A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain
by Robert Olen Butler
Award: Pulitzer Winner 1993
Nomination: PEN/Faulkner Finalist 1993
Dates Read: September 6, 2012 & January 27, 2021
From the get-go, I’m not sure how comfortable I am with a white man assuming a Vietnamese refugee’s voice. Some things are better left to the people who experienced them first-hand. But, I have to admit he did an amazing job.
Open Arms
The narrator is a Buddhist and served as an interpreter for the Australians during the war. Open Arms refers to accepting Viet Cong into the Australian army. The narrator is tasked with interviewing a recent convert, Thap. While the narrator does not trust that he has fully rejected the Communists, a film shown in high spirits ultimately shows that everything Thap was told to believe about the West was fundamentally true.
Mr. Green
Mr. Green refers to the narrator’s grandfather’s parrot. In Vietnamese culture, worshipping one’s ancestors is a tradition that is inviolable, yet only a son can do it. When She is invited to pray to her ancestors, her grandfather tells her that being a Catholic is basically evil. After Her grandfather’s passing, Mr. Green is sent to Her. She ends up wringing his neck after Mr. Green’s existence becomes miserable, as she was taught as a little girl.
The Trip Back
The Man’s wife, Mai, finally is reunited with her grandfather, who is allowed to immigrate to the U.S. from Vietnam. The Man drives from Louisiana to Houston to pick him up at the airport. After they are in the car on their way back, the Man realizes that the grandfather doesn’t remember who Mai is. He can fondly remember a car he had in the 1930’s, but insists Chim, Mai’s mother, had no children. Mai is devastated upon their return.
Fairy Tale
Miss Noi is a Vietnamese bargirl from Saigon who falls in love with a GI and moves to Louisiana. After a brief time, their marriage falls apart and she becomes a bargirl in New Orleans, essentially living the same life she fled. One night she meets Mr. Fontenot who loves her and his time in Vietnam, a rare occurrence since most men hated Vietnam. They fall in love and marry and she finally gets her happily ever after.
Crickets
Ted, an immigrant from Vietnam, has immersed himself in America, going by an American name and having an American son. One summer, when he notices his son bored, he suggests they fight crickets, a pastime from when he was a boy. Ted is excited to share something from his background and country. He is most excited about the two types of crickets – fire and charcoal. After a cursory search he realizes Louisiana only has charcoal crickets and his hopes are dashed. His son is more concerned about the grass stains on his shoes.
Letters From My Father
Francine, who goes by Tran in Vietnam because she’s embarrassed by her name, finally moves to the U.S. She spent over a decade away from her white father, being raised by her Vietnamese mother. When she moves to Louisiana, she discovers all the letters her father sent to her and sent the government petitioning for her visa. The things he says about her and the arguments he makes for her paperwork are beautiful and touching.
Love
In Vietnam, He was a spy, able to provide the wrong coordinates to the U.S. troops and bomb any man that got close to His beautiful wife. In Louisiana, he has no such power and decides to try voodoo to deter a man he believes wants his wife. After consulting a low-down papa, He is tasked with throwing a hog’s bladder full of goat poop, blood and a lock of his wife’s hair over the house of the man seducing his wife. The hard part is the goat poop, which he resourcefully gathers at a petting zoo. He tries to throw the bladder but it gets lodged in a tree and He climbs the tree to reclaim it. While up the tree, the man comes out of the house and his wife is there, confirming his suspicions. While recovering in the hospital from falling out of the tree, His wife visits every day and it seems that their marriage will recover after all.
Mid Autumn
She is expecting a baby and delights in talking to her unborn daughter. She tells her daughter about her first husband, Bao, who she fell in love with but died in the war. Her current husband and the father of Her daughter is coming home and while he isn’t her first love, she finds love there too. She hopes the same for her daughter.
In The Clearing
He now lives in the U.S., having left his son and wife behind. He accidentally escaped one night when his Lieutenant told him it was time to go. He thought he was following him to another battle sight but they were escaping by boat. The origin story of his country having been founded by a dragon who fled south from China stays close to his heart.
A Ghost Story
An old man on a bus has a confounding ghost story, if you’ll let him sit next to him. A Major was visiting his lover in town and fell asleep. Needing to be on base by morning, he set out in his car across a mountain besieged by Viet Cong. Out of nowhere, a woman stops his car and causes him to fall into a sleep, preventing him from being killed in a raid further up the road. Several days later, he visits her family and confirms that she is a ghost. Heading home once again, Miss Linh stops his car but this time she eats the Major.
Snow
Miss Giau is 34, single and works at a Chinese restaurant. She accidentally falls asleep on the job, thinking of the first time she saw snow, which wasn’t a pleasant memory. She is awoken by Mr. Cohen watching her sleep. It’s Christmas Eve and Mr. Cohen has ordered take-out since Christmas is not a holiday he celebrates, being Jewish. After sharing their mutual fear of the snow, Mr. Cohen asks her out for New Year’s.
Relic
He was wealthy in Vietnam and his luck continues in the U.S. He owned many beautiful antiques there and here he owns one of John Lennon’s shoes that he was wearing when he was killed. He marvels at owning this shoe. His family is still in Vietnam and the successful narrator is alone with the shoe, searching for where he belongs in America.
Preparation
Her friend, Thuy, has died from cancer and She has been asked to help prepare the body by applying makeup. She resents having to make Thuy beautiful. As teenagers in Vietnam, Thuy, Ly and Her were all friends. Both girls like Ly but Ly eventually chooses Thuy and they are married. Her jealousy festered for decades. She had always thought it was Thuy’s perfect breasts that had attracted and kept Ly, but at the funeral home, She pulls down the sheet and sees that one of Thuy’s breasts is missing. Her jealousy evaporates and she sends Thuy into the spirit world looking beautiful.
The American Couple
She wins a trip to Puerto Vallarta and She and her reluctant husband head south. She is hoping the trip will help rekindle the romance between Her and her successful husband. She prides herself on her observation skills. On the trip, they meet an American couple where the husband is a Vietnam vet and his mind is still clearly on the War. The two couples head to the former set of Night Of The Iguana. While there, Vinh and Frank are consumed by their pasts and decide to play war with rocks. It ends in blows and both couples heading home in separate taxis. In a rare moment of abandon, Vinh goes parasailing, signaling a shift in energy that She can’t wait to share in.
A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain
Dao is an old man who is visited by Ho Chi Minh one night. Mr. Le, the publisher of a small Vietnamese newspaper, was shot a week ago because he said that the Vietnamese should begin to work with the Communists. Dao suspects his son and grandson were somehow involved in the killing and he shares his suspicions with Ho Chi Minh, while reliving the past.
Salem
Ho Chi Minh famously loved Salem cigarettes and our narrator does as well. He steels Salems off the body he killed with a homemade grenade. Wrapped inside the cellophane of the cigarettes is a picture of the dead man’s sweetheart. At the end of the war, the Vietnamese government asks for any items taken off of dead G.I. so they can count their dead. He decides to give back the picture, rather than keep it.
Missing
An American G.I. defected from the military and made a life for himself in Vietnam, creating a beautiful family around himself. He finds a picture of him in a newspaper. The American government is still looking for him, which brings up a lot of buried feelings from the war.
Looking Forward: Perfume River
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