The Mountains Sing

These chapters contain the two that conclude Diệu Lan’s tale, leaving the final act of the book to tie together the two narrator’s stories while cementing Hương as the novel’s true protagonist. Although the dates given indicate that Diệu Lan’s tale runs right up to 1965, the year Hương turned five, Chapter 13 makes no mention of anything past 1957, at which point the family (minus Minh) is reunited and prospering in Hanoi. Diệu Lan ends her story lamenting her inability to find Minh yet asserting that he “will step over the ashes of our loss and come home” (293). Given that the repeated loss of family members pervades Diệu Lan’s chapters, she might end her story prematurely out of guilt over not having found Minh, those eight missing years thereby rendered shamefully irrelevant. This, then, can be viewed as yet another trick of narration Nguyễn employs to convey a deeper meaning: in this case, the primacy of maternal protection and guidance to Diệu Lan’s identity.

The conclusion of Diệu Lan’s chapters provides an opportunity to look back on some of the other narrative tricks Nguyễn employs in weaving grandmother’s and granddaughter’s stories together. As mentioned previously, while Diệu Lan’s first chapter, “The Fortune Teller,” flows organically out of Hương’s story from the chapter that precedes it, her other chapters simply appear according to a predictable pattern during natural breaks in Hương’s narrative. Based on this arrangement, the reader might presume that Diệu Lan drip-feeds her story to Hương, with each part disclosed around the times in Hương’s life where they appear in the novel. However, it is hard to imagine that Hương could have stood such significant gaps in the telling of a story as intriguing and relevant as Diệu Lan’s. More likely, Diệu Lan shares most or even all of her tale in that same initial period, when she and Hương have returned to Hanoi to find their home destroyed.

The clearest evidence for this comes from Chapter 13’s second-person Kick-Poke-Chop lesson. While Diệu Lan commonly addresses Hương in her chapters, this lesson in Master Văn’s unique form of martial arts is conspicuous in its extent and theatricality: “Guava, here, let me show you. Yes, kick like that, but it has to be hard. Harder. Straight. Use the balls of your feet. There, good. Don’t laugh. Do it again. Good!” (250). Diệu Lan interrupts her own story so she and Hương can rise to their feet to practice. Diệu Lan’s remarks are presented with such literality that they even make clear Hương’s amusement and inexperience despite making no explicit mention of her actions or remarks. This moment reminds readers that they are flies on the wall in this story, privileged eavesdroppers listening in as a grandmother tenderly tells her granddaughter a very personal story. Considering Hương’s implied inexperience in this moment and Diệu Lan’s promise to “teach [her] later properly” (250), this interaction appears to be the first time Diệu Lan introduces Hương to Kick-Poke-Chop. Add to this the fact that Hương spars with her grandmother as early as the chapter that follows Diệu Lan’s first, leading Diệu Lan to remark, “All right, all right, I shouldn’t have forgotten I’ve taught you the moves of Kick-Poke-Chop” (55-56), and it becomes hard to deny that Chapter 13’s second-person lesson, and thus the telling of Diệu Lan’s entire story, had already come to pass long before the majority of the events of Hương’s own tale.

Like many family stories, Diệu Lan likely revisits and retells them throughout her time with Hương. Thus, for Hương, the novel’s true narrator, to present them as she does, broken up thoughtfully and evenly and presented as transcripts of theoretical monologues, constitutes a significant and meaningful artistic choice, both within the fictional realm of Hương’s story as well as for Nguyễn as real-world author. By relating her grandmother’s stories in this manner, Hương situates her own story within the greater context of her family, emphasizes her intimacy with her grandmother and positions Diệu Lan as her and the entire family’s most crucial role model. Meanwhile, for Nguyễn to structure her novel in this manner, highlighting as it does constant parallels across major gaps of space and time, she again emphasizes the scope and universality of the Trầns’ experiences.

Hương’s own chapter in this section, “The Country Bumpkin Boy,” is focused on Tâm, a character who appears briefly in the previous section but quickly becomes central to Hương’s story in this one. Tâm’s most conspicuous attribute might be his origin. Hailing from Hà Tĩnh province, which borders Nghệ An to the north and is so intimately linked with the Trầns’ home province that the two were administered jointly as Nghệ Tĩnh province from 1976-1991, Tâm represents Hương’s past thrusting itself into her present in a way she cannot ignore, nor does she necessarily want to. Like her past, Hương greets Tâm with both eagerness and fear. From their very first encounter, Hương “couldn’t get Tâm out of my mind. His smiling eyes and his warm voice made me giddy,” and yet she hesitates to let herself become close to him because “[m]en could be evil, like those who’d harmed my mother” (228).

If Tâm is a representation of the Trần family’s past, then it is no surprise that Diệu Lan is also suspicious of him. Though she is curious about his middle-region accent and seems to appreciate his academic success, she remains wary of him, telling Hương, “Darling, I trust you, but other people have to earn my trust” (270). Although Hương quickly overcomes her own misgivings about Tâm, Diệu Lan holds out longer, and this duality represents the complexity of their relationship to their origins and foreshadows the reckoning that Hương’s relationship with Tâm will bring about.

From his handyman abilities to his kindness and sense of humor, Tâm bears many similarities to Hương’s father, and these similarities, as well as Tâm’s sensitivity to the pain Hoàng’s absence causes Hương, help him win her over. Critically, he is there for Hương the night her mother and Đạt approach her to set up an altar for Hoàng. Despite Ngọc’s concerns that “it’s not fair for your father if we don’t call his soul home” (278), Hương cannot bring herself to admit the near certainty of her father’s death. Đạt’s confession that the circumstances that followed his last meeting with Hoàng heavily imply Hoàng’s death might prevent her from denying the possibility that he is gone, but her uncle’s deception only deepens her anguish. Ngọc attempts to console her, telling her, “He’s right here with us,” and putting her hand on her own heart, yet Tâm’s embrace brings more meaningful comfort: “The scent of his body sweetened the air around me, his heart beating inside my chest” (280). This phrasing heavily echoes the message Hoàng carved on the Sơn ca: “Daughter, you are the warm blood in my heart” (130). While the love Hương shares with her mother, grandmother, and other family members has helped her to carry on, the unifying and complementary power of Tâm’s love enables her to begin moving on.

While Đạt might have lied to Hương about her father to preserve hope “[b]ecause hope helps to keep us alive” (179), it is his ability to give up drinking and confront his own demons that allows him to flourish, particularly in his relationship with Nhung. Sáng’s experiences in this section contrast his brother’s, casting the two as foils. Sáng has been living a life of lies and hypocrisy. He refuses to acknowledge the hurt his beloved Communist Party has caused, yet he “acted as if it was [the family’s] responsibility to supply him food” (270) even while refusing to see his mother because of the work she does to purchase that very food.

It is hard not to view his miserable fate—a stillborn baby and separation from his wife—as karmic retribution, especially given that Đạt, despite his own extensive exposure to Agent Orange, is headed for a loving marriage and a healthy child with Nhung. While the prosperity and happiness of Hạnh and her family, who also embrace the Communist Party, might appear to negate this takeaway, it is important to remember that Hạnh, despite living on the other side of the country, has never rejected her family. Thus, Nguyễn’s story is not inherently privileging one ideology over another but rather critiquing hypocrisy and unwarranted familial neglect. Fortunately for Sáng and his birth family, the events of this chapter shake him up enough to enable him to spend a night in Diệu Lan’s home and agree to help her find Minh, planting the seeds for his redemption in the novel’s final chapters.