The Mountains Sing

A multi-generational family saga set in Vietnam. This is a very accomplished novel, particularly impressive because it is the debut novel by this author, her previous publications having all been poetry. It is a gripping read which also informs. I knew very little about the recent history of Vietnam but now have a much better understanding of the traumas which they have endured. The subject matter is tackled sensitively, despite the grim nature of much of it, and the characters are well developed and wonderful. My only reason for not giving it a fifth star is that it is a very bleak read. There are many glimmers of hope and there is plenty of love to sustain the family in their years of need, but there is no getting away from the fact that this was not an easy chapter in Vietnam's history and the storytelling remains true to life. Well done to the author for an excellent first novel.

This was one of my recent Book Club reads.

It was an amazing story. An epic, historical story told through the eyes of different generations of a North Vietnamese family. The troubled history comes alive in this book. I learned so much about the country and the Vietnam War and it’s affect on the people. It is a story of loss and sorrow, and the triumph of hope over despair.

A definite must read.

The history of Vietnam is complicated and convoluted. It has been occupied by the French then the Japanese. It experienced a disasterous famine followed by the Communist Land Reform and then the Vienam War. The country has been torn apart by politics and nature. The story of the Tran family is just one of many to be told.
Huong (nicknamed Guava) is a young girl during the Vietnam War and experiences the sadness and fear of having her family torn apart--mother and father going off to war, uncles disappering into the battles. She lives with and is lovingly cared for by her grandmother, Dieu Lan. This large close knit family becomes a family of an old woman and a young girl trying to survive bombs and starvation. To keep Guava in touch with the family and to perhaps understand their family better, Dieu Lan recounts her own history to her granddaughter. The parallels of living through death and destruction of one sort of another quickly become apparent. Joy, love, deprivation and fear threads through their lives past and present almost mirroring one another.
This poetically written book brought to light once again the power of hope and the strength of women. I doubt this book was written as a paen of women's lib but, but for me, it accutely brought to mind that, no matter where or when historically, men have gone off to battle and women have been left behind to carry on the job of making life work. Men shoot the guns. Women run the rest of the world. Women are powerful, resourceful and strong and manage to keep families safe and food on the table until it is all over.
This is book is not a cozy book but one to be read thoughtfully. I do recommend it as it is a look at another culture from the viewpoint of that culture not one translated through western eyes and perspectives.

This novel was an eye-opening read, following a Vietnamese family throughout the turmoil of the 20th century. While I’ve read quite a few WW2 novels set in Europe, I knew nothing about the impact of the war on Vietnam, and the subsequent devastation of the Vietnam war. The struggles that these characters—inspired by the author’s family—had to go through are almost unbelievable, and the novel is a testament to the incredible endurance of the Vietnamese people.

The main plotline is largely set during the Vietnam war, following teenage Huong and her grandmother as they struggle to survive the bombings. Interspersed with this narrative are chapters from the grandmother’s perspective in the years following WW2 as the Land Reforms and the rise of communism robs their family of everything. These two stories fit together well and add depth to our understanding of the conflict, though it can often be difficult to understand who is fighting who and why. This confusion could well be intentional, however; the novel is far more interested in working towards connection and compassion than in pointing fingers and assigning blame.

One aspect of the story I loved was how it was so female-led. Huong and Dieu Lan were such rich characters, with deep strength but also significant flaws and weaknesses. It was fascinating to read a story about war that focused so little on battlefields and instead dealt with the day-to-day realities of finding food and shelter, of caring for the young and weak. I appreciated how the book never needed to make any overtly “feminist” statements; it simply portrayed strong women and left us to admire their dignity and fortitude.

My one criticism, which it seems is shared by other Goodreads reviewers, is that there is very little holding the book together other than an unrelentingly bleak series of events. While the novel is ultimately hopeful, the majority of the story is just tragedy after tragedy, without much of an end goal other than basic survival. While this depiction is probably faithful to the historical background, it does make for quite depressing reading. I personally found the novel to be eye-opening and gripping, but others may well look for something more uplifting.

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4216476588

This was quite a complex book covering so many themes that sometimes it was hard to really know what it was about. Whilst the movement between time periods is popular at the moment and in some ways may have been necessary to keep all the character plates spinning I found I was often quite confused about who the characters were. I found the topic of Vietnam interesting and the book certainly added to my knowledge but i think more could have been said to provide the historical and political context to the experiences that were predominantly the story - that said it has piqued my interest to find out more.
The book was well written and clearly well researched - the level of detail in a lot of the descriptions was superb. It is a story of love and hate , sacrifice and violence, greed and forgiveness - oddly however I did not feel much emotional connection to the characters for some reason.

This is a wonderful book. It tells the story of Dieu Lan and her grand daughter Huong as they and their family live through the tumultuous 20th Century history of North Vietnam: the French and Japanese occupations, the Great Hunger, the Land Reform, the Vietnam War and it's aftermath. Dieu Lan is a courageous and indomitable survivor who suffers witnessing family members murdered in terrible violence. She adapts to her new environments and makes heart breaking choices to save her children. She sees them leave to fight in a war they they do not believe in. From the strength of her family's values, their independent spirit and her loving up bringing, Dieu Lan remains resilient, resourceful and compassionate. By interweaving past and current events Nguyen Phan Que Mai creates suspense. Rural Vietnam with it's rice fields, pagodas and ox carts is vividly described. As is Huong's adolescent turmoil as she comes to terms with her relationships with her war damaged family. The story sets the horror of war and totalitarian ideologies against the love of family and friendships.

A multi-generational family saga set against the backdrop of a very tumultuous time in Vietnam, the mid 20th century. The grandmother, Tran Dieu Lan, is the common denominator and this is basically the chronicle of her life, often told through stories to her granddaughter Huong. The book jumps around between different time frames, covering Japanese Occupation, the Land Reform bills as communism took hold and then the Vietnam war and US intervention.

I hesitate to say that this was an enjoyable read, but it is certainly quite gripping. The scenes of poverty, aggression and fear which became part of everyday living, are described in graphic detail, leaving the reader in no doubt as to what life was like on a daily basis. It is not an easy read but the suffering and death are, to some extent, counteracted by the love and hope of the people. The descriptions of the geographical locations paint a vivid, and often beautiful picture. On top of all that, it provides a potted history of Vietnam’s recent past and I learnt a huge amount about something that was previously a mystery to me. Overall it is a good, compelling read.

On the downside, this is yet another book set over multiple time frames and I found that this confused, rather than clarified. It seems to be a style of writing that is very popular at the moment and quite frankly, the sooner that phase ends, the better it will be for the reader as far as I am concerned. Also, although Tran Dieu Lan and her granddaughter, are the main characters, they are supported by a huge cast list, almost too many to keep track of, especially in the first half of the book when we have not yet got to know them well.

I would wholeheartedly recommend this book, with the caveat that it is brutally realistic, and not an uplifting holiday read.

Thank you to The Reading Agency and One World News for providing us with copies of the book to review. We have never read anything by this author but what a talent she is! You can tell she is a poet because her writing is just beautiful – we especially enjoyed the way Vietnamese proverbs were interwoven into the narrative. We are very much looking forward to reading her other books.