January 20, 2012
Colonialism, Sexuality, and Exile in The Book of Salt
The Book of Salt is a novel, is written by a Vietnamese-American writer, Monique Truong. This is a complicated novel to read because Truong juxtaposes the plot of present and the past in her description on a chapter. This is also a multi-language novel includes English, French, and Vietnamese. Truong gets more than three literary awards includes the Asian American Literary Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Britain’s Guardian First Book Award for her originality in this novel. In her notable work, Truong deals with many issues such as race, language, food, faith, colonialism, sexuality, journey, and so on. But I would like to portray on colonialism, sexuality, and exile in the whole paper. The protagonist, Binh who born in Saigon, where is a French colonist. With his older brother, Minh’s recommendation, Binh works as the “garde-manager” in the Governor-General’s kitchen. But Binh is expelled out of the Governor-General’s kitchen since he is founded he falls in love with the French chef Blériot. After the longer wandering, Binh comes to Paris and works as a cook for two American lesbian Madame in Paris.
Since I have mentioned before that the protagonist, Binh is a Vietnamese and works for the Governor-General’s kitchen, I would like to refer the first issue. There are many dimensions on the portrayals of colonialism in this book. Truong deals with this issue on three dimensions, includes the portrayals of colonial society, food, and language.
In the first dimension which related to colonialism is the portrayal of colonial society. I would like to divide this dimension into three groups: residents in Saigon, Vietnamese cooks work in the Governor-General’s kitchen and the colonizer French. Firstly, in colonial society, Vietnamese work hard for getting more money from French since they are poor. For example, while Binh accompanies the French chef, Bleriot buy food in the marketplace, they found “there are three boys watched over the stalls for vendors and their payments is the last slurp of broth from the vendor’s lunchtime bowl of pho” and these three boys are skin and bone. Another illustration of the point is the Vietnamese vendor always quotes Bleriot their most optimistic price since they know he would not bargain. In addition to, Vietnamese are suppressed by French. For instance, the chauffeur hires as a staff veterinarian after he graduates from the medical school in Paris. In the second place, in the Governor-General’s kitchen, Vietnamese cooks are servants have no rights to be promoted because the superior position always is taken by French. For example, in Binh’s narration, “ his oldest brother would have to settle for the title of Minh the Sous Chef for yet another lifetime of years” (60). In my own interpretation, Vietnamese cooks in the Governor-General’s kitchen are nothing even if they always work hard and satisfy the request for the French Madame in French’s eye. According to Wenying Xu, “in Binh’s eye, Anh Minh has fallen as a father figure, made melancholic and pathetic by the colonial power structure” since Binh founds his older brother, Anh Minh’s dream means he may become the chef in the Governor-General’s kitchen won’t come true(137).
What’s more, French colonizer is pride, merciless, supercilious so they treat Vietnamese as a bastard. For instance, in Governor-General’s kitchen, French Madame never concerns their cook. They always think their cooks are servant. And the colonizer thinks a better way to treat their Vietnamese servants is treats them like an animal. Another example is Binh’s second older brother, “Anh Hoang was shoved into the ground by the weight of the vanity cases of French wives with their government-clerk husband” (43). Truong treats the French chef in the Governor-General’s kitchen, Bleriot in humorous and comical way to satirize the pride colonizer. For instance, Bleriot’s money often be burglared by Saigon pickpockets because he always “walked everywhere with his head held high, which meant his eyes caught nothing of what went on below his chest” (122). Besides, Truong also refer how the French treat people in France to highlight the French colonizer are pride, merciless, supercilious in their colonist. According to Delores B. Philips, “in The Book of Salt, Truong features cooks as figures of both cultural dislocation and limitless mobility” (78).
In the second dimension which related to colonialism is food. Firstly, in the Governor-General’s kitchen all dishes are cooked in French way. For example, Binh’s elder brother, Minh teaches Binh that “rice, for the French, is never worthy of a solo” (77). Another illustration of the point is that Binh’s roommates, Bão warns the kitchen boy that the importance of asparagus in French dishes. In my view, all cooks for the French abandon their traditional cooking ways to satisfy and please their Madame and Monsieur. In the second place, since all cooks works hard and toiling for their colonizer, French, the desserts become salty. For instance, the man on the bridge tells Binh “they all had to wear a cloth tied around their foreheads so that their sweat wouldn’t turn the pies from sweet to savory” (88). What’s more, French rejects their dishes appear the Vietnamese food in Saigon. If the Vietnamese cook put the Vietnamese food in dishes, they will be fired. In my interpretation, French is coercive to force Vietnamese cooks abandon their traditional cooking ways.
In the third dimension which related to colonialism is language. Firstly, in this story, Truong shows some Vietnamese learns French language and speak it fluently. For instance, in Binh’s narration “the man on the bridge ordered in a French that did not belong in the mouth of any kitchen boy” when he treats Binh in a restaurant. (96) For Binh’s elder brother, Minh always thinks the French language can save them. In my view, Vietnamese learn and speak French language for survived in the colonial society. It also shows Vietnamese are assimilated by French. There is some Vietnamese study abroad in French to raise the social status. For example, the chauffeur works for the Governor-General’s who learn the medicine in French. What’s more, Truong shows French Madame condemn the house staff in French. In this dimension, French language is a tool for change their status quo and become superior and rich for Vietnamese. But for French, French language is a tool for blame the Vietnamese cooks whose behavior makes them angry. In my view, French language also shows how French superior than Vietnamese.
In the introductory paragraph, I have mentioned before Binh is expelled out of the Governor-General’s kitchen since he is founded he is gay. After the longer wandering, Binh comes to Paris and works as a cook for two American lesbian Madame in Paris. Truong portrays the relationship of gay and lesbian in this book. There are many dimensions on the characterization of sexuality in this book. Truong deals with sexuality on three dimensions, includes portrayals of sexuality, food, and language.
In the first dimension which related to sexuality is the portrayal of sexual relationship. There are one gay and two lesbians in this story. I would like to divide the dimension into two parts to talk about. Firstly, I would like to refer how the gay met his lover, the gay relationship with him and his lovers, and the reason of gay relationship. In this story, the gay is the protagonist, Binh. In whole story, Binh meets two foreign men and have the intimacy with them. The first man Binh loves is the chef in Governor-General’s kitchen, Blerit, who replaces the dead chef Chaboux. In Truong’s narrative, “Bleriot is portrayed as a remarkable specimen of French manhood, whose hair chestnut brown, according to the chauffeur, held the beginnings of several strategic curl....” (59). Bleriot hires Binh as the person who accompanies him to the market and a translator to him. Binh touches Bleriot bodies at the night before they go to market. In Truong’s narrative, “Binh smiled at Bleriot’s white shirt, at the lose weave of the cotton, at the muscles that only steady work in a kitchen can provide” so the gay relationship is founded and Binh is expelled in the Governor-General’s kitchen and his home (123). In Binh’s memory, Binh refers Bleriot seduces him slowly like the braising to cook the delicious food. According to Deborah Cohler, “Colonial power relations and the erotics of hierarchy play out as Binh shows Bleriot the markets of Saigon, and two begin a passionate, covert relationship. And the relationship with Chef Bleriot illustrates the dance between colonial servitude, sexual subjectivity, and resistance” (27).
And the second man Binh loves is Marcus Lattimore is an iridologist, mulatto who comes from the southern area in America. Lattimore is Madame’s guest who lies to them that he is a writer. One day Lattimore asks Binh’s Madame, Miss Toklas to hire their cook as a cook for him on Sunday. But in fact, Binh is the person who as a spy to investigate the true face of Lattimore in American Madame’s aims for their curiosity on Lattimore “Is Lattimore a Negro?” According to David Eng, “Binh is outsourced as a barrowed servant by Stein and Toklas for only one instrumental purpose: their desire to identify, to taxonomize, and to name－that is, to turn sameness into a manageable difference, and to turn difference into a manageable sameness” (71). In Wenying Xu’s view, “Truong’s juxtaposition of Lattimore to Stein vis-à-vis Binh indicts both for using Binh to spy on each, but Stein’s racial curiosity makes her more despicable than does Lattimore’s curiosity for Stein’s work in progress” (134). In Y-Dang Troeung’s own interpretation, “Toklas and Stein’s desire to pin down and classify Sweet Sunday Man’s identity clearly parallels their racial objectification of Binh－a parallel that reinforces the interpretation that Binh and Sweet Sunday Man are aligned as marginalized characters” (121). In Truong’s narration, Lattimore is portrayed “the image of a wiry young man with deeply set, startled eyes” through the reflection of mirror when Binh looks the Lattimore in the first time in two American Madame’s apartment (37). Binh and Lattimore’s sexual intimacy through using the mother tongue to tell their stories in the life each other, touches their bodies, lies on the bed together, and chats on American Madame’s matter as GerrtudeStein is a popular writer. Binh tells Lattimore about “there’re reams of papers in the cupboard what my Mesdames have stored inside” which places in the next to typewriter when they are intimacy on Sunday (149) in order to allure, assure their love. But “Lattimore wanted to know the exact number of notebooks, the order of the typewritten pages, the exact words that GertrudeStein had written and that Miss Toklas had dutifully typed” (150). But Binh shakes his head because he doesn’t know the details for he doesn’t know the language of English. So in the end, Lattimore asks Binh to steal the Stein’s notebook for him. And the reward for this mission is a photograph who takes the photo together. After Binh reaches the mission and take the photo with Lattimore, Lattimore leaves the apartment he lived, and leaves a note on his apartment about thanks for Binh borrows the Stein’s notebook to him, and tells Binh about the Stein’s notebook is a fictional story named “The Book of Salt” about Binh in the manipulation of Stein’s imagination. In my own interpretation, the story about Binh and Lattimore is Binh always as a tool to investigate for something they would like to yearn for knowing. For Stein and Lattimore, Binh is a good spy to investigate the race of Lattimore. But for Lattimore, Binh is a good spy to investigate the details of the American modern and popular writer, GertrudeStein. According to Wenying Xu, “Binh’s queerness is constructed as a critical terrain upon which are mobilized overlapping differentiations, such as race, class, and coloniality” in Truong’s manipulation on Binh’s sexuality (132). As Wenying Xu has suggested, “Binh and Lattimore’s relationship is one of power in which factors of race preclude any possibility of reversibility of roles. The poor Vietnamese serves mainly as an instrument with which the wealthy American achieves pleasure, alimentary and sexual” (132). In Wenying Xu’s own interpretation, “Truong deploys Binh’s gay desire as the radical terrain to mobilize a host of critical issues, including sexual normativity, colonialism, patriarchy, class and race” (159).
In addition to, there are two lesbians in this story. I would like to refer the lesbian relationship, the intimacy between two lesbians, and how the lesbian are manipulated by Truong. In this story, the lesbian is Binh’s American Mesdames: GertrudeStein and Alice B. Toklas. But in the beginning I would like to introduce the GertrudeStein since she is a popular modern American writer. And her apartment 27 rue de Fleurs in Paris like the salon, according to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, salon means “a regular meeting of writers, artists and other guests at the house of a famous or important person.” (1762) Since Stein is a popular writer, people often goes to her apartment and communicates their insights on the literary works. While Stein communicates their insights with the male guests, Toklas treats the spouses of male guests. After Stein writes her ideas or articles on the paper, Toklas typewrites these articles. In addition to, Toklas is a good cook; she would like to cook for Toklas in the weekend. In my own interpretation, Truong portrays their love is sincere, genuine which differ from Binh’s gay relationship with his lover. We can found from in Truong’s narrative, “They both love GertrudeStein. Better, they are both in love with GertrudeStein. Miss Toklas fusses over her Lovey, and her Lovey lets her. GertrudeStein feeds on affection and Miss Toklas ensure that she never hungers” (71). Another illustration of that point is “Toklas has begun to think the life without you, to plan for it in incriminating ways. Miss Toklas knows that she will never be the first to go. She can never leave her Lovey so alone in this world” when she pray the Virgin Mother in the garden of Bilignin (139). Another example is GertrudeStein for her lover writes the book called The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. For instances, “GertrudeStein knows that for every minute that she indulges, entertains like an unwanted guest at the table, Miss Toklas suffers a little death” to show how their love is sincere, and honest (155). Accoring to Wenying Xu, “The Steins’ sexuality is described as so normal that it no longer signifies transgression. Remarkably different from her presentation of Binh’s queerness, which gains its critical energy through factors of race, class, and coloniality, the Steins are complacent, conforming, socially accepted in their same-sex arrangement. Their relationship indeed largely mirrors that of a white and propertied heterosexual couple in the early twentieth century” (135). In Wenying Xu’s view, “the Stein and Toklas relationship mirrors that of the historical celebrities who have been extrolled as trailblazers of sexual freedom. Their same-sex relationship, even from their era’s point of view, however, hardly queers the regimes of the normal, as it largely mirrors the norm of white and propertied heterosexuality in the early twentieth century in the West” (159).
In the second dimension which related to sexuality is food. Truong treats this dimension through the ways of sensual description and food reveals the sexuality. Firstly, Truong infuses food into the sensual description. For instance, Binh imagines the dishes “the roast duck with figs and port wine” which he intends to serve to the Sunday Man, Marcus Lattimore for the dinner with his friend (76). Truong uses the sensual portrayal to describe the process of dining the dish in this way with the sexuality:
Your hands will tear at an animal whose joints will know no resistance. The sight of flesh surrendering, so willing a participant in its own transgression, will intoxicate you. Tiny seeds from heat-pregnant figs will insinuate themselves underneath your nails. You will be sure to notice and try to suck them out. You will begin with each other’s fingers. You will end on your knees. (79)
According to Wenying Xu, “the tearing of flesh is as sexual as metaphorical of his painful humiliation” (131).
What’s more, Truong manipulates food and infuses into the sexuality. For example, Truong portrays the sea salt as a kiss in the mouth from the lover. Another illustration of that point is “Miss Toklas emits the sounds of lovemaking when she is among the tomatoes” when she in the garden in Bilignin” (138). According to Wenying Xu, “Truong’s novel conjures up the erotic and sexual in the lives of these two women through the highly suggestive language of food” (135). A more elaborate example is “ GertrudeStein thinks it is unfathomably erotic that the food she is about to eat has been washed, pared, kneaded, touched, by the hands of her lover. She is overwhelmed by desire when she finds the faint impressions of Miss Toklas’s fingerprints decorating the crimped edges of a pie crust” (27).
In the third dimension which related to sexuality is language. Truong treats this dimension through design a diminutive with sexuality and performs the sexual intimacy through language. Firstly, Truong designs diminutives with sexuality for the gay or lesbian lover. For example, Lattimore calls Binh as “Bee” shows Binh like a bee who waiting for the coming of Lattimore (111). Another example is, GertrudeStein calls Miss Toklas as “Queen, Pussy, and Cake” (155). In my own interpretation, Truong uses the food, animal even sexual organ to perform the intimacy and sexuality. For instance, Binh portrays he lies with Lattimore in the bed “like children in our mother’s womb, curled into each other for warmth and the feeling of skin” (110). Another illustration of that point is Binh refers the ingredients “twenty-four figs” and the duck boiling in twelve hours for cooking on the dishes “the roast duck with figs and port wine” (75). According to Wenying Xu, “the number of the figs stands, in Binh’s fantasy, for the only day of the week when he and Lattimore have each other, ripe with desire as figs ripened to split, to relish without rush and disturbance” (130). In Wenying Xu’s interpretation, “Truong’s language is impeccable in staging Binh’s erotic fantasy framed by a culinary drama” (130). In Wenying Xu’s own view, “Truong’s erotic language of cooking and eating not only constructs the desiring subject but also normalizes the homosexual relationship” (135).
In the introductory paragraph, I have mentioned before Binh is expelled out of the Governor-General’s kitchen and his home since he is founded he is gay. Since I have referred the two portrayals of colonialism and sexuality which I think the reason of protagonist of Binh is exiled. I would like to talk about the concept of exile and how exile manipulated by Truong in the end of this longer research paper.
According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, exile means “the state of being sent to live in another country that is not your own, especially for political reasons or as a punishment. (696) In my own interpretation, Binh was expelled for two causes includes the social hierarchy and rule of gender. For the Mesdames, she only cares about the social status between Binh and Bleriot. She thinks Bleriot was humiliated by the Saigon people rather than condemn Bleriot is a homosexual who seduces another male Bleriot. For Binh’s father, he thinks it is shameful. According to Y-Dang Troeung, “Binh’s father exacts a deadly combination of patriarchal, heterosexist, and dogmatic religious control over his family” to deny Binh go into the home (123).
To sum up, The Book of Salt is an outstanding work through the portrayals on the issue of colonialism, sexuality, and exile to reveal the latent dominated by the patriarchy, racial, class, gender, and religion.
Works Cited
Cohler, Deborah. "Teaching Transnationally: Queer Studies And Imperialist Legacies In Monique Truong's The Book Of Salt." Radical Teacher: A Socialist, Feminist, And Anti-Racist Journal On The Theory And Practice Of Teaching 82.(2008): 25-31. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 26 Dec. 2011.
Eng, David. “The Structure of Kinship: The Art of Waiting in the Book of Salt and Happy Together” The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy. London: Duke UP, 2010. Print.
Phillips, B. Delores. “Quieting Noisy Bellies Moving, Eating, and Being in the Vietnamese Diaspora” Cultural Critique 73: 47-87. Minnesota UP, 2009. Project Muse. Web. Web. 26 Dec. 2011.
Troeung, Y-Dang. "'A Gift Or A Theft Depends On Who Is Holding The Pen': Postcolonial Collaborative Autobiography And Monique Truong's The Book Of Salt." MFS: Modern Fiction Studies 56.1 (2010): 113-135. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 4 Jan. 2012.
Truong, Monique. The Book of Salt. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Print.
Xu, Wenying. “Sexuality, Colonialism, and Ethnicity in Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt and Mei Ng’s Eating Chinese Food Naked” Eating Identities: Reading Food In Asian American Literature. Honolulu, HI: U of Hawaii P, 2008. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 4 Jan. 2012.
“Exile.” Def. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary. 7th ed. 2008. Print.
“Salon.” Def. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary. 7th ed. 2008. Print.
