At that moment, coming from the East, Lord Surya, mounted on his
crystal chariot pulled by a thousand stallions, skirted Mount Meru,
axis of the world, and went to the West following the circle of the
constellations. When the chariot turned and was hidden by the
enormous mountain, the Lord’s brilliant light dimmed and came
the twilight.
So came the twilight of Vichet’s father but it was the dawn of Vichet’s life.
Vichet, called Chet, is the main protagonist in Kolap Pailin (Rose of Pailin), the
first Khmer prose novel. Kolap Pailin followed the story of Chet, who found
himself orphaned at the beginning of the story when his father passed away.
With a recommendation from the doctor who treated his father, Chet left
Battambang for Pailin, a gem mining town, to seek an employment with
Loueung Ratana Sambat, who operated several mines. Loueung Ratana
Sambat was a widower, who had a single child, a daughter of famed beauty
named Neary. She is the Rose in the “Rose of Pailin.”
Chet found the work as a miner a tiring one, but it’s an honest work and he
was in no way deterred by it. His fellow miners were very fond of him. He
greatly enjoyed the pristine nature of his new environment where the forests,
jungles and wild mountains mingled. But even more, he enjoyed thinking about
Neary even though she was a “pretentious young lady full of haughtiness, but
of great beauty, and she looked like a rose that blossoms by exhaling its
fragrance in the rainy season.”
And pretentious she was, the heroine of the story. Neary treated Chet like a
servant, which he was not. Even when she felt Chet was beneath her, Neary
was drawn in by his character, which could be a little humble at times, and a
little braggart at others. More importantly, she was attracted to his manliness.
As their interactions deepened, both found themselves falling for each other,
but still Chet did not believe that he had any hope, given that his social position
was far inferior to that of Neary’s. However, a time came when Chet
demonstrated his feelings for her during a trip out of town. He fought off robbers
and saved Neary and her father’s lives. He also took a stray bullet during the
fight. Near the end of the story, Chet also saved Neary from an attempted
sexual assault during a home invasion by a group of outlaws. He roused his
coworkers to fight and drive out the criminals. The novel ended with the couple
married and lived happily with many children to follow.
Kolap Pailin is a short story, about 90 pages long in the French edition. It moves
at a brisk pace, but its various characters are wholly fleshed out. The action
scenes contain little distraction. They move the plot along quite smoothly. The
dialogue is engaging. Written entirely in prose in 1936 and published in 1942,
it was considered to be the first modern Khmer novel, breaking from the
traditional verse-novels of the past. Though the writing was quite lyrical at times,
it was written in ordinary language, accessible to people from all walks of life.
And it was staged in a contemporary setting with ordinary characters that
belong to diverse strata of society. It set precedence for other novels to follow.
The author, Nhok Them, was born in 1903 in Battambang province. He studied
at the traditional monastery schools in Cambodia and later in Thailand. At the
age of fifteen, he was ordained as a novice monk but left the monkhood twenty
years later. He spent several years teaching Pali in Bangkok, where he
authored many books in Thai as well. He was involved in the early stage of the
Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh and edited its literary journal, the
Kampuchea Surya. Nhok Them also wrote curricula for the Buddhist Institutes
in Luang Phabang and Vientiane, Laos. He was considered to be a great
translator of Buddhist Pali literature. He authored two Khmer novels, the
Rose of Pailin and the Malicious Love. Nhok Them perished during the
Khmer Rouge Era.
