An interesting introduction to recent Vietnamese history.
Nguyen Phan Que Mai was born in Vietnam in 1973, in the heart of the devastating war between North and South. This experience naturally coloured her understanding not just of her own country, but of human nature in general. Now a successful poet living in Jakarta, The Mountains Sing is her first novel.
Opening in 1972 in Ha Noi, Huong and her grandmother Tran struggle to get by as American bombs wreak devastation on their lives. Over time, Tran begins to tell Huong the story of her family. From the Japanese occupation during World War 2, to the Great Hunger and the Land Reform Movement, each major wave of history in 20th century Vietnam has caused hardship, grief, and trauma. Yet each has also forged a resilient and hopeful people. The novel moves back and forth between Tran’s reminiscences and Huong’s life as a young adolescent, with the war and its aftermath as background.
Capturing the reader’s interest at the beginning, unfortunately this work lags badly in the middle. Nguyen has fallen into that most basic of errors: she tells us almost everything, rather than showing us. Huge slabs of family history are narrated by Tran in supposed dialogue with Huong. But the telling falls into some narrative no-man’s land. The entire novel relies far too heavily on dialogue, most of which is written in the same voice. Characters are not delineated by their way of speaking.
However, despite these significant short-comings, Nguyen has managed to create characters (albeit a bit one-dimensional), that the reader can care about. And there is enough tension in the narrative structure to hold interest until the end.
A very human-centric introduction to recent Vietnamese history, The Mountains Sing has its charming moments, and a delightful protagonist. It is worth reading for those reasons alone. But with possibly a stronger editorial hand, this could have been a really great novel.
Reviewed by Tracey Korsten
Twitter: @TraceyKorsten
Distributed by: Bloomsbury Australia
Released: July 2020
RRP: $29.99
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