The greatness and the blindness of a mother’s love

“Promise at Dawn” is a book (since made into a film) about the childhood and the life of Romain Gary, an author who won the Prix Goncourt twice and one of the finest writers of twentieth-century French literature. (Many of Romain Gary’s books have been published in Vietnamese by Nhã Nam.)

Our department’s professor, Jian Ying Ying, took our class to see this film at a limited screening in Taipei. And it is one of the important experiences I really do treasure!

The film left me reeling at the terrifying ambition Romain Gary’s mother carried for him. From the time he was small she declared that her son would become the French ambassador (he did in fact go on to become a diplomat), a magnificent writer who would win the Nobel Prize (he never won the Nobel, but he won the Goncourt twice)… His life went through many ups and downs, and part of it was spent fighting in the Second World War. He ended his own life at sixty-six with a single gunshot in Paris…

The biggest lessons I took away from the film:

• A mother plays an enormously important part in shaping a child’s identity and ambition.
• The other side of a family’s pressure and blind love is a child who cannot stand alone in their own feelings.

Keep walking, and the point of balance will come.