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Elevator in Sài Gòn
A suspenseful novel that is part detective story, historical romance, postcolonial ghost story and a biting satire of life in a communist state.
A Vietnamese woman living in Paris travels back to Sài Gòn for her estranged mother’s funeral. Her brother had recently built a new house and staged a grotesquely lavish ceremony for their mother to inaugurate what was rumoured to be the first elevator in a private home in the country. But shortly after the ceremony, in the middle of the night, their mother dies after mysteriously falling down the elevator shaft. Following the funeral, the daughter becomes increasingly fascinated with her family’s history, and begins to investigate and track an enigmatic figure, Paul Polotsky, who emerges from her mother’s notebook.
Like an amateur sleuth, she trails Polotsky through the streets of Paris, sneaking behind him as he goes about his usual routines. Meanwhile, she researches her mother’s past – zigzagging across France and Vietnam – trying to find clues to the spiralling, deepening questions her mother left behind unanswered – and perhaps unanswerable.
A Vietnamese woman living in Paris travels back to Sài Gòn for her estranged mother’s funeral. Her brother had recently built a new house and staged a grotesquely lavish ceremony for their mother to inaugurate what was rumoured to be the first elevator in a private home in the country. But shortly after the ceremony, in the middle of the night, their mother dies after mysteriously falling down the elevator shaft. Following the funeral, the daughter becomes increasingly fascinated with her family’s history, and begins to investigate and track an enigmatic figure, Paul Polotsky, who emerges from her mother’s notebook.
Like an amateur sleuth, she trails Polotsky through the streets of Paris, sneaking behind him as he goes about his usual routines. Meanwhile, she researches her mother’s past – zigzagging across France and Vietnam – trying to find clues to the spiralling, deepening questions her mother left behind unanswered – and perhaps unanswerable.
208 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2013
84 people are currently reading
2309 people want to read
About the author
Thuận
17 books138 followersNhà văn Thuận tên thật là Đoàn Ánh Thuận, sinh 1967 tại Hà Nội, hiện sống tại Paris, Pháp. Học đại học ở Nga, cao học ở Pháp. Con dâu của nhà thơ Trần Dần, chồng là họa sĩ Trần Trọng Vũ.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
November 23, 2025
"My mother died on a night of torrential rain. A night of unseasonal rain. In such a freak accident that our language probably had no word to name."
So begins the story. How did she die? A freak accident, falling down the elevator shaft? Murder? Suicide?
The narrative is in first person; we never really get the first name of the narrator, and only her last name near the end of the novel. We get first names for her son (Mike) and brother (Mai). The story moves between Saigon, Hanoi, and Paris, between past and present. Details of the narrator's life and of her parents' lives are revealed slowly, bit by bit. Much remains hidden; the family is dominated by secrets, unknown to each other, unknown to us. And throughout, the narrator pursues the elusive Paul Polotsky. Who is he? Why does she want to find him? Are we reading Moby-Dick? Is Paul Polotsky the Great White Whale? If you want to know, you will have to read it.
The mother's funeral is garish and bizarre, like something Evelyn Waugh might have written if he had set The Loved One in Asia.
There are lots of interesting bits about life in Hanoi under the communist regime, life in Saigon in its contemporary capitalist phase. About the life of the Vietnamese diaspora in Paris. For those like me, whose knowledge of Vietnam consists of half-remembered news stories of Khe Sahn and the fall of Saigon, with my draft card riding uncomfortably in my pocket, it is a different perspective.
Food plays an important role. From the funeral buffet near the beginning to the narrator's language students' obsession with Vietnamese food to the narrator's many noshes throughout. Always Vietnamese food. The obsession of the expatriate with her native foods, even in Paris, capital of haute cuisine. Nothing says home like our childhood foods!
So begins the story. How did she die? A freak accident, falling down the elevator shaft? Murder? Suicide?
The narrative is in first person; we never really get the first name of the narrator, and only her last name near the end of the novel. We get first names for her son (Mike) and brother (Mai). The story moves between Saigon, Hanoi, and Paris, between past and present. Details of the narrator's life and of her parents' lives are revealed slowly, bit by bit. Much remains hidden; the family is dominated by secrets, unknown to each other, unknown to us. And throughout, the narrator pursues the elusive Paul Polotsky. Who is he? Why does she want to find him? Are we reading Moby-Dick? Is Paul Polotsky the Great White Whale? If you want to know, you will have to read it.
The mother's funeral is garish and bizarre, like something Evelyn Waugh might have written if he had set The Loved One in Asia.
There are lots of interesting bits about life in Hanoi under the communist regime, life in Saigon in its contemporary capitalist phase. About the life of the Vietnamese diaspora in Paris. For those like me, whose knowledge of Vietnam consists of half-remembered news stories of Khe Sahn and the fall of Saigon, with my draft card riding uncomfortably in my pocket, it is a different perspective.
Food plays an important role. From the funeral buffet near the beginning to the narrator's language students' obsession with Vietnamese food to the narrator's many noshes throughout. Always Vietnamese food. The obsession of the expatriate with her native foods, even in Paris, capital of haute cuisine. Nothing says home like our childhood foods!
May 10, 2025
“𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮 𝘯𝘦𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘺𝘢𝘸𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘣𝘺𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘴𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥.”
Tied between places, tied between faces, a countenance lost in trance, navigating through the fog of grief to find clarity in passing out the pieces of history. The act of remembering is not villainized or victimized into roles. It is neither friend nor foe. It is just part of the living we must do to keep ourselves sane.
Sparse in all directions, driftwards in ways memory reaches us, calls us back to things forgotten, to give mountainous terrain, cityscape-shape to how we construct our identity from past. How much of your past makes up you? How much of you is found in memory? How do you see yourself when you remember things? In the first person? As a nebula in consciousness? Heartless? What emotions are removed to move yourself through different tenses?
Not much happens here. It’s all in presence. Mere impressions. All faint. Like drawing childlike nothings in the breath upon mirrors and windows. There but not really there, only if you’re really looking.
Tied between places, tied between faces, a countenance lost in trance, navigating through the fog of grief to find clarity in passing out the pieces of history. The act of remembering is not villainized or victimized into roles. It is neither friend nor foe. It is just part of the living we must do to keep ourselves sane.
Sparse in all directions, driftwards in ways memory reaches us, calls us back to things forgotten, to give mountainous terrain, cityscape-shape to how we construct our identity from past. How much of your past makes up you? How much of you is found in memory? How do you see yourself when you remember things? In the first person? As a nebula in consciousness? Heartless? What emotions are removed to move yourself through different tenses?
Not much happens here. It’s all in presence. Mere impressions. All faint. Like drawing childlike nothings in the breath upon mirrors and windows. There but not really there, only if you’re really looking.
October 1, 2024
Tedious. Dnf.
July 30, 2025
2 stars = Meh. Just ok.
I selected this because it is a banned book (nothing is more enticing to read than a banned book) and due to my endeavor to read more books set in Vietnam that are written by Vietnamese authors. Maybe it was the translation, or maybe it is simply how it was written, but this book was dull and unengaging, with no suspense or cares given about the mystery.
The plot was uncaptivating and the writing did it no favors. Some paragraphs are a page long. The prose is written in 1st person and comes across as stilted while the story feels fragmented. Lots of “I went here. Then I did this. Then I did that,” type of storytelling. Here is an example of how the prose is flat and repetitive so you can judge for yourself. It is from page 10, so should not be considered a spoiler.
“The coroner had confirmed that the time of death was two a.m. So what could Mother have been doing from nine p.m. to two a.m. on the top floor?”
I said nothing. I too was baffled as to what my mother could possibly do on the top floor from nine p.m. to two a.m. What can you do on a top floor from nine p.m. to two a.m.? What is there to do on a top floor from nine p.m. to two a.m.?
I first considered DNF’ing right there on page 10 but soldiered on because of the dearth of books I have available that match my Vietnamese reading goal, and because the novel is fairly short. I regret reading to the end as the payoff was not worth it. Completely forgettable, and not one I would recommend unfortunately.
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First Sentence: My mother died on a night of torrential rain.
Favorite Quote: The ones who are closest to us are always the ones we pay the least attention to.
I selected this because it is a banned book (nothing is more enticing to read than a banned book) and due to my endeavor to read more books set in Vietnam that are written by Vietnamese authors. Maybe it was the translation, or maybe it is simply how it was written, but this book was dull and unengaging, with no suspense or cares given about the mystery.
The plot was uncaptivating and the writing did it no favors. Some paragraphs are a page long. The prose is written in 1st person and comes across as stilted while the story feels fragmented. Lots of “I went here. Then I did this. Then I did that,” type of storytelling. Here is an example of how the prose is flat and repetitive so you can judge for yourself. It is from page 10, so should not be considered a spoiler.
“The coroner had confirmed that the time of death was two a.m. So what could Mother have been doing from nine p.m. to two a.m. on the top floor?”
I said nothing. I too was baffled as to what my mother could possibly do on the top floor from nine p.m. to two a.m. What can you do on a top floor from nine p.m. to two a.m.? What is there to do on a top floor from nine p.m. to two a.m.?
I first considered DNF’ing right there on page 10 but soldiered on because of the dearth of books I have available that match my Vietnamese reading goal, and because the novel is fairly short. I regret reading to the end as the payoff was not worth it. Completely forgettable, and not one I would recommend unfortunately.
-----
First Sentence: My mother died on a night of torrential rain.
Favorite Quote: The ones who are closest to us are always the ones we pay the least attention to.
March 18, 2020
đoạn đầu hay ở giữa bị lê thê đến cuối lại hay nhiều đoạn xúc động
December 27, 2018
3,5* Chị Thuận lúc nào cũng thông minh và hóm hỉnh. Chau chuốt từng từ từng câu. Mình rất hi vọng chị sẽ viết một cuốn 300 trang rút gọn thành 100 trang, bớt loanh quanh. Rất có thể lúc đó sẽ có một đứa con lai giữa Kundera và Modiano.
August 29, 2024
It was so great to buddy read ELEVATOR IN SÀI GÒN by Thuan translated by Nguyen An Lý with Kate this month for Women in Translation month. We both enjoyed this novel! I really liked the striking opening sentence: “My mother died on a night of torrential rain.” I liked how this novel revolved around themes of family and history with a touch of mystery. I really enjoyed the multiple settings and the writing style.
Thank you to Bookhug Press for my gifted review copy!
Thank you to Bookhug Press for my gifted review copy!
July 4, 2017
Không quá cuốn hút
Mình đã đọc Chinatown của Thuận nên mới nhất quyết mua cuốn này.
Nếu đọc Chinatown xong đọc cuốn này thì thấy không đã, bởi vì đọc Chinatown mình ko dứt được chút nào, cuốn này thì đọc lướt nhiều đoạn quá.
Thuận vẫn lồng ghép đời sống chính trị Cộng hòa vào gia đình nhỏ của mình với đôi vợ chồng lí lịch đẹp, lúc nào cũng văn mình người nói thì người kia im lặng, rồi họ chia tay cũng đơn giản chỉ vì lí do mà suốt mười năm rồi người chồng băn khoăn nhưng bh mới nói dồ n nặn mà nói ra.
Rồi những con người Paris hoan lạc, những mảnh đời không éo le đen tình thì vận mạt, không vận mạt thì sa đọa. Những người Việt lỡ bước ở Paris, yêu một ai đó ngoại quốc, hoặc lỡ tình một đêm với ai đó,... nói chung chẳng mảnh đời nào có vẻ trọn vẹn được cả.
Cái chết của trong thang máy của người mẹ, cuối cùng, mình vẫn không hiểu
Mối quan hệ giữa Kai và "tôi" mình vẫn chưa rõ
Và đứa trẻ Mike có vẻ cũng không đóng vai trò quá lớn, mình cũng chưa rõ là con ai~~
Nói chung, dù văn phong ngắt câu ngắt đoạn, và lối kể theo trình tự thời gian thì mình vẫn không thể luận được hết những "uẩn khúc " trong truyện.
có một đoạn rất đặc sắc về chú Điều và con gái, về quãng 10 năm chú gọi về là con gái đều bắt máy, chú cất giọng alo là con gái chú dập máy, nhưng cái sự dập máy, im lặng có hàng bao nhiêu ý nghĩa. Trải bao năm, vẫn luôn là con gái chú nhấc máy rồi dập, bao năm bao lần li dị rồi có con rồi bệnh tật vẫn con gái chú nhấc máy rồi dập máy, bao năm rồi vẫn số điện thoại cũ dù chuyển chỗ ở, thì việc đầu tiên cũng là mắc điện thoại.
...
Có lẽ do mình đọc Chinatown rồi nên đến với cuốn này lại nhiều kì vọng, không phải không hay mà hấp lực không mạnh như Chinatown nữa.
Mình đã đọc Chinatown của Thuận nên mới nhất quyết mua cuốn này.
Nếu đọc Chinatown xong đọc cuốn này thì thấy không đã, bởi vì đọc Chinatown mình ko dứt được chút nào, cuốn này thì đọc lướt nhiều đoạn quá.
Thuận vẫn lồng ghép đời sống chính trị Cộng hòa vào gia đình nhỏ của mình với đôi vợ chồng lí lịch đẹp, lúc nào cũng văn mình người nói thì người kia im lặng, rồi họ chia tay cũng đơn giản chỉ vì lí do mà suốt mười năm rồi người chồng băn khoăn nhưng bh mới nói dồ n nặn mà nói ra.
Rồi những con người Paris hoan lạc, những mảnh đời không éo le đen tình thì vận mạt, không vận mạt thì sa đọa. Những người Việt lỡ bước ở Paris, yêu một ai đó ngoại quốc, hoặc lỡ tình một đêm với ai đó,... nói chung chẳng mảnh đời nào có vẻ trọn vẹn được cả.
Cái chết của trong thang máy của người mẹ, cuối cùng, mình vẫn không hiểu
Mối quan hệ giữa Kai và "tôi" mình vẫn chưa rõ
Và đứa trẻ Mike có vẻ cũng không đóng vai trò quá lớn, mình cũng chưa rõ là con ai~~
Nói chung, dù văn phong ngắt câu ngắt đoạn, và lối kể theo trình tự thời gian thì mình vẫn không thể luận được hết những "uẩn khúc " trong truyện.
có một đoạn rất đặc sắc về chú Điều và con gái, về quãng 10 năm chú gọi về là con gái đều bắt máy, chú cất giọng alo là con gái chú dập máy, nhưng cái sự dập máy, im lặng có hàng bao nhiêu ý nghĩa. Trải bao năm, vẫn luôn là con gái chú nhấc máy rồi dập, bao năm bao lần li dị rồi có con rồi bệnh tật vẫn con gái chú nhấc máy rồi dập máy, bao năm rồi vẫn số điện thoại cũ dù chuyển chỗ ở, thì việc đầu tiên cũng là mắc điện thoại.
...
Có lẽ do mình đọc Chinatown rồi nên đến với cuốn này lại nhiều kì vọng, không phải không hay mà hấp lực không mạnh như Chinatown nữa.
November 22, 2024
another LCB book club - another read I probably would have never encountered otherwise. tbh I would have lived a fine life without it BUT it did have some beautiful prose and I really did love the way the anxieties of the main character manifested themselves through creating storylines about passing characters (cat storyline being the highlight). unreliable narrator or reliably narrating the fictions that live in our head?
November 20, 2023
Qua hết các ngõ ngách Sài Gòn, rồi Paris, rồi quay về Sài Gòn, rồi lại Paris...
Đọc sách ở Takê, sau một giấc ngủ ngắn. Mở trang đầu tiên vào khoảng ba giờ chiều. Trời sập tối vì chuẩn bị mưa. Vừa đọc vừa tự mường tượng một hành trình khác, từ quán cà phê trong hẻm nhỏ Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm hướng ra Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, quẹo phải Đinh Tiên Hoàng, quẹo phải Trương Hán Siêu, băng ngang chợ Đa Kao… Thấy mình len lỏi giữa những người là người, giữa hỗn hợp mùi rất nồng bỗng dịu xuống vì nắng tắt, và bầu trời nhợt nhạt bị các tòa cao ốc cắt vụn thành nhiều mảnh bỗng liền mạch, ngăn ngắt xanh trở lại.
Mình đã đọc Thang máy Sài Gòn với một nỗi háo hức: Đi tới tận cùng sự thật, tìm cho ra câu trả lời sau chót. Khi còn trẻ, mình luôn chờ mong một thứ gì hữu hình, rõ ràng và có thể nắm bắt. Nhưng trên đời có tồn tại thứ gì như thế không? Có lẽ tất cả đều là sự thật. Hoặc có lẽ làm gì có sự thật nào. Ở điểm cuối của cuộc hành trình, mình chợt thấy kiệt sức như vừa bỏ ra thời gian cả đời người chỉ để quẩn quanh trong vòng vây chật hẹp. Sau cùng, sự thật không còn quan trọng nữa, mình chỉ còn nhớ nỗi buồn đẹp đẽ và vô vọng, nhớ những khổ đau mơ hồ, những kỷ niệm bị bôi xóa, và những câu thơ của Trần Dần hiện lên, “vẫn tìm”…
Đọc sách ở Takê, sau một giấc ngủ ngắn. Mở trang đầu tiên vào khoảng ba giờ chiều. Trời sập tối vì chuẩn bị mưa. Vừa đọc vừa tự mường tượng một hành trình khác, từ quán cà phê trong hẻm nhỏ Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm hướng ra Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, quẹo phải Đinh Tiên Hoàng, quẹo phải Trương Hán Siêu, băng ngang chợ Đa Kao… Thấy mình len lỏi giữa những người là người, giữa hỗn hợp mùi rất nồng bỗng dịu xuống vì nắng tắt, và bầu trời nhợt nhạt bị các tòa cao ốc cắt vụn thành nhiều mảnh bỗng liền mạch, ngăn ngắt xanh trở lại.
Mình đã đọc Thang máy Sài Gòn với một nỗi háo hức: Đi tới tận cùng sự thật, tìm cho ra câu trả lời sau chót. Khi còn trẻ, mình luôn chờ mong một thứ gì hữu hình, rõ ràng và có thể nắm bắt. Nhưng trên đời có tồn tại thứ gì như thế không? Có lẽ tất cả đều là sự thật. Hoặc có lẽ làm gì có sự thật nào. Ở điểm cuối của cuộc hành trình, mình chợt thấy kiệt sức như vừa bỏ ra thời gian cả đời người chỉ để quẩn quanh trong vòng vây chật hẹp. Sau cùng, sự thật không còn quan trọng nữa, mình chỉ còn nhớ nỗi buồn đẹp đẽ và vô vọng, nhớ những khổ đau mơ hồ, những kỷ niệm bị bôi xóa, và những câu thơ của Trần Dần hiện lên, “vẫn tìm”…
February 1, 2025
Enjoyed my time with this one.
April 23, 2022
3.65/5
Thang máy Sài Gòn mở đầu với một bí ẩn "không hiểu tại sao buổi khánh thành, thang máy chạy êm, ba hôm sau vẫn chạy êm, sau tai nạn vẫn chạy êm, thế mà mẹ lại bị rơi vào khoảng trống, từ tầng thượng xuống tận tầng trệt, nơi hộp thang nằm lì như không nhận được lệnh nào.” Và rồi cái đám tang của mẹ lại được Thuận miêu tả tỉnh bơ như bộ phim Hollywood, với bao phân cảnh hoành tráng, với bao "diễn viên chuyên nghiệp", từ anh trai Mai - người chủ trì đến những vị khách "tai to mặt lớn", hay chính cả chính "tôi" - người con gái của mẹ.
Truyện cứ lặp đi lặp lại giữa Sài Gòn - Paris - Hà Nội những năm sau chiến tranh, mở ra một không gian rộng lớn và nhuốm màu hoài niệm, cùng văn phong trào phúng, lành lạnh của Thuận khiến mình dễ dàng liên tưởng đến những khung cảnh ấy trong quá khứ.
Ngoài ra, mình đặc biệt ấn tượng với cách tác giả khai thác tâm lý nhân vật, bởi nó quá đỗi sắc sảo và giàu tâm tưởng, nhưng việc mạch truyện bị viết cho lan man và thiếu tính logic cũng làm giảm đáng kể sự hứng thú của mình so với phần đầu của truyện.
.
“Thi thể của cụ nhà rơi từ tầng thượng xuống tầng trệt nát bấy, chỉ còn mỗi khuôn mặt là nguyên vẹn.”
.
“Trí nhớ của chúng ta có những khe nhỏ li ti mới nhìn thì tưởng là vô hại nhưng thật ra vô cùng nguy hiểm, chúng có khả năng một lúc nào đó chợt phình rất to và nuốt chửng những điều mà chúng ta thề sẽ ghi lòng tạc dạ”.
.
“Huệ chỉ cần một người chồng cho đỡ phải mua chăn.”
Thang máy Sài Gòn mở đầu với một bí ẩn "không hiểu tại sao buổi khánh thành, thang máy chạy êm, ba hôm sau vẫn chạy êm, sau tai nạn vẫn chạy êm, thế mà mẹ lại bị rơi vào khoảng trống, từ tầng thượng xuống tận tầng trệt, nơi hộp thang nằm lì như không nhận được lệnh nào.” Và rồi cái đám tang của mẹ lại được Thuận miêu tả tỉnh bơ như bộ phim Hollywood, với bao phân cảnh hoành tráng, với bao "diễn viên chuyên nghiệp", từ anh trai Mai - người chủ trì đến những vị khách "tai to mặt lớn", hay chính cả chính "tôi" - người con gái của mẹ.
Truyện cứ lặp đi lặp lại giữa Sài Gòn - Paris - Hà Nội những năm sau chiến tranh, mở ra một không gian rộng lớn và nhuốm màu hoài niệm, cùng văn phong trào phúng, lành lạnh của Thuận khiến mình dễ dàng liên tưởng đến những khung cảnh ấy trong quá khứ.
Ngoài ra, mình đặc biệt ấn tượng với cách tác giả khai thác tâm lý nhân vật, bởi nó quá đỗi sắc sảo và giàu tâm tưởng, nhưng việc mạch truyện bị viết cho lan man và thiếu tính logic cũng làm giảm đáng kể sự hứng thú của mình so với phần đầu của truyện.
.
“Thi thể của cụ nhà rơi từ tầng thượng xuống tầng trệt nát bấy, chỉ còn mỗi khuôn mặt là nguyên vẹn.”
.
“Trí nhớ của chúng ta có những khe nhỏ li ti mới nhìn thì tưởng là vô hại nhưng thật ra vô cùng nguy hiểm, chúng có khả năng một lúc nào đó chợt phình rất to và nuốt chửng những điều mà chúng ta thề sẽ ghi lòng tạc dạ”.
.
“Huệ chỉ cần một người chồng cho đỡ phải mua chăn.”
October 8, 2024
Following the sudden and strange death of her mother, our narrator sets out on a journey across Paris, Saigon, and Hanoi in an effort to piece together the unknown life and history of this woman she realizes she may not have known all that well. Think Ferrante’s Troubling Love, but less chaotic and sinister.
Between teaching Vietnamese language classes and serving as an interpreter for her wealthy brother visiting from Saigon, our narrator stalks various people across the streets of Paris and fills the holes in her knowledge by envisioning detailed scenes of unknown accuracy taking place across the past and present. Throughout the book, Thuận reveals truths about the day to day lives of those living in the North and South of Vietnam at various points throughout its recent history, from the end of French colonialism in the 50’s to reunification in the 70’s, as well as the “modern” (2004) expat experience.
I love the fusing of a personal and political story, particularly when set in other countries. The personal sucks me in and I end up learning so much about life during a particular time and place. I was captivated by Thuận’s writing, it was both poignant and humorous, lucid and playful.
It’s a novel that seeks explanations for unanswerable questions. But I found that for me, in my experience reading, and for the narrator, in her search for the truth, the journey was worth more than the destination.
Between teaching Vietnamese language classes and serving as an interpreter for her wealthy brother visiting from Saigon, our narrator stalks various people across the streets of Paris and fills the holes in her knowledge by envisioning detailed scenes of unknown accuracy taking place across the past and present. Throughout the book, Thuận reveals truths about the day to day lives of those living in the North and South of Vietnam at various points throughout its recent history, from the end of French colonialism in the 50’s to reunification in the 70’s, as well as the “modern” (2004) expat experience.
I love the fusing of a personal and political story, particularly when set in other countries. The personal sucks me in and I end up learning so much about life during a particular time and place. I was captivated by Thuận’s writing, it was both poignant and humorous, lucid and playful.
It’s a novel that seeks explanations for unanswerable questions. But I found that for me, in my experience reading, and for the narrator, in her search for the truth, the journey was worth more than the destination.
February 17, 2020
Thực ra cuốn này chỉ được mình rate 3 sao thôi, nhưng vì mình thích nên để 4 sao đấy :D nửa đầu cuốn sách viết tốt hơn nửa sau. 1/3 đầu hơn hẳn 2/3 còn lại. Chuyện phi lý, kết cấu chưa chặt nhưng mình thích vì nó chạm đến những vấn đề mình quan tâm, dù câu chuyện có thể được khai thác kĩ hơn.
November 8, 2025
i read most of this on public transportation in japan and south korea and i think i missed like 20% of the book but i really enjoyed it anyway
September 24, 2025
I feel like the description of this book gave me a very different impression than reading it did, but i really enjoyed it. the writing was a little hard to focus on at the beginning, but you get used to the style. It has a weirdly dreamy vibe? hard to explain
Read
August 31, 2024finished just before the end of women in translation month wooo !!!
it took me a little while to get into this. the beginning took some focus for me to navigate — probably a combination of the non-linear storytelling style and the references to vietnamese history/politics that i was relatively unfamiliar with. i also think the book just has a bit of a slower start. not in a bad way — it’s an eerie atmospheric slow, rather than a boring slow. but once i started to get a feel for the book’s rhythm, with all its different people and places and times, i really started to enjoy the wild goose chase.
at the centre of this book is the narrator’s mother — the strange circumstances of her death, but, more than that, the mystery of her life. it is, of course, not a mystery novel in the traditional sense, but the narrator’s questions about her mother’s relationships, desires, politics, and identity kind of become this core question for sleuthing and solving, embodied in the mysterious figure of paul polotsky.
overall, this was a great read. it got me thinking and turning pages and wanting to learn more about vietnam’s history as well. really glad i stuck with this one.
it took me a little while to get into this. the beginning took some focus for me to navigate — probably a combination of the non-linear storytelling style and the references to vietnamese history/politics that i was relatively unfamiliar with. i also think the book just has a bit of a slower start. not in a bad way — it’s an eerie atmospheric slow, rather than a boring slow. but once i started to get a feel for the book’s rhythm, with all its different people and places and times, i really started to enjoy the wild goose chase.
at the centre of this book is the narrator’s mother — the strange circumstances of her death, but, more than that, the mystery of her life. it is, of course, not a mystery novel in the traditional sense, but the narrator’s questions about her mother’s relationships, desires, politics, and identity kind of become this core question for sleuthing and solving, embodied in the mysterious figure of paul polotsky.
overall, this was a great read. it got me thinking and turning pages and wanting to learn more about vietnam’s history as well. really glad i stuck with this one.
November 8, 2024
I think, at its heart, this is a story about never really being able to know others, even those closest to us. Each has an inner world of thoughts or secrets that remain for the sole audience of oneself. And when someone passes, that knowledge is gone, forever unknown or, at most, guessed at by others. This theme is carried through in layered nuance from an individual level (personal actions, motivations, & relationships) to a societal level (having live in or perhaps perform under a restrictive government) to a world level (life as an emigre or expat). I enjoyed those parallels being layered into the story.
While the beginning & ending are bookends of literal & metaphorical hard landings, the bulk of the novel has a lot of unknowns, including flights of fantasy & unreliable narrators. The semi-episodic nature of the chapters adds to the disorientation, imo.
It's both clever & also just out of reach. An interesting read.
While the beginning & ending are bookends of literal & metaphorical hard landings, the bulk of the novel has a lot of unknowns, including flights of fantasy & unreliable narrators. The semi-episodic nature of the chapters adds to the disorientation, imo.
It's both clever & also just out of reach. An interesting read.
January 1, 2025
3.5 stars
In some ways, this book has the same vibe as The Coin by Yasmin Zagreb. I enjoyed it!
In some ways, this book has the same vibe as The Coin by Yasmin Zagreb. I enjoyed it!
July 10, 2015
4 for the story. 5 and even 100* for Thuan. Extraordinary!!!
I wish I discovered her writings sooner. Sorry Thuan, I thought you're someone blatantly decent, empty and tasteless like other popular Vietnamese female writers (hmmm all of them!). Please take my serious apologies for those moments when I passed by bookshelves with a hatred glance at your books.
Such an exceptionally rare and beautiful sense of humor nowadays. It's like I've just found a soulmate who could write down all these thoughts for me. Thuan is the only Vietnamese writer worth reading and admiring in Vietnam these days. I don't see anyone else who I would willingly and eagerly to buy their books like Thuan's before.
I wish I discovered her writings sooner. Sorry Thuan, I thought you're someone blatantly decent, empty and tasteless like other popular Vietnamese female writers (hmmm all of them!). Please take my serious apologies for those moments when I passed by bookshelves with a hatred glance at your books.
Such an exceptionally rare and beautiful sense of humor nowadays. It's like I've just found a soulmate who could write down all these thoughts for me. Thuan is the only Vietnamese writer worth reading and admiring in Vietnam these days. I don't see anyone else who I would willingly and eagerly to buy their books like Thuan's before.
November 24, 2025
reading this in translation as a native speaker felt sacrilegious... will read the original version when i'm home
December 5, 2024
15 years after she left Saigon, the narrator returned to the unwelcoming home from Paris to attend her mother’s funeral. The old woman’s fatal fall into the elevator well merely days after its installation at her elder son Mai’s luxurious residence — the first in Sai Gon’s residential building history — didn’t dim, but rather instigated Mai’s merchant’s ego to film it to the level no less dramatic than a Hollywood film. Following the funeral, the narrator found a never-before-seen note carefully stitched inside her late mother’s pillow. What turned out to be an unknown affair between her mother, known among her Communist comrades as “Mrs. Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee” and “Mrs. Vice Head of the Local Civil Unit” and an obscure Russian expatriate in France named Paul Polosky, whom she met briefly while imprisoned, would compel the narrator to search the entire Paris for his identity.
Chasing a never-told family history around Điện Biên Phủ from fifty years later, the story peeks into the unspoken cavity between state demands of absolute loyalty and personal desire that is mediated through a few pairs of conflict of intimate times: first, a lawfully recognized marriage of “Mrs. Socialist New Wife, performed for twenty years opposite my father” and a secret, unfruiting admiration transgressing national and racial boundaries; second, mother and her classmate while in Paris; third, the old neighbor’s publicly known plan to visit Cuba and his secret abortion of that plan to flee to France, not known even to his family but to the narrator’s mother.
Triangulating Saigon, Ha Noi, and Paris, Thuận writes of unacknowledged lived experiences enmeshed in post-colonial and communist governance. While the narrator herself only had a vague memory of the terror of communist rule as a child watching her family splitting and disavowing one another, her delirium of finding out Paul Polosky’s true identity is nonetheless the living result of cumulative historical trauma on which both colonial violence and communist campaign are inscribed. The story reaches underneath the thought campaign of the omniscient and omnipresent Vietnamese state. On the one hand penetrates the interstices of everyday life—the government’s agents, of which the narrator’s mother was one, knowing more private matters than family members do. On the other hand, the minds and hearts that the state claimed to have illuminated 24/7 without shadow hid secret affections and desires in overlooked corners that only time would elicit. The state’s obsession with developing an all-knowing apparatus overseeing its citizens at home and abroad was built on its fear (of the fact) that it might never know enough. Refracted from the narrator’s self-exile isn’t just a posthumous investigation of an affair, but an overflow of intimate times that don’t corroborate the campaign time.
Chasing a never-told family history around Điện Biên Phủ from fifty years later, the story peeks into the unspoken cavity between state demands of absolute loyalty and personal desire that is mediated through a few pairs of conflict of intimate times: first, a lawfully recognized marriage of “Mrs. Socialist New Wife, performed for twenty years opposite my father” and a secret, unfruiting admiration transgressing national and racial boundaries; second, mother and her classmate while in Paris; third, the old neighbor’s publicly known plan to visit Cuba and his secret abortion of that plan to flee to France, not known even to his family but to the narrator’s mother.
Triangulating Saigon, Ha Noi, and Paris, Thuận writes of unacknowledged lived experiences enmeshed in post-colonial and communist governance. While the narrator herself only had a vague memory of the terror of communist rule as a child watching her family splitting and disavowing one another, her delirium of finding out Paul Polosky’s true identity is nonetheless the living result of cumulative historical trauma on which both colonial violence and communist campaign are inscribed. The story reaches underneath the thought campaign of the omniscient and omnipresent Vietnamese state. On the one hand penetrates the interstices of everyday life—the government’s agents, of which the narrator’s mother was one, knowing more private matters than family members do. On the other hand, the minds and hearts that the state claimed to have illuminated 24/7 without shadow hid secret affections and desires in overlooked corners that only time would elicit. The state’s obsession with developing an all-knowing apparatus overseeing its citizens at home and abroad was built on its fear (of the fact) that it might never know enough. Refracted from the narrator’s self-exile isn’t just a posthumous investigation of an affair, but an overflow of intimate times that don’t corroborate the campaign time.
January 23, 2025
(3,5)
En kvinna dör då hon ramlar ner i ett hisschakt i sin sons nybyggda hus i Saigon. När dottern kommer hem från Frankrike för att närvara vid begravningen är det första gången hon träffar sin bror på många år, och i städandet efter sin mor hittar hon en 50 år gammal bild av en okänd västerländsk man bland hennes saker.
Försöken att ta reda på vem mannen är för henne dels genom Vietnams historia, från slutet av kolonialtiden, över Vietnamkriget och det nya kommunistiska samhället in i nutidens kapitalism; dels till hennes nuvarande hem i Paris där hon iscensätter en utredning komplett med skuggning och biljakter.
Någon deckare är det dock inte, jag läser det snarare som en lek med den genren för att tala om mysterier och hemligheter som är mycket mer ordinära och familjenära. Den kvinnliga berättaren som boken igenom förblir namnlös har dessutom en tendens att baserat på den knapphändiga fakta hon får fram brodera ut fantasier om vad som kan ha skett, något som på sätt och vis lägger ett ytterligare dunkel över berättelsen.
Inblicken i det vietnamesiska samhället nu och då är spännande och jag tycker mig också ana att den geografiska aspekten kring nord och syd, representerade av Saigon och Hanoi, har viss betydelse som kanske delvis går mig förbi.
En kvinna dör då hon ramlar ner i ett hisschakt i sin sons nybyggda hus i Saigon. När dottern kommer hem från Frankrike för att närvara vid begravningen är det första gången hon träffar sin bror på många år, och i städandet efter sin mor hittar hon en 50 år gammal bild av en okänd västerländsk man bland hennes saker.
Försöken att ta reda på vem mannen är för henne dels genom Vietnams historia, från slutet av kolonialtiden, över Vietnamkriget och det nya kommunistiska samhället in i nutidens kapitalism; dels till hennes nuvarande hem i Paris där hon iscensätter en utredning komplett med skuggning och biljakter.
Någon deckare är det dock inte, jag läser det snarare som en lek med den genren för att tala om mysterier och hemligheter som är mycket mer ordinära och familjenära. Den kvinnliga berättaren som boken igenom förblir namnlös har dessutom en tendens att baserat på den knapphändiga fakta hon får fram brodera ut fantasier om vad som kan ha skett, något som på sätt och vis lägger ett ytterligare dunkel över berättelsen.
Inblicken i det vietnamesiska samhället nu och då är spännande och jag tycker mig också ana att den geografiska aspekten kring nord och syd, representerade av Saigon och Hanoi, har viss betydelse som kanske delvis går mig förbi.
March 11, 2025
There was lots that was interesting about this book and I was always curious about where things were going when I picked it up, but nothing kept me reading or going back to it particularly. It was slow and semi-absurd and nice to lie back and think about once I've finished it, thinking about the whole tone of the book and the anxious narrator who felt she didn't know her mother, but I can't overly say I enjoyed it.
August 20, 2024
I actually quite liked this weird ending and enjoyed the pacing for this - I know nothing of Vietnamese history so taking this as a chance to learn was nice
May 15, 2025
Nej, jag vet inte jag.
May 30, 2025
Elliptical and sometimes lyrical…and even humorous at times—not what I was expecting from a novel that begins with the narrator’s mother plunging to her death via the eponymous Elevator in Saigon.
June 10, 2025
AWESOME !!!!!
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