The Refugees - I'd Love You to Want Me Summary & Analysis
The Refugees - I'd Love You to Want Me by Viet Thanh Nguyen
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A complex story with a timeline fractured by memory and a theme of ‘doubleness’:
- choice and inevitibility
the dissonance of starting afresh & stasis
➢ I'd Love You to Want Me" is the title of a popular song from 1972 by Lobo
‘Baby, I'd love you to want me
The way that I want you
The way that it should be’
This appears in the early part of this story and reflects the poignancy of a relationship that is losing its foundations & certainties. The lyrics embody the same spirit of longing as the story, describing a relationship no longer in equilibrium. The story begins at a wedding banquet attended by Mrs. Khahn (or Sa, as we later discover) and her husband, called simply the Professor, suffering from the onset of dementia. Nguyen gives us the moment when he calls his wife by the wrong name - P101-2
Sa is used to his memory lapses, but it had not prepared her for the hurt or disorientation she felt at being called Yen, a name she has never heard of before. She begins to believe her husband had a life she knew nothing about.p109
➢ Memory thus plays a large role in the story, both his & hers.. Discarded memories, whether voluntarily discarded or not, thus become ghosts. preventing any comfortable staking out of identity, either individually, or as a couple, who have grown old together. They have been married for 40 years and both have their identities gradually slipping away from them. The future Sa had hoped for – travelling and her work at the library – wiped out.
Ghosts from the past are a leitmotif in this collection, but what happens when all strenuous ties to one’s past are broken? ‘Why didn’t you tell me we were going in the wrong direction?’ the Prof asks her on the way home. ‘Mrs Khanh realised that his was a question for which she had no good answer.’
➢ She is able to look back at their life together, remembering especially, the bleakness and hardship – the escape from Vietnam, the years of struggle in California and a vacation in Vietnam, where rage & sadness at the erasing of their old life overwhelmed them. However, as her husband talks of his memories, episodes she no longer can recall, she fears for her own memory and version of her past. P114-5
She has locked away the trauma of the sea crossing to Malaysia, Ba being unwilling to discuss it
She hides her domestic trauma from her co-workers, out of pride. embarrassment or loyalty. She
Even turns off the phone much of the time, to avoid Ba picking it up or Vinh’s hectoring calls.
She is becoming isolated.
➢ The Professor keeps a notebook, in which Sa is asked to list those moments when ‘he no longer acted like himself. Although he consults these notes, they appears to have no positive effect on his behaviour. One can only imagine the anguish Sa feels when she writes in his notebook Today I called my wife by the name of Yen. This mistake must not be repeated’. Eventually, she tells him Yen is not her name - P119-120
How does she reintroduce herself to the husband, for whom she has long replaced official names with “endearments like Anh, for him, or Em, for her”? It’s a heartbreaking variation on the couple’s return visit to Vietnam, decades after the Communist regime renamed their former street, and Saigon itself. The reader is as stunned as Sa, when we read the notebook entry,
“Matters worsening. Today she insisted I call her by another name. Must keep closer eye on her for she may not know who she is anymore.” A complete inversion of the situation as we have understood it and an alarm bell for Sa.
➢ The difference between the diaspora culture, and the culture or memories left behind in Vietnam is illustrated by the character of their son Vinh, whose gift of a Picasso print (105) in an ornate frame has no relevance in their lives – causes more confusion and unease. His assertive, practical, ‘can-do’ approach to Ba’s condition seems to lack empathy and appropriate support, as he urges a dismantling of her way of life. 105-6
Sa eventually quits her library job when it's become apparent Ba is a danger to himself. Sa is fifty-nine years old and has decided to relinquish her identity, to sacrifice her former life & potential future in order to care for her husband - ‘. . . she fought to control the sense that ever so slowly the book of her life was being closed’. She finally assumes the name of Yen. As the Professor goes on forgetting, drifting away from his past, she concocts a new life for herself, one with new names and new meanings. It is a survival plan for them both. It’s to Nguyen’s credit that he can portray women characters so brilliantly, with a keen eye for detail. This poignant depiction of a woman, coping with what fate has thrown at her, engages both our sympathy and curiosity.
➢ The final scene is emotionally and dramatically stunning, as the future Sa sees for herself is undercut by the evocative memory of their first meeting. Nguyen’s ability to portray a love that goes well beyond the romantic or the emotional is stunning. The final passage both heart-breaking and uplifting: 123-124. Nyuyen has breathed life into these characters & given us a story- not only of the refugee experience – but also the universality of experience, saturated with pain, sadness, tenderness & the will to survive.
Kristine Clark/ March 2019
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