I Have Seen the World Begin: Travels through China, Cambodia, and Vietnam - Hardcover

Jensen, Carsten

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151007683 ISBN 13: 9780151007684

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002

Synopsis

When Carsten Jensen set out by train from Denmark on a journey to the East, he expected to find lands of rich history and culture, and people
undergoing radical change at the end of the twentieth century. In this
illuminating narrative of his travels, there is this and much, much more.
Fusing social commentary and history with vibrant descriptions of people and places, Jensen brilliantly evokes the sights, sounds, and smells of these venerable civilizations. He examines the reverberations of the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, always attuned to the restless air of expectancy in the country, but also finds time for remote concerts of ancient Chinese music. He renders the pervasive sense of destruction, despair, and loss in Cambodia with particular sensitivity, wondering at the specter of death that still hovers over the landscape. And it is in Vietnam, with its palpable
legacy of colonialism and war, that Jensen ultimately loses himself in an extraordinary love affair.
At once compelling and richly informative, I Have Seen the World Begin is an incredible journey.

About this title

About the Author:

Born in 1952, Carsten Jensen made his name as a columnist and literary critic for the Copenhagen daily Politiken. During the 1990s he had several major press assignments around the world, including Yugoslavia and several cities in Asia. The author of six collections of essays and two novels, Jensen lives in Copenhagen.

Review:

That Danish journalist and essayist Jensen witnessed something momentous and formative on his journey through southeast Asia is clear, but the declarative force of his title belies the gradual, continuous nature of his discovery. Where and when did the beginning of the world make itself visible to this lonely traveler? On Nanjing Dong Lu, where brash consumerism explodes in pyrotechnics on the eve of the New Year, prompting Jensen to exclaim, "China is shedding its skin"? Or was it in Udang, the former capital of a kingdom now known as Cambodia, where amid the rubble of a wasted monastery he finds a grove of trees, carefully tended and labeled with Latin species names? Or in Vietnam, where erotic women have forgiven their past sorrows and whose "process of forgetting... was the sandpaper with which they refined an outlook on life"? In all these places and others, Jensen describes a near mystical experience in language so luminous one wonders whether to praise the author or the translator. Often, the headiness of his reactions threatens to discredit him he confesses that for him Asia represents a "dream." A very Western political view also compromises his analogies he views modern China almost exclusively through the lens of Tiananmen Square; Cambodians are uniformly asked about life before 1979, during the period of Pol Pot's nightmarish "geno-suicide"; and he thinks of Vietnam and war as inseparable, "as though that were the country's name." Still, Jensen's solemnity and spirituality distinguish him from most Western observers, as does his easy turn of anecdote into metaphor.
(Publishers Weekly)

This view of Asia by a Danish writer provides a different perspective not only on the cultures and histories of China, Cambodia, and Vietnam but also on the role of U.S. foreign policy and politics in these regions. Jensen is a columnist and literary critic for a Copenhagen daily and won Denmark's Golden Laurels Award (best book of the year) for this work. In recounting his journeys through this trio of troubled nations, he combines personal observations, interactions, historical perspectives, political analysis, and self-examination. Jensen finds both charm and calamity in China. Cambodia is a distressing experience, while Vietnam provides him with a surprising liberation from the bonds of his own personality. Jensen writes thoughtfully, even philosophically, as he probes for the motivations behind the actions of the societies he encounters. For instance, he speculates at length on the essence of evil as manifested by the Khmer Rouge. The United States is taken to task for its actions in Southeast Asia on several occasions, and readers should be prepared (in light of our recent patriotic fervor) for some negative remarks. However, traveling in the company of this articulate Dane results in a unique and enjoyable armchair journey. Recommended for all libraries. Janet Ross, formerly with Sparks Branch Lib., NV
(Library Journal)

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0151007683
• ISBN 13: 9780151007684
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 337