The Mountains Sing – Nguyện Phan Quệ Mai

30th August 2024

Eight members of Book Group 1 read and discussed about Nguyện Phan Quệ Mai’s “The Mountains Sing” on the 30th of  August.  For some of us, the book’s topic about the Vietnam War brought back memories of how it affected us emotionally, whether through watching the distressing news on black and white television or from joining an anti-war rally. For others, we heard about it through tales related by our friends and loved ones. No matter from where we started, we all have gained an alternative view from the author who spun a story through the eyes of the women who survived the war.

The book is a fictionalised account based on  true stories related to the author. She is a bilingual Vietnamese poet and writer who grew up abroad. The Mountains Sing is her first written book in English language as her previous poetries and books were written in Vietnamese.

The Mountains Sing is a multi-generational story of the Trần family. It alternates between the narrative of a young teenage girl Huong in the early 1970s set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War; and the recollection of her grandmother Trần Diệu Lan, who was born in the 1920s, under the French colonisation of Indochina. The family matriarch was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform as the Communist government rose in the North. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Huong, comes of age as her parents and uncles head off down the Hộ Chí Minh Trail to fight in a conflict that tore apart not just her beloved country, but also her family.

The story began with Huong’s grandmother walking her home from school, but they were caught in the middle of an air-raid with American bombers fast approaching the capital city of Hà Nội. Her parents and uncles and aunties were all away fighting in Vietnam’s Civil War and she listens to her grandmother’s stories which shaped her view of the world. They headed to the mountains and stayed in Hoa Binh Village which means Peace, to wait out the constant bombardment of Hà Nội during the war. Her grandmother would teach the children to sing songs in the mountains. Hence, the title of this book.

Some parts of the book felt rather contrived to fit a certain expected conclusion but we are glad that we stuck with it.  We have come away from our discussion with shared stories and different perspectives about a major conflict which did not affect any of us in the book group directly but touched us all the same with its grim reality. Vivid, gripping, and steeped in the culture and traditions of Việt Nam, The Mountains Sing brings to life the human costs of this conflict from the point of view of the Vietnamese people themselves, especially the women who were left to fend for themselves during the war. At the same time, readers are shown the true power of kindness and hope, in the midst of the hopelessness of war. 

Liew Lee Kuen