This week, Kim and Hà Trang dive into the unavoidable topic of war, going through what feels like the most intense thirty minutes so far on Lively Lit by Trạm Radio. Kim brings the discussion back in time through a reading of Book 11 in the infamous Odyssey by Homer, wherein Achilles reveals a conflicting viewpoint of war: he wishes he was a poor workman rather than a war hero, yet relishes at his son's glorious victory. The tension between promising romanticization and grim reality has been and is still a matter of heated debate when it comes to war, not excluding the current one against the pandemic.
Hà Trang takes up the talk with an excerpt from Novel Without A Name by Dương Thu Hương in which the portrayal of a war woman through the honest and respectful eye of a male soldier invites thoughts on lust, human nature and femininity. In the end, as two hosts note at the very beginning of the episode, quoting Thomas Hobbes, human war is "the war of all against all" where no parties win.
