a bitter satire of the rage for modernization in Vietnam during the late colonial era. First published in Hanoi during 1936, it follows the absurd and unexpected rise within colonial society of a street-smart vagabond named Red-haired Xuan.

Perhaps a little bizarre due to the translation from ~100 year old Vietnamese with french influence, Dumb Luck is a great commentary on social life in twentieth-century French Indochina, providing satire on themes such as capitalism, gender, colonization, and more. ( )

I don't know much about 1930s Hanoi to offer any real commentary on Dumb Luck, but it was an interesting look into late-colonial Vietnam, and an intriguing introduction to Vu Trong Phung, a controversial and prolific writer in the Vietnamese canon. It's pretty obvious Vu was disturbed by the vast changes that were sweeping Vietnamese society in the country's bid for modernization. This unease translates to the blistering satire on display in Dumb Luck, which follows the farcial rise of streetrat Red Xuan to the upper-echelons of this society obsessed with "Europeanization". This all sound rather dry, but Dumb Luck is for the most part very funny, as Vu observations paint a throughly absurd landscape, one that is best illustrated through quotes...

On the police, who are obsessed with meeting their fining quotas, and on the verge of being forced to fine each other: "Out on the street a car pulled up in front of the station. Mrs. Deputy Customs Officer entered the front office and smiled at the officers, who smiled back like merchants greeting a rich customer. Because [she] often let her dog loose, she had been ticketed at least once on each of the precinct's sixteen streets. To the police, in other words, she was like a regular customer of a failing business."

On artists: "... you are a journalist. Your duty is to help enhance the knowledge of the common people so that one day they too may understand art. I, on the other hand, am an artist. I am much too busy devoting myself to art to explain my work to them... The more difficult a work of art is to understand, the more valuable it is. For example, in Italy and in Germany, I hear, those painters whose works are completely incomprehensible are worshiped as saints. When the dictators Hitler and Mussolini took power, they were so jealous of these artists that they threw them in jail. I only pray that someday our artists will be good enough to be thrown in jail as well!"

On cross-class romances: "After several months they invariably jump together into one of the lakes. Initially, most people jumped into West Lake, but, because it was very deep, few of those who attempted suicide survived. Hence, people eventually skirted to the more shallow and less dangerous White Bamboo Lake... Night after night idle ricksaw pullers and jobless young men who could swim loitered around the bands of the lake... expectantly for a heart-rending and plaintive 'Save me!' whereupon they would dive in the waters and fish out a beautiful girl. Next stop was the Hang Dau Police Station, where they would receive a monetary award, pose for newspaper photos, and sit through numerous noisy interviews. As a result, White Bamboo Lake became an important setting for those awful tragedies staged regularly in Hanoi during which the evil Vietnamese family conspires to prevent free marriage, free divores, free remarriage, and so on."

In the world of Dumb Luck, public institutions (government) have become businesses, businesses package the trappings so-called progressive social movements for sale, and people who buy into these "values" act only facetiously. Vu’s harshest, and perhaps most prescient, warning is of the dangers of adopting capitalistic culture (where even values are sold and advertised) instead of merely the capitalistic economic system.

Vu is particularly interested in the role of women in this new society, and his thesis is best illustrated in a subplot in a modern dress shop. The designer there, who sells outfits named for their effects, such as "Promise" and "Resolute Faithfulness" ("for widows determined to honor their late husbands and remain unmarried") and "Hesitation" ("for widows who are less determined"), touting their ability to liberate women from the outside in, on seeing his own wife at the shop: "Shut up, you idiot! Don't you known that there are different kinds of women? When we campaign for the reform of women, we mean other people's wives and sisters, not our own! Don't you understand? It's one thing for other women to reform, but you're my wife. Of course, I would never permit you to become one of those modern women!"

Now that does seem rather applicable to the here and now, doesn't it? How many products are sold to women based not on their real benefits but on the messages of "improve yourself", "love yourself" and other liberations of the "you're not good enough yet, but don't worry, you can buy self-esteem from us" variety? ( )

Published in serial form in 1936, this novel was banned throughout North Vietnam until 1986. An enjoyable comic farce, Phung skewers the hypocrisies of some of Hanoi's finest citizens as they embrace Western values and mores. Part Orwell's Animal Farm, part Forrest Gump, Dumb Luck allows us to observe Hanoi high society in all its disfunction as a street-wise Hanoi trickster who ascends the city's social order through a series of coincidences and pure dumb luck. Along the way Phung exposes and ridicules his country's embrace of European clothing, values, sports and social activities. The satirical novel is a humorous, easy read, but readers are encouraged to take the time to notice the more subtle digs that Phung takes at some of his compatriots. ( )