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which, corresponding precisely to a Kinsley description of Durga, is ‘refreshing and socially
invigorating’ (Kinsley, 99). Volkov calls her ‘a young woman of spirit, who will do anything’
(HW, 266), and she has a reputation of always maintaining a light-hearted attitude in spite of
the dire circumstances of her country. Keang becomes the alter ego to Langford, releasing him
from his inhibitions, as Madame Phan puts it, ‘to commence living the life you were meant for'
(HW, 129). This is the role Parvati/Durga plays for Shiva, and like Parvati and Koch’s other
Parvati figures, Ly Keang does not allow Langford either to draw on her power or to alter her
behaviour. Nevertheless, Koch has written more Eastern symbolism into Keang’s character,
and she will be further discussed in following sections.
9.7. Dream, Sleep and the Creative Act
The Asian feminine figure, like Keang who induces Langford finally to take up arms in
the fight against the Khmer Rouge, performs this complementary role to the male, without
which he would be unable to act. Another version from Hindu mythology of the origin of
Durga is that she arises from the god Vishnu ‘as the power that makes him sleep or as his
magical, creative power’. When the cosmos is threatened by two powerful demons, the god
Brahma orders her to leave the sleeping Vishnu so that he will awake and defeat the demons
(Kinsley, 96). This Hindu association between dream and creative power, along with the other
dichotomous concepts germane to the divine feminine in both East and West—of time and
eternity, death and rebirth, destruction and re-creation—underpins Koch’s vision of the world.
The feminine figure is integral to the masculine figure in a yin-yang relationship
whereby the feminine represents the active, creative power of dream and sleep. Parvati is the
kinetic force, the sakti, the projected energy, of the ascetic male figure, Shiva, who would
remain secluded in his mountain retreat and meditate, a static force, building up and retaining
his energy. The world would literally run out of steam except for the will of Parvati, who
entices him to come out into the world and perform his dance of creation. Joseph Campbell
writes of this essential division, which he compares to the biblical metaphor of Eve as Adam’s
rib, in his editorial note to Philosophies of India:
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