Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice

"Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice" is the first chapter of Nam Le's novel, "The Boat." The author suffers from writers block throughout the chapter, struggling to think of what to write about that will be true and personal enough to be interesting, yet not so personal that the story is too revealing for his own personal life. Driven from a surprise visit from his father, Le decides to write about his fathers past and the differences between him and his father throughout their past. Le reveals a troubling relationship between the two, complicated by abandonment as a child to lack of communication until much later in Le's life, events that continue to pose problems in Le's current life. I think that Le's writers block and struggle to decide what to write about comes from the complications and uncertainty between him and his father. He seems unsure about his past, causing him to be unsure about his present and future as well. The chapter draws to a close when Le's father, "Ba," offers stories about his past, allowing Le to write about them, but then burns his writing without Le's permission. This seems to offer some closure to their relationship and struggles, possibly because his father believes that now that Le knows more about his father's past, they should just put the past behind them and focus on building a better relationship in the future.