Nam Le- "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice"

The short story “Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” by Nam Le was basically about writing a story. The story was written in first person and the main character describes a three day visit from his Vietnamese father. Nam Le is in school at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has a deadline that is only three days away as well. He is in the midst of a writer’s block but soon turns to his father’s childhood stories to find inspiration. His father then reads his stories and offers more information to help expand Le’s original story. While listening to his father, Le had gathered 45 pages of notes and used that to create what he felt was a masterpiece. In the end, his father ends up burning his work right before it is due, leaving Nam with nothing.

I really liked this story and it was a very easy read. One thing that I thought could have made the story better was if there was some sort of explanation after the climax. I felt like the story climaxed at the point where Nam found his father burning his story but it ended right after that. One quote that I absolutely loved though was “The thing is not to write what no one else could have written, but to write what only you could have written” (page 23). I really liked this quote because I feel like it applies to so many other aspects of life other than writing. It is very philosophical.

One other detail that I liked about this story was how the author described how his father spoke in proverbs. I once did a project on Italian proverbs and found them to be very interesting, and I even researched the meaning to some of them in this story. For the most part, I could not find anything so I conjured up my own meaning. One I especially liked was “the captive buffalo hates the free buffalo” (page 23). I felt like this meant that one always yearns for the life they are not themselves leading. I could be completely false in my interpretation, but half the fun of proverbs is making them your own.