Book Club Review: The Book Of Salt

I kept reading The Book of Salt for its intoxicating language not its gripping story.  While the actual story has a lot of merit and could be very intriguing, I found it was the language that kept bringing me back, not an intense desire to know how the story would end.  Because there was no other way it could end.  The book travels back and forth through time in a very dreamy manner, from Bin's childhood in his mother's kitchen, to his time on the seas, to his time at 27 rue de Fleurus.

Bin, a Vietnamese cook, comes to Paris after disgrace, hardship, and heartbreak and finds employment with Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas.  Life certainly doesn't get any easier for Bin who constantly hears the derision of his father, The Old Man, in every step he takes.

I was constantly searching for the meaning of the title, "The Book of Salt".  Which made me pay particular attention to every reference to salt.  There were the obvious references to salt in cooking, and the less obvious references to salt in tears and in the sea.  And, maybe I'm reading too much into to it, but a lot of salt in Bin's wounds.

"Intriguing," however, always calls for a second look, an irresistible glance back, a heightened desire to know and to have.  Intrigue cannot be added at the very end.  A sprinkling of sequins, a glazing of glass beads, a handful of store bought fringes, all suggest a lack of forethought, like salting a roast after it has cooked as opposed to before.  My Madame knows that intrigue, like salt, is best if it is there from the beginning."

"A pinch of salt, according to my Madame, should not be a primitive reflex, a nervous twitch on the part of any cook, especially one working at 27 rue de Fleurus.  Salt is an ingredient to be considered and carefully weighed like all others.  The true taste of salt--the whole of the sea on the tip of the tongue, sorrow's sting, labor's smack--has been lost, according to my Madame, to centuries of culinary imprudence.  It is a taste that Miss Toklas insists is sometimes unnecessary, as in the gazpacho of Malaga, and other times, as in the gazpacho of Segovia, it is the hinge that allows the flavors of the other ingredients to swing wide open.  'In m kitchen, I will tell you when salt is necessary,' my Madame said, concluding the real lesson for that day."

I found that reading about life at 27 rue de Fleurus was endlessly fascinating.  I loved reading about Miss Toklas rearranging Gertrude Stein's impressive art collection to make room for new pieces.  I loved reading about all the visitors who would worship at the feet of the woman credited with coining the phrase, "The Lost Generation".  And, it broke my heart to read about Bin and his lover, Sweet Sunday Man.

One part of the book that made me feel incredibly ignorant was the cameo by Ho Chi Minh.  Even when Bin revealed the man on the bridge's name, Nguyen Ai Quoc, I still didn't realize it was supposed to Ho Chi Minh until I read the back of the book and some other reviews.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book.