The Book of Salt : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: In total agreement with B. Capossere
Review: What B. Capossere posted in another review is dead on. The idea of the book is great but the writing is overly done. The author seems to never have a noun strong enough to stand on its own.



Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment . . . . .
Review: When you read the description on the fly leaf of this novel you are totally hooked. an inside view into the lives of Stein and Toklas through the eyes of their vietnamese cook . . .this has to be a good read . . . not!! The premise was good but if you enjoy good writing this one needs some serious work. The language seems stilted and artificial at times and the incidents contrived. If you want to read something with depth and richness I recommend getting Yann Martel's Life of Pi instead.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Book
Review: With The Book of Salt, author Monique Truong has created a beautiful and fascinating glimpse into the lives of two of the most iconic lesbians to have ever lived: Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Yet, their story is not told through either of these amazing women, but instead through their Vietnamese cook, Bình-a young man struggling with many secrets and inner demons.

Having fled from Vietnam in disgrace, Bình finds himself in Paris. The year is 1929 and he has been through a succession of brief, miserable positions as a household cook. While perusing the help-wanted section, he spots an intriguing ad: "Two American ladies wish to retain a cook..." He decides to apply, and his life will never be the same.

Truong tells the story of Bình's life in a mosaic of scenes, moving back and forth chronologically, revealing a little at a time until the puzzle is complete. Through the telling, we are treated to an intimate glance into the private lives of Stein and Toklas. Truong's writing is gorgeous, almost poetic at times. You almost feel a sense of loss when you reach the final page. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Bland
Review: You've gotta hand it to Truong for her ambition: she tried to tie together some of the great 20th (and, presumably, 21st) century strands in this, her (fairly short) first volume. You've got colonial politics, the complications of fame, love, loss, social stigma, and all the varied impulses of mapping a personal identity. But these ingredients sit rather uneasily next to each other, united only by a florid narrative style which mistakes effusion for insight.

The lengthy descriptions which are no doubt meant to invoke a rich inner life in fact call to mind nothing so much as an author with time and a thesaurus. The intermittent textual references to salt of the title stand as thematic unifiers, bringing together the strands of yearning and the complexities of national, linguistic and sexual identity. But again, what they read like are moments when the author said, "oh yeah, I named the book after salt; better toss some in here." The sex, meant to be elusive, allusive and sensual, comes off as simultaneously coy and coarse; the book's scattered with winking references to being "on my knees during love," which is the sort of stuff most people grow out of thinking is clever by the time they're 21. There's promise here, but one which, it seems, is more likely to be fulfilled on a smaller canvas.