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29 Nov 2000
From: Dave Birley I appreciate you sharing your thoughts, and acknowledging our differences of viewpoint. You, of course, have had the opportunity to live in the country where the book's story takes place, and to experience the times and people who were involved. When a person grows up in a privileged environment (with a beautiful red dress), and moves from that to the extreme opposite of the social and economic scale, regardless of the reasons, it is bound to make an imprint on the mind. Assuming that the beginning of the book is correct and that Loung was only 5 years old when the horror began, I think we should recognize that in her mind it is not fiction. The fantasies of hungry dream-tormented sleep merge into the realities of daily life in strange ways in the mind of the small child. What I saw in the book was a story of a will to survive. I read it right on the heels of reading "We Band of Angels" about the American military nurses who survived Bataan and Coreggidor. One chapter in that book (written from the experiences of people who were all adults from beginning to end of the story) is entitled "Weeds Fried in Cold Cream". I did not read Loung's book as history, but as an adventure of survival. The facts are, at least in part, provable: the loss of her father (for whatever reason) and of other family members. The gnawing frustration of being so hungry that you would steal a handful of rice from a dying person. As I remarked in my review, (and as I come just now from an "all you can eat" steak dinner at a buffet restaurant) I feel guilty when I realize that I eat enough in a day to feed a family, in circumstances like in Kamouchia or Kosavo, for a week. I try very hard not to waste food by taking more than I can eat, but I still eat more than I need to. So I thank you for offering to discuss this book, and the times behind it. Unfortunately not all of the truth will ever be known. Our most important responsibility is to do everything in out power to see that it doesn't happen again ... a responsibility that we seem to shirk on an almost daily basis. Meanwhile we fret about a meaningless tussle for the Presidency between two distressingly uninspiring candidates. What a world!
Dave
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