Blood and Salt in The Book of Salt

     While reading The Book of Salt by Monique Troung there were different symbols that stuck out to me. Obviously salt is a large symbol in the book but another one I noticed was blood. This book is about a young, gay, Vietnamese man, named Binh that travels to Paris in order to escape his life and his father (or rather Old Man as he calls him). While in Paris he becomes a cook in the employ of two women Miss Toklas, and Gertrude Stein, these women are lovers who invite others into their bedroom as well. As he works for them, he finds a lover that is one of their acquaintances. His lover, Marcus Lattimore, is at first a good influence on him. Being a person of color also in France, he understands some of the things that Binh is going through. But later it is revealed that he is a fan of Gertrude Stein's novels and tries to have Binh steal the manuscript of a new one she is writing. Binh does, in order to have a picture with his beloved. And he finds out that the new book that Gertrude Stein is writing is about him. First guilt racks him and then realizing the story is his, he no longer feels guilty for his story is his own. But it is later revealed that Lattimore was using Binh to get an early manuscript of Stein’s latest writings. After that Toklas and Stein decide to go back to America and let Binh go. That same day he receives a letter from his brother in Vietnam, stating that his father has had a stroke and is dying and his mother has already passed. The book ends with his Mesdames (Stein and Toklas) and Binh departing.
    Salt is deposited throughout the novel as if the author were seasoning the book all the way through. It is mentioned in different sayings like in the salt of sweat, the salt of the sea Binh sailed on to get to Paris or the salt in the food he made for her Mesdames. However, one quote that stands out to me is when Binh cooks with Miss Toklas, making gazpacho together. She had lived in Spain for a time, and does not trust Binh to make gazpacho authentically.

“ 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 21 rue de Fleurus. Salt is an ingredient to be considered and carefully weighed like all the 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 Madam, to centuries of culinary imprudence”(Truong, 211)

    While this means in the basest of terms that salt is overpowering to the palette of those who reside in 27 rue de Fleurus, the metaphor mixed with the implication of the strong flavor of salt is what interests me. Stein and Toklas are two assumingly wealthy white women, who most likely never experienced hard labor. Perhaps hardship in the way they lead their lives as lesbians in the 1920’s and 30’s, but never as strong as someone like Binh. Comparing the flavor of salt to the sweat and the beating of hard labor is something only Binh knows in that apartment. Comparing salt to the entirety of the sea is something only Binh knows for he worked on a ship before coming to Paris. Comparing salt to the stinging tears of sorrow as one must leave their life in disgrace for a new one, is something only Binh knows. He was thrown out of his place of employment in Vietnam for having indiscretions with the Chef at the Governor-General's home. And perhaps because he knows these things all too well is why salt is not too much for him.
    While salt is sprinkled in through the book. Blood is spilled in different places. One place that caught my eye was in the middle of the novel when the Mesdames and Binh are on their summer holiday and Binh arrives at their vacation home one night, completely inebriated and becomes ill. Both his Mesdames, especially Miss Toklas, is angry with him. Though Gertrude Stein extends more kindness to him than her lover. Though he feels guilty for waking them up for being ill, he also is upset that they are angry at him for being human.

“To walk without blinking an eye is to say to each other that we are human, whole, a man or a woman like any other, two lungfuls of air, a heart pumping blood, a stomach hungry for home-cooked food, a body in constant search for the warmth of the sun. Before I came to the rue de Fleurus, GertrudeStein, the only way I knew how to hold onto the moment of dispensation, that without-blinking-an-eye exchange, to keep it warm in my hands, was by threading silver through them. Blood makes me a man. No one can take that away from me, I thought.”(Truong,142)

    In this quote, we see that “blood” means sameness to Binh. That we all as human beings have blood, have common necessities like air and food. But in order for Binh to feel that he is still human, to feel that he is not other, compared to everyone in France. He needs to see his blood, to know he has it. To know he is human. Though he lives with people who are similar to him. Similar in the way that their sexuality is looked down upon and that they are oddities themselves. Even in this place of similarly, this is othering is due to the fact that he is not French, not American, not white in any of the sense. He does not speak French well and does not speak English and he describes his Vietnamese as taking “on the pallor of the dying, the faded colors of the abandoned.” (Truong, 117). None of the languages he knows is full of life and blood and so his need to see his own blood is driven even more.