Stein’s Top Chef: “Book of Salt”

My campus will receive the author Monique Truong as its guest tomorrow. She will read a selection from her only published novel, The Book of Salt, and then an excerpt from a more recent project. I’m looking forward to her reading but also the following Q&A session. Her work fits into the discussions I’ve participated in during my Multicultural Literature course (a.k.a. books about women getting raped and “coming-of-age”). Seriously, I think she will have something to say about identity as an author and how an author connects to his or her characters.

An overly pessimistic and tough critic, (in all modes of life, not only books) I’ll only devote one paragraph to my problems with her novel. In fact, I’ll include an efficient, nifty list of the top three things that irked me.

1) She writes like a lawyer (she used to be one): the structure’s too tight and the figurative language overdone. Food is sensual and kinda like sex, or at the least an aphrodisiac. Okay, I get it. Too many parallels – the book ends up a funhouse of mirrors. More on this follows.
2) Binh is a slut. He sleeps around too much. Also, we get claustrophobic in his point of view – too many second person chapters to lovers or his bosses. Keep it in your pants, man, you’ll be less miserable. The overbearing religious father was pigeonholed from the outset. Not that he had to have moments of being a decent father, but there could have been moments of doubt about his hatred of his son - doubts that could be rescinded anyway.
3) Redundancy. Without a crucial plot, besides the point where Binh decides whether to return home or go to America, the layering of his character has to be diverse. Some sections could be consolidated to get through to the reader about Binh’s identity and conflict. One of the story’s threads could be cut out at no great cost.

Disregarding my immature tendency to make gay-food jokes, and to insist this book will become a Bravo Original Movie, let’s move on to how I enjoyed this novel. First, the Ho Chi Minh episode was worth the risk Truong took. She successfully avoided dropping cameos, any of the celebs whom Stein included in her company, and when she did include an incredibly well-knonw historical figure, made it worthwhile. The “man on a bridge” provided more depth to Binh’s crisis of returning home. But precisely what home? Minh’s emergence and the death of Binh’s father signify the rise of a new Vietnam. The French would soon be driven out and Communism would rise. Besides, the description of the meal they shared was tantalizing. Truong uses the art of cooking and the sport of eating in tremendous fashion. Lost on most Americans and descendants of the culinary-challenged United Kingdom/Ireland, the fusion of French and Asian senses for cooking and consuming is perhaps the novel’s strongest assets.

Some examples of how food works in the novel:
“We then exchanged words, sparingly, between generous forkfuls of food. Chopsticks had not been offered, and we did not ask for them. Why waste time on the technicalities of tableware when a feast is before us?”

“Salt-and-pepper shrimp finished in a glaze of browned butter!”

“He will always cook from all the places where he has been. It is his way of remembering the world.”

The relationship between Stein and Toklas is not central to the novel, but the bits offered to the reader are usually tasty. The portrayal of Stein’s eccentric artfulness and Toklas’ more rational, day-to-day thinking was well-executed. I especially enjoyed the moments where Toklas instructed Binh and communicated her particularity. Binh is allowed moments of creativity, but his adherence to meticulous recipes was needed.

Overall: A great premise carried out with lovely language and makes your mouth water with descriptions of food. But the desire for a trip to the fridge outweighs the desire for Binh to find happiness.