Response to The Book of Salt

The Book of Salt is a very interesting depiction on the life of the famous lesbian couple, Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas. The main reason why this story is so interesting is because it is told through the eyes of the couple’s Vietnamese chef Binh (whom Stein calls “Thin Bin”). Truong uses stream of consciousness, which helps the reader see things and understand them the way Binh does. In fact, this story consists of two narrative threads that give the reader information on the narrator’s present life in Paris as well as his traumatic past life in Vietnam.

In the first portion of this particular novel, Binh tells the reader of his present life (at age 27), residing at rue de Fleurus with Stein and Toklas, in Paris. He also tells the reader how he got his job with the famous couple (from an ad in the newspaper). Binh makes observations of the couple as they go about their daily business, which gives the story an interesting spin, or description.

In contrast, the second portion reveals what brought Binh to Paris, France. The reader learns that he was physically as well as verbally abused by his malicious father. Binh really puts his childhood into perspective for the reader by describing various events, such as a piece of wood that was thicker than his arm being split into his skin, and a chair leg shoved into his Adam’s apple (by his father). Also, the reader learns that Binh is gay and that it was seen as a “disease” in his homeland, so he was led to no other choice other than to go some place far away, which just so happened to be France (his country’s colonizer).
Colonialism is seen throughout this story because it takes place when Vietnam was still a part of French Indochina. Binh’s older brother, Minh, assimilates to the French culture by learning the language and becoming a Sous Chef. Minh helps Binh to assimilate as well by teaching him the language as well as how to cook, and gets Binh a job. One could argue that Binh does not fully assimilate to the colonized culture because he critiques the culture that is depicted through the writer’s use of Binh’s stream of consciousness.
As Binh wanders the streets of Paris, Binh points out to the reader that his skin “marks his weakness, displays it as yellow skin.” He then says that in France he is identified by others as “an Indochinese laborer,” while in Vietnam he is identified as “just a man.” In a way I can relate to this type of identity. For instance, when I was in Europe, I was identified by others as “an American college student,” whereas in America, I am seen as “a girl (or woman) from the Midwest.”

The irony of this story is that he ends up working for a lesbian (“diseased”) couple—the exact “disease” which brought himself to exile in the French land. The fact that homosexuality was thought of as (and is still thought of as in some cultures) a “disease” angers me quite a bit. This reminds me of a theory that a strong Christian evangelical once told me- “I think that they just haven’t met the right person of the opposite sex just yet.” This caught me off guard and made me realize how many religions (if not all) tend to brain wash people into believing whatever the hell they want them to believe and that, to me, is terrifying!