Elevator in Sài Gòn
Elevator in Sài Gòn
By Thua N, translated by Nguyen An Lý
Book*hug, 2024; 200 pages; $23
Reviewed by Kristina Rothstein
A Vietnamese woman lives in Paris with her young son, teaching Vietnamese. She provides first person narration, which allows her to omit, obfuscate, and daydream. She returns home for her mother’s funeral, following a strange and unlikely fatal fall down the elevator shaft of the narrator’s wealthy brother’s home. Her mother fell while keeping her face perfect, a metaphor for her presentation to the world. The narrator feels, though, that her distant and mysterious mother has left signs and traces for her to follow, and so begins an unconventional detective story.
Shifts in time are deployed with confidence to destabilize and disorient the reader. When the narrator first reports tailing a man named Paul Polotsky, there is no explanation of who he is. As he threads his way through Paris, it’s clear that the surveillance has been underway for some time — the narrator knows his haunts and acquaintances. Only later is it revealed that she interviewed a man who contacted her in Sài Gòn after the funeral, and who met her mother while she was imprisoned and interrogated as a young political prisoner. He was captivated by her poise and determination, as was a young student visiting from Paris, eager for a trip to the infamous prison where her mother was detained. This man is Paul Polotsky, and again, only later does the narrator reveal that she has found a photo of Polotsky in a notebook her mother sewed inside her pillowcase. These clues are scattered, out of order, incomplete.
The way the story unfolds suggests that even if one gathers facts and uncovers answers, real knowledge remains elusive. History is pieced together using improbable sources: chance interviews, erroneous surveillance, and twists of fate. What does Paul Polotsky represent? Perhaps the arbitrary nature of power, specifically the power of the French over Vietnam. His interest likely saved the narrator’s mother while in prison, but is this an act that requires gratitude? The narrator eventually discovers that her mother looked for Paul, first sending a message with a neighbour, and then winning a competitive fellowship to Paris. Her attachment to the memory of him may be a metaphor for the idealization of colonial culture which sometimes occurs amongst the people they have dominated. The novel poses many questions and possible interpretations. The narrative style is deadpan, despite moments of emotion, and detective story conventions are expertly altered to omit or sidestep dramatic elements.
Much of the narrative seems far away from the action — accounts of the Vietnamese language class and the interpersonal relations between the students, a description of a North Korean state funeral, the narrator’s participation in her brother’s dodgy business deal. But the spectre which haunts the book is personal history, and the power this concept had over Vietnamese lives, scrutinized to assure political loyalty, and pervading every aspect of life. In this light, the narrator’s obsession with filling in some of the blanks which shaped her family make a lot of sense. This slow motion existential pursuit expertly delves into the dark heart of Vietnamese history.