A Product of Our Circumstances

I've just completed reading a novel titled 'A Man With No Surname'. It was the second novel translated from Vietnamese that I read, and this time, again, I felt a thrill: there was familiarity with the morality woven in the story, and there was a profound lesson that its author, Nguyen Xuan Duc, wanted his readers to learn: sometimes, we are a product of our circumstances. I would love to ask the author if that was what he thought, but, alas, he passed away two weeks ago.

Lang, the main character in the story, decided to escape to the South. He found that he was not trusted. He performed menial jobs to survive. But, people took pity on him. He even felt shoots of love grow within his boyish heart. He grew up. He became an expert in kungfu. He rose to became a gang head.

After Unification, he became a fugitive, hunted by a clever police officer, nicknamed Zhuge Liang, of Three Kingdoms fame.

I felt the author's sadness when, after he completed his mission (I won't be the spoiler and reveal Lang's fate), the police officer said: It's sad. Lang was a human being before he became the devil.

There was also romance, unrequited love.

Lang would ask, when at wits' end, why he left the North.

Other readers may call his, fate. He deserved what he sowed. Karma. But I think we are sometimes a victim of our circumstances, of which we have no control.