"The Double Life of Anna Song" is a beautiful love story inspired by a real fact. Two children marked by tragic events since Paul loses his parents in a car accident and Anna is haunted by the exile of his parents, meet and live their first story of friendship, even love. Anna is rocking cradles and Vietnam stories of Paul, his family wounded by the military presence of the French and then the Americans, then by the communist regime. Anna wants to realize his dream, haunted by the fact that his grandfather lived the collapse of his. But fate is going after Anna. Paul suffers from a distance. I really like the construction of the novel that alternates the story told by Paul and the extracts of the press who report the case "Anna Song." Over the love story grows and the case hits the headlines. The denouement is unexpected and remarkable. The reader includes a parallel with the Vietnamese legend of the poor fisherman. My classical music in disregard surely prevented me to appreciate even more this novel. In summary, this is a beautiful well constructed story with an interesting context on Vietnam and classical music. A great discovery!
"The rites were only a kind of mime, a hollow subterfuge without faith that gives them meaning."
