every reader forever. I hope that after this episode, you can find the book and read it. Believe me, you won’t regret it.