KEY+SCENES

(Page references are to the Penguin / Riverhead edition)

Talking to driver Tran Son - P 40 f
=Kien in the present: Writing - P44f see also //How to read the novel - more metafiction... P 56//= =Visiting Lan - P51f= =Kien's father - P 57-60= =Memory of Hanh - P63-68= =Phuong - P 69 - 71= =Tran Sinh - P76 - 76= =Phuong after the war - P79-85: Continued - P85-88: Continued - P88 - 92= =Phan's Story - Stabbing and Drowning - P92 - 100= =Victory Day - 'Peace had rushed in brutally' - P100 - 108= =Yet more metafiction - Kien and the mute girl - 108 - 117= =Kien and Phuong at school - 117 - 119= =Kien and his parents: father's death - P122 - 128= =Kien and Phuong - Kien goes to war - P128 - 137= =Phuong leaves Kien - 'You still think I'm seventeen...' - Pp 142 - 146= =Kien becomes a writer - 'I must write!' - Pp146 - 156= =Kien's epiphany - 156 - 159= =Kien misses the train to the front - 159 - 165= =Kien and Phuong catch the train to the front - 166 - 172= =Kien loses Phuong - '...his life entered into bloody suffering and failure' - 177 - 180= =Hoa (the guide) suffers rape in order to save others - 183 - 193= ='Paradise Lost - A vision of Vietnamese perfection -196 - 199= =Memories of Phuong and the continued story of the train: Kien's first killing; Phuong disappears - "perhaps one day she would forgive him...' - 200 - 224\= =News of Phuong - 224 - 227= ='The Writer' departs - the manuscript is found - the mute girl as 'the reader' - 227 - 233=

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