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A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain | Introduction

Robert Olen Butler had already published five novels—most of them concerning Vietnam during the war era—when he brought out his collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain in 1992. This volume of short stories—all of which featured unique narrators but were set in Louisiana among Vietnamese immigrants—drew immediate critical applause and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993.

Reviewers praised many of the fifteen stories, but one, the title story, was also selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of 1992. This story, which is told by a man close to a century old, obliquely discusses several of the different types of people affected by the troubles in Vietnam. There are the narrator’s son-in-law and grandson, who get involved in the murder of a fellow immigrant who speaks out in favor of cooperating with the present government in Vietnam. There is his daughter, who represents holding on to the traditions that have long been part of the Vietnamese family. There is Ho Chi Minh, the nationalist who led his country to independence and communism. And there is the narrator himself, Dao, who chose the difficult route of remaining uninvolved and peaceful through the long years that Vietnam struggled and fought. Dao’s reminiscences and attempts to bring harmony to his own life at the moment he approaches his death lend a definitive closing note to this volume, which one reviewer said ‘‘offers tales of heroism not in corporeal battle but in the spiritual struggle for faith and hope in the face of betrayal and impossibility.’’

A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain Summary

The story takes the form of an old man’s memories and final attempts to deal with the past as he nears his own death. Dao, almost 100 years old, is a Vietnamese man living in New Orleans, Louisiana. Believing that his death approaches, Dao summons the important people from past, including the ghost of his old friend Ho Chi Minh, the communist nationalist instrumental in winning Vietnam’s independence from France.

In 1917, Dao and Ho Chi Minh, then going by his given name of Nguyen Ai Quoc, were both young men living in London and Paris. In London, Ho worked as a pastry cook, and Dao worked as a dishwasher. Now, when Ho appears before Dao, his hands are covered with sugar because he is trying to make a special glaze. However, he is having trouble remembering how to make it properly.

Dao has reached the point in his life where, as is Vietnamese custom when a person is very old, he takes a ‘‘formal leave-taking’’ of his family and friends, who all come to visit him. It is also Vietnamese tradition to have a close family, but, sitting in his chair in the living room, Dao can see that some of his family have become too Americanized.

He overhears a conversation between his sonin- law Thang and his grandson Loi. Both served in the South Vietnamese army in the war. They think he is asleep while they discuss the murder of a fellow immigrant. The man owned a newspaper and wrote an article expressing that it was time to accept the communist government in Vietnam and to work with its leaders. He was murdered for voicing these opinions, assassinated as he sat in his Chevrolet pickup truck, which Dao sees as a symbol of his Americanization. Thang and Loi seem to be speaking in code as they mention that no murder weapon has been found. Lam, Dao’s daughter, who is married to Thang, also seems to be communicating in code as she... » Complete A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain Summary