Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains

by Yasuko Thanh

Winner of the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize

Winner of the 2017 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize Finalist for the 2017 Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award

How can you stand up to tyranny when your own identity is in turmoil?

Vietnam is a haunted country, and Dr. Nguyen Georges-Minh is a haunted man. In 1908, the French rule Saigon, but uneasily; dissent whispers through the corridors of the city. Each day, more Vietnamese rebels are paraded through the streets towards the gleaming blade of the guillotine, now a permanent fixture in the main square and a gruesome warning to those who would attempt to challenge colonial rule.
     It is a warning that Georges-Minh will not heed. A Vietnamese national and Paris-educated physician, he is obsessed by guilt over his material wealth and nurses a secret loathing for the French connections that have made him rich, even as they have torn his beloved country apart.
     With a close-knit group of his friends calling themselves the Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains, Georges-Minh plots revenge on the French for the savagery they have shown to the Vietnamese. And it falls to Georges-Minh to create a poison to mix into the Christmas dinner of a garrison of French soldiers. It is an act that will send an unmistakable message to the Get out of Vietnam.
     But the assassination attempt goes horribly wrong. Forced to flee into the deep jungles of the outer provinces, Georges-Minh must care for his infant son, manage the growing madness of his wife, and elude capture by the hill tribes and the small--but lethal--pockets of French sympathizers.
     Journey Prize winner Yasuko Thanh transports us into a vivid, historical Vietnam, one that is filled with chaotic streets, teeming marketplaces, squalid opium dens, and angry ghosts that exist side by side with the living.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Canada, Canadian Literature, Historical, Book Club, Asia

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2016

About the author

Yasuko Thanh’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including Prairie Fire, Descant, PRISM international, and Vancouver Review. The title story, "Floating Like the Dead," won the prestigious Writers' Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize in 2009. She was a finalist for the Future Generations Millennium Prize, the Hudson Prize, and the David Adams Richards Prize, which recognizes unpublished manuscripts. She recently received her MFA from the University of Victoria. She has lived in Mexico, Germany, and Latin America, and now lives in Victoria.

Reviews

[Lauren Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Straining under the colonial rule of the French at the turn of the twentieth century, Vietnam is rife with corruption, oppression, opium dens, and revolutionary cells, and an active guillotine dominates a Saigon square. With compelling narrative drive, Yasuko Thanh imbues Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains with atmosphere and resonance, and creates mesmerizing characters who undergo complex change – politically, socially, personally, sexually – as they are gathered into a vortex of intrigue and risk. The author is as fearless and as wise in reshaping the mystique of the revolutionary as she is in delineating a dramatic time and place in this elegant and tantalizing novel."

- 2016 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury Lauren B. Davis, Trevor Ferguson, and Pasha Malla

A remarkable and unusual book of extraordinary imagination, audacity, and elegance. With stunning prose and haunting imagery, Thanh explores the legacy of colonialism, revenge, death, love, desire and guilt. The characters (even the ghosts) and plot are riveting and although set in 1920s Vietnam, it is as relevant to our lives today as any book I've read. It's quite astonishing that this is a debut novel.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Their hearts were in the right places, these members of the MFYM, Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains, who didn't yet have a name, perhaps because most of their meetings were spent drinking and playing cards. They discussed lofty ideals. Drank. Outlined what a free and democratic Vietnam would look like. Drank. Compared international political systems. Drank. Cited historical precedents. Cursed the French.

Carol Shields once said, “Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find”, and that would seem to be what Yasuko Thanh has accomplished with Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains: intrigued by an old family photo album and her father's stories, when Thanh searched for novels about colonial Vietnam, she found the canon lacking; so she wrote the missing book herself. Loosely based around the Hanoi Poison Plot of 1908, Thanh does a wonderful job of capturing the history and the mood of the time. And while the whole thing felt a little disjointed to me – missing some ephemeral it that elevates literature to art in my own wholly subjective experience – I am richer for having read this book.

Although Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains has rotating points-of-view, it primarily centers on Georges-Minh, the only son of wealthy parents who had been sent to Paris to study medicine. Now an adult, Georges-Minh lives alone in the huge villa his parents left to him; the income he generates from the rental properties he inherited allowing the doctor to volunteer at free clinics; spending most of his time treating the STDs and broken bodies of the women and boys who have been forced into prostitution by the effects of French colonisation. In the evenings, Georges-Minh meets with his close circle of friends and, in between drinks and hands of cards, they playact at plotting against the government; spending more time arguing over the name of their group than seriously planning a coup. Over time, however, Georges-Minh witnesses declining conditions for his fellow Vietnamese, and after the woman he has fallen in love with is nearly raped (and would have been raped if the French soldier who attacked her hadn't been too drunk to “perform”), the doctor agrees to concoct a poison that will wipe out the local garrison; assuming the task of poisoning their commanding officer himself. When the plot goes wrong and the group of friends must flee separately into the countryside, each of them witnesses deprivation they couldn't have imagined from their cushy lives in Saigon; each of them also witnessing what true rebellion and sacrifice looks like.

Killing a man is easy. Life is fragile, for one. And the world is poisonous, for two. How poisonous? Cobras, mushrooms, stonefish, apple seeds. Consider the datura plant. Datura stramonium. White flowers the shape of a trumpet and the size of a human heart. The seeds, crushed with a mortar and pestle, are easily processed. Thieves and prostitutes favour its killing properties. Georges-Minh has seen the results in his practice and he has such a flower blooming in his courtyard.

That is the plot, broadly, but the fatalistic atmosphere was particularly well wrought: the guillotine in the market square with the heads of Vietnamese nationalists set on spikes; children knocked down in the street and left for dead; babies abandoned at the side of the road; syphilitic women calling for clients from their floating barges; and reigning over everything, the interfering ghosts of the ancestors who demand more respect than their modernising progeny are willing to provide. Who wouldn't rebel against all this? As Georges-Minh begins to acknowledge that the French (with whom he has enjoyed a good relationship based on his Parisian education) are to blame for the decline of his countrymen, he is confronted by a French doctor who believes that it was the influence of the morally degenerate Vietnamese that had led the colonists to visit opium dens and brothels; “the geography of perversion” that tempted French men to engage in pederasty. (And despite Georges-Minh's argument that it was the French men's offers of opium and luxury goods that first lured boys to prostitution, le bon docteur would hear nothing of it; conceding only that he did not include Georges-Minh himself in his generalisations about “the Vietnamese as teachers of moral vice”.) How could Georges-Minh not rebel against that?

Our country is in crisis. Men abandon their families and leave their wives in charge of feeding the children. The women have no money and they do what they must to survive. This country was the possession of the Chinese, and now is the mistress of the French. For a thousand years we’ve lived under the dominion of others. It’s why everyone’s going mad.

So, in the big picture – the historical and the political; life on the scene in Saigon – I think that Thanh does a fantastic job of capturing the era. It's when the focus trains down to the personal and family level that this book feels muddled to me. In an interview, Thanh recounts one of her father's stories – about an elder who periodically abandoned his wife and children for mistresses, but who was always welcomed back as the head of the family whenever he'd return – and this is essentially the character of Khieu in the book. In addition to this unsavoury character (and as the poverty and desperation of his family is often visited, “unsavoury” feels generous), none of the plotters in Georges-Minh's circle is a dedicated family man: one is a musician from the hill country (with “an accent that sounded like he was chopping vegetables”) who chose his old-fashioned music over his wife; another walks out on his girlfriend (despite her better judgment and to her risk) to participate in the plot; two of the characters are gay (one is closeted, but engages in sex with the other on the sly), and even when one of them gets married, he doesn't enjoy the domestic joy that he had hoped for. Because of all this – and repeated reminders that French colonisation had forced so many Vietnamese women into poverty and prostitution – the fact that there are no dedicated husbands and fathers shown in this book felt like a disconnect; why wouldn't protection begin at home? Ultimately, I couldn't understand the motivations of any of the characters (and particularly when, late in the novel, two of the women are sent on a quest by a witch), and as a result, I was never emotionally connected to their plights.

Despite the parts that didn't work for me, I applaud Thanh for writing the book that she couldn't find. I learned much from Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains, and consequently, am delighted to have found and read it.

[Alexis]

I thought the writing in this book was beautiful. It's excellent.

I got so caught up in the writing and the setting that I lost sight the plot, but that's entirely my fault. I thought this book was amazing, but I got a bit lost in it.

The story made me want to learn more about French colonial Vietnam.

I definitely need to re-read this.

[Steven Langdon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. Set in Vietnam in the early 1900's, it is a story of rebellion against French colonialism, embedded in an exploration of the complex human relationships among men and women at the time. All the ingredients are there for an excellent novel -- a key role for a black Senegalese soldier (Birago) in the French forces who carries on a love affair with a Vietnamese woman, a same-sex relationship between two well-off Vietnamese men discovered by a street orphan who threatens to reveal them, a poisoning plot that goes awry, links to the rebellious upland tribes in the country that totally reject the French, plus what seems to be a stirring love affair (between Dr. George-Minh and Dong) that looks likely to upend the two lovers' lives completely.

But somehow the book just doesn't work for me. The characters do not transcend the expected. The two lovers quickly turn into antagonists. The plot limps to an uninspired finish. French imperialism just keeps flowing forward.

The Roger's Writers Trust jury certainly liked the book -- it won the award for 2016. And Yasuko Thanh does give us broad insight into the lives of Vietnamese of that time, particularly the oppression that marked the world of women. But somehow I looked for more, and was disappointed not to find it.

[Elaine Head · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled with my rating of this book. Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains is going to garner a lot of attention and will probably be an award winner, but my pleasure in reading the book was diminished by the writing style. I found the scene changes jarring from time to time. I also admit that the "voice" was confusing to me, especially between earthling and spirit voices.
Having said that, Thanh skillfully lures the reader into an exotic but cruel time in the history of Vietnam and creates a cast of intriguing and complex characters.

[Jen McLeod · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I'm not generous with the 5-star ratings, I feel like this deserves comments. This book was far better than I'd expected. I'm quick to confess that I will often judge a book by it's cover, and that I often will read a book without reading the synopsis, if the book was given or recommended to me. I've too often read books to great disappointment for this reason, so I am now often faced with literary disappointment.

But Mysterious Fragrance of the Yellow Mountains did not disappoint. The style is unusual, which will put off many readers, but I'm a big fan of non-conventional literary style, because what is literature if not art, and what is artistic about a direct, linear style? Since finishing the book (devouring, actually) I've read a couple of unfavourable reviews in which the reader(s) complained about not being able to follow the story and finding it disjointed. If you need your books to be laid out for you in a traditional way, and you cannot follow several characters, don't even bother. If you have a severe lack of imagination (or appreciation for imagination) and a strict adherence to factuality and historical accuracy, put the book down.

However, if you're like me, you might love this book. I didn't realize before reading it how dull it is to have a place and period in time explained to me, or that I don't need an author to excuse a deviation from the beliefs of the reader.

I read this book and I was rapt. Reading it, and plummeting into Thanh's 1909 Vietnam was effortless. She took me for a tailspin. I found myself laying in bed at 3am, scrambling in my mind to protect several babies and small children, to find hope for the hopeless cases.

Read this, but don't expect it to follow your rules.

[Maia Caron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marilynne Robinson once said in an interview about writing. “Be true to human consciousness and honour the complexities of the mind and its memory.” That is the brilliance of this novel and one of the reasons, I think, that it won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize this year.

Yasuko Thahn transports the reader to the violent splendour of a country under French colonial rule, crafting a heart-breaking story about loss and the consequences of our actions, a story that honours the complexities in the lives and minds of Vietnamese who are subjected to the depravity of imperialism.

I’ve never been to Vietnam, but what remains with me after finishing this book is the smell of the markets and the rivers, the incense floating on air. The fierce and honest writing is devoid of sentimentality, and invites us into a world populated by exotic characters, their lives infected by the disease that is colonialism. In the face of horrific assaults on their humanity, they courageously strike at that beast with often tragic results, yet in this author’s hands, they remain decidedly noble. A love story to the exotic and beautifully complex heart of Vietnam.

[Magdelanye]

In a way, its a good thing I did not especially like any of the characters in this elegantly written fiction of life in Vietnam, when the French are still in uneasy occupation. I know, if I had bonded with any of them, I would have been even more devastated at the violence and the heartbreak.

YT does a brilliant job of bringing to life the kind of conflicts that fueled the inevitable uprisings. She is also unsparing of the details but in a haphazard way that mimics the chaos of the times and contributed to this readers discomfort. This was most confusing towards the end, as it appeared that some pages were missing

There are a lot of characters, but keeping them straight wasnt the problem it sometimes is; relating to them was. Reading this induced massive culture shock.

review pending

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book from the publisher on Goodreads (Love those giveaways!), but I originally put my name in because the book sounded so interesting and it was. It takes place in Vietnam in 1908 where the French rule Saigon but rebellion is starting. Georges-Minh is a doctor, educated in Paris, who plots with his friends to poison the general in an act of rebellion. Unfortunately their plan goes terribly wrong and they all have to flee into the hills. This book is written so beautifully, poetically, and it brings the world of 1908 Vietnam to life. There are also many other interesting characters in the story whose inner lives are brought into the light. This was a very compelling story about one particular time in history that I knew little about. I highly recommend this novel.

[MJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled between giving this book a 3 or a 4.

It was a really slow start for me, and it didn't have my attention until I was past page 100. Didn't think it was a good read until I had reached the halfway point.

It's a great story, despite starting slow. I enjoyed its exotic flavour, its descriptions of a country I know little about, and its setting in the sliver of history when the French occupied Vietnam. I loved it for its ghosts and superstitions, and descriptions of the countryside.

[Steve Slaunwhite · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best novels I've read in a long time. Interesting thing is, this isn't my genre. I'm mainly a modern suspense reader. But Thanh is a fantastic storyteller and her tale opened up a fascinating world to me. The last time I felt quite this way about a book is when I read Shogun. So there's no confusion: Thanh's book is a bit difference, and much better, than Shogun.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetically written it is a treat for the senses. A beautifully crafted world full of interesting details, Yasuko Thanh transports you to an exotic world. I found myself folding pages down to remember descriptive passages or words of wisdom. A heart wrenching story of the Vietnamese people and the depravity and cruelty of humanity. Not a book I normally read but one I will never forget.

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book through the Goodreads giveaways!
I really enjoyed this book and it's unique story line.

[Ainsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanh writes beautifully. Highly recommend this and her book of short stories -- and whatever she publishes in the future (near future, I hope).

[litost · Rating 4 out of 5]

An odd story.

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dacă nu reuşeşti să îngropi un cadavru, dacă trupul moare departe de casă şi nu este onorat prin ritualurile cuvenite ale doliului, dacă moare neiubit, grăbindu-se către un examen, dacă rămâne decapitat, singur în mijlocul câmpului, dacă moare rătăcit pe stradă, dacă suferă o moarte violentă, dacă moare cu un băţ de bambus la gât şi cu umărul tăbăcit de munca grea, acesta devine o fantomă rătăcitoare.
În 1908, francezii conduceau Cochinchina. Mişcarea proindependenţă este dezorganizată şi răvăşită. În Sud, armata se pregăteşte nu ca să lupte, ci ca să devină invizibilă; generalul lucrează la o poţiune care-i va face să dispară de sub ochii francezilor.
Peste o sută de ani, unul dintre ei va urca la bordul unui avion către Ho Şi Min şi-i va plăti unei femei cu picioare mici şi cu păr lung până la talie câţiva dong pentru un masaj pe care-l va primi dezbrăcat într-o cameră care miroase a ulei de cocos.
Astăzi au mai rămas doar câţiva negustori nemţi şi englezi în colonie. Uneori iau cina cu ofiţerii din Marina Franceză şi discută politica misionarilor italieni care-şi fac noi adepţi în zonă.
Francezii îi decapitează pe naţionaliştii vietnamezi sau îi exilează în taberele din jungla sud-americană. Le expun capetele în pieţe; muştele mişună pe ochii, nările şi gurile lor, căutând umezeala. Fantomele se aciuează în copacii banyan pentru că, dacă vor să coboare de acolo, vânzătorii furioşi din prăvălii le alungă cu mături.
Trecând pe deasupra ţării ca o pasăre, către Nord, vedem un ţărm plin de piraţi în apropiere de golful Tonkin şi casele pescarilor împrăştiate pe mal. În apă până la genunchi, femeile muncesc într-o îngrăditură separată dintr-o orezărie. Pe cealaltă parte a dealului, o mină de cărbune tonkineză şi o mică fermă de vite adăpostesc un grup de case unde trăiesc olarii şi cărămidarii.

[Peter A · Rating 3 out of 5]

This historical novel depicts a sense of rebellion by Vietnamese under French rule in 1908 Saigon. The main protagonist, Dr. Nyugen Georges-Minh, is a French trained physician, who parents have built a great deal of wealth. He volunteers his time to work in a clinic for the poor, trying to cure many social diseases inflicted by the French presence. Around him is a group of men who, together, think they want to perpetrate an act of rebellion in the name of independence. But they are slow to act, enjoying talking and drinking over action.

Individual stories are slowly revealed about each of these characters, including George-Minh. His story is the most detailed, but all of the stories seem to travel the road into misery of one sort or another. And when the bungled attempt to kill the French fails, they are on the run.

I picked up this book at the English Language bookstore BOA (Book of Awesome) in Saigon when on holiday there (https://www.facebook.com/BOA.Bookstore/). The bookstore is not large, but the selection is very good! I do recommend the bookstore. And it allows me to pick up books I would likely not find elsewhere. This book is one of them.

However, I found the story very depression, confused, and with the ghosts a bit of a stretch for me. Other reviewers clearly have appreciated the story and the writing. The book won a Rogers Writers’ Trust award.

[Lester · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahahhh!! What a living story!!
Full circle of life...and death....

Now..Yasuko Thanh came to our little library Sept. 29th..and she IS her stories..her stories are her!! What a pleasure to meet this wonderful storyteller. (of course..it was all much better than that..YT is very easy to like and listen to..makes you want to invite her to your kitchen!)

Thankx Suko for sharing your 'innards' with us..come back to our kitchens and visit.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that I felt could have been longer. It’s hard to get to know or like the characters when there are multiple points of view and less than 300 pages. Almost no one in this book garners much empathy (with a few lovely exceptions) and it made it hard to sink into the reading. Would have liked more of the spirit world and perhaps a little less of the physical world. Still, some very beautiful and odd writing to be found here.

[Ian M. Pyatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great concept to plan the assassinations, but everything falls apart. I thought there were too many characters, diversions with the marriage, love affairs, trips to the markets, etc. Would have really like to have seen more development on the five main characters and how they either escaped or died. I did have the chance to see YT at a Wordfest event and she is a truly engaging person, so if you get the chance to see her, do so.

[Margarita · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel has all of the necessary ingredients to create an evocative story, but somehow, it doesn't quite come together as a whole. There are some beautifully written individual passages, but the impactfulness of these passages to the overall story left me wanting. At times, the writing is so densely cluttered that ideas aren't given enough room to breathe.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting depiction of life in Vietnam in the late 1800's-early 1900's, as a French colony in what was then French Indochina. Five men gather to drink, dabble with opium, play cards and plot to poison the French garrison commander and the soldiers stationed there. The story weaves through all their lives, challenges, decisions and consequences to tell a compelling story.

[Lori · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this story to be quite dull and hard to follow. Some would probably call this lyrical but I found it difficult and insubstantial. Having just visited Vietnam I was looking forward to this novel but it was disappointing. I couldn't finish it in the three weeks allotted by my library...

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting and diverse characters. Each with their own stories in dealing with the French occupation of Vietnam in the early 1900s. Some of the writing is exquisite but at times the plot did not stick together. Good read.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It started out well enough, but halfway through I realized I disliked every single character. The hopelessness, and frankly the poor choices these characters make did not make this an enjoyable novel to read. Too bad because I think Yasuko Thanh is a good writer.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book because it recently won a Victoria book award. It is beautifully written but the story didn't resonate for me. I can't recommend it to others.

[Mrs. Keller · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Found the content too disturbing.

[Leilani Fairweather · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's beautifully written but I felt like the plot was so convoluted and then disintegrated.

[Aklatan Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

3⭐ but a book I definitely will go back to when I am better-read on Vietnam.

[Brenda]

Had to take back to the library