Nam Le's "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice"

Nam Le's short story with a not-so-short title, "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice," is one of my favorites that we have read, thus far. First of all, I found the title very striking because of its enormous length. I "googled" the title, and found that Le named this short story after a Nobel Prize acceptance speech by William Faulkner in 1950. In his speech, Faulkner speaks of the virtues that men entail, including perseverance. Faulkner also says that it is important to write of these virtues, to keep a record for man and to remind them of their past to "lift their hearts." This particular story is written of a man named Nam, who was born in Vietnam, but raised in Melbourne, Australia. While living in Australia and working as a lawyer, he quits his job because he hated that he was so good at it. This action confused me, the fact that he was so good that he quit doesn't make sense to me. His father was particularly disgusted with him, and he moved to Illinois to become a writer. He is writing this story as a deadline for his final story is upcoming, but he is dealing with writer's block. Because his father, who he hasn't seen in three years, has come to visit, he decides to write about his father's past in a story which he titles "Ethnic Story." The relationship between Nam and his father is a strained one, which can be seen through the tension in their interactions. Nam's father was particularly tough on him while he was growing up. For example, he was required to study ten hours a day during the summer. While talking to his girlfriend Linda, Nam says that his father abused him as a child. Linda responds by saying that she thinks Nam is trying to make excuses for his father (Pg. 18). We also learn that Nam ran away from home when he was sixteen, indulging in a life filled with sex and drugs before his return a year later. While he was gone, his mother supported him, which is father didn't like. Because of this disagreement, his parents ended up separating; However, when Nam returned home, his mother did as well. Nam doesn't know much of his father's past, except for the fact that he was involved in the My Lai Massacre. In this event, his father and the rest of his village was lined up and shot at. Nam's father survives because his mother covers his body to shield the bullets. He walks away as one of only a few survivors. Nam writes about this within his story, but his father notes that there are many mistakes in the story, and they both agree to sit down and revise the story the next day. During the night, his father wakes up and picks up the story to take to read on a walk. He is gone for a while, and after Nam wakes up and sees that he is missing, he goes to find him. He finds his father with a homeless man down by the river next to a burning trash can, in which Nam's story was burning. Because Nam had written the story on a typewriter and there were no other copies, he said some very harsh things to his father. I think that Nam's father is giving him a dose of tough love, which I think everyone could use.