Have I mentioned that my addiction of the pandemic has become book clubs?
I joined a book club recently seeking to read one book from every country, and for Vietnam, we chose the recently released – and critically acclaimed – The Mountains Sing.
The novel is told from multiple points of view: a “contemporary” narrator, Guava, whose story takes place in the 1970s, to whom stories are told by her grandmother and two of her uncles, each of whom has undergone extreme hardship in the wake of the Land Reform and Vietnam War. With elements told as well through diary entries and letters, author Nguyá»…n Phan Quế Mai manages to weave a tale that offers a picture as whole as possible of one family’s hardship over the course of the 20th century in Vietnam. Heartbreaking but also hopeful, this novel offers a vision of this country not often explored in American literature or history books.
A Vietnamese author and first-time novelist, Nguyá»…n has a difficult line to walk in setting a story in the culture of her youth that is intended for an American reader. She leans a bit too heavily, for my taste, on periphrases and translations of Vietnamese words, as opposed to context clues, which could have allowed the reader to more fully immerse themselves in the story. The story itself occasionally leans towards the overly moralistic, framing the main characters as unerring or almost, beacons of pure goodness in a world filled with hatred. Hypocrisy is for others; this family is pure. Voice-wise, as well, I had a few bones to pick, as in a multi-voiced family epic such as this one, one would hope not just for multiplicity of points of view but of actual voices; in this, the book falls short.
But here’s the thing. Quibbles aside, I could not put this book down. The strength of the characters, particularly the women, is gripping. Their constant and consistent ability to overcome their struggles is incredible (in the literal sense). And the awareness throughout that this story, while fictionalized, is based on the truth that so many people lived in Vietnam, is heartwrenching.