A review by geve_
The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
3.0
It was fine.
Somehow I ended up reading yet another multi-generational trauma story. 2021, the year I try to branch out and find that I don't really like reading about how shitty the world is to normal people. As a normal person myself, I guess I shoulda known. I started the year out with Pachinko, which was amazing. Unfortunately it probably made it more difficult to appreciate the other books of this type I read this year. They just can't hold up against it. That's not to say that this book is bad. It's fine.
This is the story of how a family survives in Vietnam throughout some incredibly tumultuous decades. While several wars, colonization, massive governmental/societal upheavals occur, the family portrayed has to make it through. They take sides, they start businesses, they study, they get married, they almost starve and they fight in the war. It's a lot, but it doesn't actually feel all that overwhelming because of the storytelling style, which IMO, is a good thing, but also the downfall of this book.
It is generally told from the perspective of one of two people, the grandmother and the granddaughter, and it was sometimes hard to tell them apart, their voices were so similar. To be honest, most of the characters were a bit light on depth, but it didn't ruin the story for me. Since we are hearing the story from two specific characters, we don't get a direct perspective on many of the events going on in the country. This is a good part of this writing style.
The bad part: There were some extremely lazy storytelling arcs in this. Since neither character is directly involved in the fighting of the Vietnam war, we don't get that part of the story. However
The ending really fell flat for me. The story was dragging a bit by then, and the utter convenience of specific characters somehow showing back up was pretty meh. Reminded me a lot of the sort of hollow, overly constructed endings of Homegoing and There There.
I did really like the language in general. It was a story about this family, but it was also very deeply a story about the place and I think that was told particularly well. I saw a lot of good images of their homes, in the country and the city, and really enjoyed that part of the book.
I think overall, the book was fine. I liked reading it more because I enjoyed the place and the historical backdrop than the actual story. The characters were not fully unique, but they served to say what the author wanted to say, even if it was a bit convenient. Like Pachinko, I think it benefited from both good and bad events happening to the people, rather than the mostly bad I saw in Homegoing and There There. I think in 2022, I'm gonna steer clear of this subgenre of story, it's just not for me.
Somehow I ended up reading yet another multi-generational trauma story. 2021, the year I try to branch out and find that I don't really like reading about how shitty the world is to normal people. As a normal person myself, I guess I shoulda known. I started the year out with Pachinko, which was amazing. Unfortunately it probably made it more difficult to appreciate the other books of this type I read this year. They just can't hold up against it. That's not to say that this book is bad. It's fine.
This is the story of how a family survives in Vietnam throughout some incredibly tumultuous decades. While several wars, colonization, massive governmental/societal upheavals occur, the family portrayed has to make it through. They take sides, they start businesses, they study, they get married, they almost starve and they fight in the war. It's a lot, but it doesn't actually feel all that overwhelming because of the storytelling style, which IMO, is a good thing, but also the downfall of this book.
It is generally told from the perspective of one of two people, the grandmother and the granddaughter, and it was sometimes hard to tell them apart, their voices were so similar. To be honest, most of the characters were a bit light on depth, but it didn't ruin the story for me. Since we are hearing the story from two specific characters, we don't get a direct perspective on many of the events going on in the country. This is a good part of this writing style.
The bad part: There were some extremely lazy storytelling arcs in this. Since neither character is directly involved in the fighting of the Vietnam war, we don't get that part of the story. However
Spoiler
Several family members come home from the war, and we end up getting the stories from them in what seem to me to be very lazy and inauthentic ways. First, the uncle, who has been horribly wounded, just straight up tells his niece a bunch of war stories. This felt very strange to me in the place, and not at all like what an uncle would tell his niece. He also told several very cliche war stories, the kind that non-soldiers expect out of veterans (sort of like war movies). Not long after this event, the same niece reads her mother's (who was a doctor during the war) diary, thus getting her side of the war as well. It seemed very piled on at that point, and like it was just expected that we needed this perspective. I honestly think we would have been better off without it. Those are the stories we always hear, and they did not fit particularly well.The ending really fell flat for me. The story was dragging a bit by then, and the utter convenience of specific characters somehow showing back up was pretty meh. Reminded me a lot of the sort of hollow, overly constructed endings of Homegoing and There There.
I did really like the language in general. It was a story about this family, but it was also very deeply a story about the place and I think that was told particularly well. I saw a lot of good images of their homes, in the country and the city, and really enjoyed that part of the book.
I think overall, the book was fine. I liked reading it more because I enjoyed the place and the historical backdrop than the actual story. The characters were not fully unique, but they served to say what the author wanted to say, even if it was a bit convenient. Like Pachinko, I think it benefited from both good and bad events happening to the people, rather than the mostly bad I saw in Homegoing and There There. I think in 2022, I'm gonna steer clear of this subgenre of story, it's just not for me.