ISSN 0258–0802. LITERATÛRA 2007 49(5)
TRANSTEXTUAL BRIDGE BETWEEN THE POSTMODERN AND THE MODERN: THE THEME OF THE “OTHERNESS” IN MONIQUE TRUONG’S NOVEL THE BOOK OF SALT (2003) AND GERTRUDE STEIN’S THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS (1932)
Ingrida Þindþiuvienë Associate Professor, Department of English Philology Vytautas Magnus University
In discussing the processes of the development nationalities demonstrates the characteristic of postmodernism, the concept of intertextuality aspects of intertextuality. However, plays an important role, the essence of which intertextuality refers to far more than the lies in the fact that any text is a new issue of “influences” of writers on each other (Chandler, “past citations”. The historical and social 1). Since its first introduction in the late 1960s determinants of intertexts make the writing of by Julia Kristeva, the term “intertextuality” has nowadays the iteration, and also re-iteration or strengthened its position as one of the aspects re-writing which foregrounds the trace of the denoting postmodernity. Although, as Graham various texts it both knowingly and unknowingly Allen (2005) observes, the term possesses a potential for misuse (as, for example, its places and displaces. From this aspect of re- reference to intentional allusion, overt or covert, iteration, postmodernism then appears as the to, citation or quotation of previous literary texts, “new” echo of the “old” past. The aim of this it still retains its mosaic, absorptive and article is to trace the transtextual relationship transformative aspect (Allen, 1). In 1986, Julia between two texts that represent different Kristeva presented a description of a three- literary periods and the blend of different cultures, dimensional textual space by pointing out three Asian American and American European. “coordinates of dialogue”: the writing subject, Although the discussion is based on the the addressee (or ideal reader), and exterior texts dimensions of transtextuality, postmodernism and (Kristeva, 37). Gerard Genette (1992 and 1997) modernism, and cultural and social aspects, the proposed the term “transtextuality” as a more emphasis is put on the notion of the “otherness” inclusive term than “intertextuality”. He listed the in Monique Truong’s novel. following five subtypes: The continuous influence that one of the • Intertextuality: quotation, plagiarism, major American modernists, Gertrude Stein, has allusion when citing another text is an made on the writers of different generations and explicit intertextual relation.
147 • Paratextuality: the relation between a vacuum (Vitoux, 105). If a literary text is text and its “paratext” – that which characterized as belonging to a certain genre surrounds the main body of the text, such and may be further subdivided and classified, as titles, headings, prefaces, epigraphs, this can be used as a starting point for tracing dedications, acknowledgements, footnotes, transtextual relationships between the texts. illustrations, etc. Rune Dalgaard proposes the notion of • Architextuality: designation of a text as “embedding”, which can deal with the part of a genre or genres or framing by overlapping categories as presented in Genette’s readers (in Chandler, 8). This category typology (Dalgaard, 7). According to Paul spans from critical texts (comments, Alexander Aitken, “transtextual analyses are by reviews) (Dalgaard, 6). nature somewhat circular; thus, in order to • Metatextuality: explicit or implicit understand one text, it is necessary to know all critical commentary of one text on another other texts, in order to know those texts, it is text. necessary to consider them individually” • Hypotextuality: (Genette’s term was (Aitken, 11). “hypertextuality” (Chandler, 8)) the relation The Book of Salt takes the reader on a strange between a text and a preceding “hypotext” journey, from Indochina to Paris, as the fictional – a text or genre on which it is based but Vietnamese cook for Gertrude Stein and Alice B. which it transforms, modifies, elaborates Toklas tells his own story echoing the one as or extends (including parody, spoof, sequel, related by Gertrude Stein. Both “autobiographies”, translation). one an explicit one in the form of a novel, another According to Genette (1997), the defining a covert one, written with the narrator’s voice features of intertextuality might include the of Alice B. Toklas, open up with the same following: reflexivity (how reflexive or self- structure: Stein’s novel is divided in the chapters, conscious the use of intertextuality seems to the structure and content of which is repeated be); alteration; explicitness; scale of adoption; in The Book of Salt: “Before I came to Paris”; structural unboundedness (to what extent the “My arrival in Paris”; “Gertrude Stein in Paris, text is presented or understood as part or tied 1903–1907”; “Gertrude Stein before she came to a larger structure). As John Pier observes, to Paris”, etc. The theme of arrival and departure these aspects demand the “mobilization of the is important in both novels, as it represents the recipient’s imagination” (Pier, 2; translation aspect of “the otherness” – the specific notion mine). in both novels. Moreover, The Book of Salt Thus, the essence of transtextuality lies in opens with a quote by Alice B. Toklas, indicating interpretative relations, explorative connections the level of intertextuality as the leading dimension and configurative affects. Following Michael of the novel: “We had certainly luck in finding Worton and Judith Still, intertextuality good cooks, though they had their weaknesses presupposes that “a text […] cannot exist as a in other ways. Gertrude Stein liked to remind hermetic or self-sufficient whole, and so does me that if they did not have such faults, they not function as a closed system” (Worton and would not be working for us” (Toklas in Still, 1). The concept covers all different forms Truong). Thus, the central character of The Book of the relation of a given text to other texts, of Salt becomes an implicit someone from the since no literary text is read in a cultural previous novel.
148 From the aspect of postmodernity, The time companion was Alice B. Toklas, an Book of Salt matches its characteristics of American, who arrived in Paris in 1907. They eclectic approach and aleatory writing started living together in Stein’s apartment at (Cuddon, 734), fragmentation and prophetic 27 rue de Fleurus in 1910 (Stendhal, 58). In pessimism, as suggested by Nicholas Zurbrugg 1932, Stein wrote the novel The Auto- (Zurbrugg, 163). Mostly depending on an biography of Alice B. Toklas, which is, in fact, uncertain event (hiring a cook), the novel is a her own autobiography seen through the eyes perfect example of the re-iteration of true of her friend and which can be dutifully events in Gertrude Stein’s novel. Moreover, renamed into “American in Paris.” The novel falls the format, style and structure in Truong’s within the boundaries of an “autobiographical novel demonstrate the fact that it can be novel” for its precision in the representation of referred to as a “true” sequel to its precursor, time, place and people (Cuddon, 68). However, which likewise follows “the course of memory both chronology and the voice of Alice B. Toklas rather than chronology (De Koven, 125). are manipulated in this autobiographical novel Following Rune Dalgaard, it is possible to state (Copeland, 126). As Carolyn F. Copeland states, that this postmodern novel is “embedded” in “the manipulation of time is, of course, related to the modern one. the manipulation of the narrator” (ibid.). Here, it is appropriate to briefly survey the Monique Truong was born in Saigon in 1968 most relevant biographical facts of both the and moved to the United States at the age of six. authors. Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), a She graduated from Yale University and the significant and shocking modernist figure in Columbia University School of Law, going on Paris during the first half of the twentieth to specialize in intellectual property. She co-edited century, is known for her strong influence on the anthology Watermark: Vietnamese American modernist literature and art. An American, who Poetry and Prose, and her essay ‘Welcome to lived most of her life in France, she was involved America” was featured on National Public Radio. in the modern art movement. Together with her Granting her an Award of Excellence, the brother Leo, she collected the paintings of Vietnamese American Studies Center at San Cezanne, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso and others. The Francisco State University called her “a pioneer Stein apartment was a famous gathering place in the field, as an academic, an advocate, and an for avant-garde artists and writers from Europe artist.” Truong was awarded a prestigious and the United States of America. In her writing Lannan Foundation Writing Residency in 2001. Stein often departed from conventional word Her short fiction and essays have been taught in order and coherence, repetition being her universities across the United States. She lives popular stylistic device. For her influence on in Brooklyn, New York (“Interview with the movement of Modern Art, Gertrude Stein Monique Truong,” 1). is called the symbol of Modernism. Her writing As Poornima Apte observes, The Book of and theories about literature liberated language Salt has “two narrative threads flowing from the nineteenth-century traditions, and through it” (Apte, 1). In the first, Binh, a moved literature from romanticism and Vietnamese cook, tells about his life at 27 rue naturalism to abstract styles. She achieved the de Fleurus, Stein and Toklas’s home, and the freedom of language in literature from its details of how he got there. In the second, grammatical and emotional traditions. Her life- Binh reaches back to his Vietnam days and
149 recounts what it is that happened that made returns to the train station where the readers him leave for Paris. The novel opens in Paris in are in essence asked “to make the same decision October of 1934. Binh has accompanied his as Binh: whether they would emerge from Binh’s employers, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, life triumphant or in despair, [or] whether they to the train station. His own destination is would be pulled together or asunder by the unclear: will he go with “the Steins” to America, competing stories of Binh’s past, present and stay in France, or return to his family in future” (“Interview with Monique Truong,” 2). Vietnam? (“Interview with Monique Truong,” Monique Truong has stated that when she 1). Before Binh’s choice is revealed he takes was in college, she bought a copy of Alice B. the readers back to his youth in French- Toklas Cook Book because she was curious colonized Vietnam, his years as a sailor at sea, about certain recipes (“An Interview with and his late-night wanderings in Paris. His Monique Truong,” 1). In that book, which was “memories and musings continually play against rather a memoir than a cookbook, Toklas one another in an internal monologue that is far wrote about two Indochinese men who, more eloquent than he can express with the actually, cooked for Toklas and Stein at 27 words that he struggles to master in everyday rue de Fleurus and at their summer house in life” (“Interview with Monique Truong,” 1). Bilignin (ibid.). One of these cooks responded The author seems to be looking for the to an advertisement placed by Toklas in the answers to the particular question – “What led newspaper that began “Two American ladies each of the “outsiders” (Stein, Toklas and Binh) wish…” This advertisement is included in to live far from the land of their birth? What, Truong’s novel: “Two American ladies wish if anything, could bring them back home to retain a cook – 27 rue de Fleurus. See the again?” (“Interview with Monique Truong,” concierge” (Truong, 11). Binh responds to it 1-2). As Monique Truong explains, “the and the Steins take him in; Binh is immediately answers to these questions are found in Binh’s called by Stein “Thin Binh” and becomes a memories, thoughts, observations, and permanent fixture at their place. The apartment possibly lies – all of which are continuously at rue de Fleurus is called by Binh “a temple, asserting and interrupting one another” not a home” (Truong, 23), while in Stein’s (“Interview with Monique Truong,” 2). Binh’s text (the action opens in 1907) it is “the home stories are told via his internal voice. Binh is […] of a tiny pavillon of two stories with four shown as a man living in a foreign land, and small rooms, a kitchen and bath, and a very working for employers whose languages are large atelier adjoining” (Stein, 10). As the cook foreign to him. He struggles with their words, watches the famous lesbian couple host tea and they win the confrontation every time. parties and entertain the Parisian intellectuals Limited and silenced, Binh has only his – many rituals described in detail in Stein’s memories and imagination to keep him novel – “Binh narrates their everyday doings company. Gertrude Stein was also stuck to with a sense of detachment laced nevertheless her native language, English, and obstinately with a wry sense of humor” (Apte, 1). Truong did not use French, because she said that “there admits that she was then surprised and touched is for [her] only one language and that is to see a Vietnamese presence in the lives of english” (Stein, 77; “english” as in original). these two women (“Interview with Monique In the last chapter of Truong’s novel, “the story Truong,” 2). However, according to the author,
150 in the official history of the Lost Generation, 1). Thus, the writer acknowledges that the the Paris of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, novel was inspired by the departure, the loss these Indochinese cooks were just a minor of home, the act of refuge-seeking – all of footnote, which serves as an evidence for not these experienced by the author herself. being included in Stein’s novel (ibid.). This Binh’s memories of his childhood in idea drove Truong to writing a personal epic, Vietnam slowly outline the reason for his forced The Book of Salt, as told from the perspective exile. He is the last of four boys born in the of Binh, a twenty-six-year-old Vietnamese man family with an abusive father and a subservient living in Paris in the late 1920s and the early mother. In fact, the father of his brothers is not 1930s, who was that implicit person from his biological father. Most probably his father between the lines in Stein’s autobiography. The was a teacher, a white man working at a school novel began as a short story “Seeds”, which close to his mother’s home. This issue Truong wrote in 1997 (“An Interview with complicates the understanding of identity. Monique Truong,” 1). Truong admits that she Moreover, when he comes of age, Binh and his felt the need to continue Binh’s life story and family discover his sexuality – he is gay, a disease for this reason her novel materialized (ibid.). in Vietnam that “didn’t have a cure” (Apte, 1). In one of her interviews, the writer explains Thus, the circumstances force him out of home. the title of the novel: “Salt – in food, sweat, Contrary to Binh’s sensitive understanding tears, and the sea – is found throughout the of being an outcast or “the other,” Stein does novel” (“An Interview with Monigue Truong,” not undertake the role of an exile. In The 2). The main character, the Vietnamese cook, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, she appears discusses the meaning of salt: “The true taste to be completely and openly satisfied both with of salt – the whole of the sea on the tip of the her position of a voluntary exile, for she enjoys tongue, sorrow’s sting, labor’s smack” life in Paris and does not dream of living (Truong, 212); “salt – what kind? Kitchen, anywhere else, and with her private life of “the sweat, tears, or the sea. Madame, they are not other”: in both novels, she indulges in close all the same. Their stings, their smarts, their relationship with Alice B. Toklas, entertains strengths, the distinctions among them are fine” quests from all over the world, travels within (Truong, 260-261). As the author states, the Europe, meets interesting people (writers, title is also a nod toward the Biblical connota- painters and journalists) – in other words, tion of salt, in particular to the turning of Lot’s indulges in Parisian life. She seems to have wife into a pillar of salt for looking back at her dismissed any thoughts about being different home, to the city of Sodom (McFarlan, 162, or belonging to “the other.” 257). That story, Truong explained, tells that As G. Hall observes, Truong’s depiction of the Catholic God, whom the cook is so wary “Postwar Paris with the Mesdames and their of, disapproves not only of the activities of the salon at the center of artistic Paris is fascinating”, Sodomites, but also of nostalgia. Binh is a prac- and the inside look at the famous Stein-Toklas titioner of both. According to G. Hall, “for Binh, relationship is also a treat” (Hall, 1). Binh salt has always had many meanings, especially, observes Stein-Toklas relationship with the salt of the sea which represents his sepa- fascination: “They both love Gertrude Stein. ration from home, his beloved mother and a Better, they are both in love with Gertrude Stein. culture where he was not an outsider” (Hall, Miss Toklas fusses over her Lovey and her
151 Lovey lets her. Gertude Stein feeds on The theme of the life of an exile in this novel affection, and Miss Toklas ensures that she never can be interpreted on different layers: the writer, hungers” (Truong, 71; “GertrudeStein” as in the Monigue Truong, a Vietnamese, has left her original). As Binh watches Stein and Toklas home-land and is permanently living in the United together, he possibly detects the irony of his States of America; the characters in her novel, situation. As Poornima Apte ironically states, in Gertrude Stein and her friend Alice B. Toklas exile because of his own homosexuality, he must are Americans permanently living in Paris; the now serve two women with the same “disease” first-person narrator, Binh, a Vietnamese, living (Apte, 2). in Paris. In this case, the writer presents the Even more interesting is Binh’s life as an problem of living in another culture from outsider in Paris where his broken French is different aspects. Binh understands his status “the language that [he] dip[s] into like a dry as an exile and accepts this role humbly: “Pride inkwell … that has made [him] take flight with is, therefore, reserved for the home, if you are weak wings and watched [him] plummet into a Vietnamese man” (Truong, 57). Amidst his silence” (Truong, 9). There are no other dreams he keeps asking the question, “What Vietnamese in Binh’s life so his mother tongue keeps him from returning home, to a house is “trapped inside [his] mouth… and taken the surrounded by water hyacinths in full purple pallor of the dying, the faded colors of the bloom?” (Truong, 63). abandoned” (Truong, 117). For all of his years Monique Truong discusses different inter- in Paris, Binh wanders around trying to pretations of the outsiders, demonstrating the reconcile his past with his present. Although reaction of the local people to the outsiders: “The he has no fond memories of Vietnam, he is farmers in the village are gracious enough and too aware of his social status and the color of at first simply curious enough to invite me [Binh], his skin in French society. Binh is shown as the first asiatique they have ever seen, into their an outsider, a young gay man who “still clings homes” (Truong, 136). Binh understands that to the hope that some day his scholar-prince in the rural areas, contrary to the urban ones, will come” (Truong, 80). people do not feel hostility towards an outsider: According to Homi K. Bhabha, “dislocation “The farmers there ask very little of me, and – psychic and social – speaks to the condition when they do, they seem to enjoy, unlike their of the marginalized, the alienated, those who Parisian cousins, the sounds of the French lan- have to live under the surveillance of a sign of guage faltering on my tongue. Sometimes they identity and fantasy that denies their difference” even ask to hear a bit of Vietnamese. They close their eyes, trusting and sincere, and they imag- (Bhabha, 63-64). Sometimes a range of ine the birds of the tropics singing” (Truong, culturally and racially marginalized groups 137). On the other hand, while staying in Bilignin, readily assume the mask or the position of the Stein and Toklas’s summer residence, Binh gets minority, not to deny their diversity, but lonesome because he feels out of place, never audaciously to announce the important artifice seeing a face that looks like his. Binh explains of cultural identity and its difference. Likewise, this to Gertrude Stein in his thoughts: Binh assumes the role of the minority; however, “In Paris, GertrudeStein, the constant traffic Stein is a complete opposite of this notion and of people at least includes my fellow asiatiques. does not take up the role of the outsider. And while we may never nod at one another,
152 tip our hats in polite fashion or even exchange group who, probably, never looks back and is empathy in quick glances, we breathe a little happy with the changed place of living. easier with each face that we see. It is the Very often the issue of identity turns into recognition that in the darkest streets of the city there is another body like mine, and that it the discussion of the native language. While means me no harm.” (Truong, 141) Binh longs for Vietnamese, he seems to notice that Stein indulges in the use of her native Thus, despite the people’s friendly attitude, language: Binh is feeling lonesome, and like an outsider among French farmers. Although Truong Over two decades in Paris, and yet with each contrasts the reaction of people to an outsider day GertrudeStein believes that she is growing more intimate with the language of her birth. in rural and urban places, the author states that Now that it is no longer applicable to the subjects the roots of the “otherness” lie inside the of everyday life, no longer wasted on the price person. of petrol, the weather, the health of other Binh understands as being different from people’s children, it has become for her a other people: he thinks his body marks him, language reserved for genius and creation, for announces his weakness, displays it as yellow love and devotion. (Truong, 30; “Gertrude skin (Truong, 152). He is well aware of the Stein” as in the original) fact that as soon as people look at him, the In fact, this statement corresponds to Stein’s very sight of him “dictates to them the limited ideas on the use of English and her constant list of whom I [he] could be. Foreigner, search for the limits of her native language. asiatique…Indochinese” (Truong, 152). It is However, under these circumstances, Binh this explicit identity that makes Binh long for a communicates with the Steins in French, busy Saigon marketplace and lose it in the which is the only language that they have in crush: “There, I tell myself, I was just a man, common. anonymous, and, at a passing glance, a student, While Binh is uncomfartable about his bro- a gardener, a poet, a chef, a prince, a porter, a ken French, Gertrude Stein does not seem to doctor, a scholar. But in Vietnam, I tell myself, care. Again, this fact points to the different I was above all just a man” (Truong, 152). attitudes of the immigrants to their “adopted” People whom he sees around him are “very language: some of them are never able to get French in its contempt and cruelty for those used to it; while others seem to be quite com- who are not” (Truong, 69). fortable about it. Stein’s French, according to Although two different types of immigrants Binh, is common: are described in the novel (The Steins and Binh), It is a shoe falling down a stairwell. The rhythm both types of the immigrants retain their national is all wrong. The closer it gets, the louder and character. Thus Binh remains a Vietnamese and more discordant it sounds. Her broad American the Steins, as Binh says, after all these years accent, though, pleases her to no end. She spent in France, are still Americans. Binh refers considers it a necessary ornamentation, like one to himself and the Steins for whom he worked of the imposing mosaic brooches that she is so as travelers whose hearts have “wisely never fond of wearing. (Truong, 33) left home” (Truong, 247). However, Binh The same brooch is mentioned in Stein’s novel remains an immigrant, who always looks back (Stein, 9) and is one of many details that consti- at his past; while, Stein represents an immigrant tute the transtextual relationship between the texts.
153 Contrary to Stein, Binh thinks that French, a with their memories of their America heaped foreign language, mocks him “with impromptu onto large plates” (Truong, 27). However, their absences” (Truong, 35). Binh likens a language reminiscences are like an ornament, an to a house “with a host of doors, and [he is] interesting game, or one of the many ritual often uninvited and without the keys” (Truong, activities in their life, recounted in The 155). Thus, he interprets himself as an outsider, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. These with no keys to the door of the culture. memories have nothing to do with the salt in Moreover, the concierge, a character from both Binh’s life, actually, they are not salty at all – novels, becomes a symbol and a linking person probably more like sugar. Their memories are between the inside and the outside worlds. Binh completely different from and unlike the salt is resentful to an alien language, the words of in Binh’s life that eats Binh’s present away. which he interprets as being sour: Contrary to Stein and Toklas, who are not disturbed by the issue of personal identity, Binh The irony of acquiring a foreign language is that I have amassed just enough cheap, serviceable spends every day questioning his identity. In words to fuel my desires and never, never enough fact, he admits that he has acquired another lavish, imprudent ones to feed them. It is true, identity: “In this way, I am afraid, I am very though, that there are some French words that French” (Truong, 39). At the end, Binh remains I have picked up quickly, in fact, words that I a lonely figure in the crowd of people boarding cannot remember not knowing. As if I had been a transatlantic boat: he has accompanied his born with them in my mouth, as if they were the employers, who are going to the United States, seeds of a sour fruit that someone ate and then to the pier to see them off. During this final ungraciously stuffed its remains into my mouth. episode he is an extremely pathetic figure, with (Truong, 11–12) a nagging question on his mind: “What keeps The seeds of a sour fruit determine the you here?” (Truong, 261). character of the acquired identity, which has Concluding, The Book of Salt presents a been “ungraciously stuffed” inside the sensitive narrative about an immigrant, an exile, immigrant who has traveled a long way and and questions the reasons for his forced remembers the cities that have carved their displacement. Faith, hope, abuse, love, exile – these names into him, “leaving behind the scar tissue are the issues suggested by the author of the novel. that forms the bulk of who [he is]” (ibid.). However, the most important issue is life in exile, Memories to Binh become the salt of life, and both physical and emotional. Monique Truong he often shifts back and forth from the reality determines the emotional exile as the most to the days in his homeland: “The thought – important one in a person’s life. Contrasting growing stronger with the scent of cloves and different types of life in exile, the author presents sweet cinnamon in the air – takes me out of a sensitive analysis of human identity and questions the past, a border-less country in which I so the value of self-concept. Choosing Paris at the often find myself, and returns me to Paris, to age of modernism for the setting of the novel, the rue de Fleurus” (Truong, 23). and drawing implicit parallels between her novel Binh is not the only one who lives between and the one by Gertrude Stein, the author is able the past and the present. Gertrude Stein and to present a rather objective portrait of an exile, at Alice B. Toklas have also their Sunday rituals the same time showing the contemporary global when they “are settled in their dining room aspect of the search for identity.
154 The transtextual relationships between two openly emphasized. Thus, Monique Truong’s “autobiographies”, the fundamentals of which novel offers the transtextual bridge that joins are the lives of the ones belonging to the the Postmodern and the Modern, emphasizing concept of “the Other,” seem to cover almost the cultural and historical dimensions. The all of the five subtypes of transtextuality as extension of the modern novel to a postmodern offered by Gérard Genette: some of them dimension suggests of the issue of what has covered overtly, while the others are not that been already found out and known.
BIBLIOGRAPHY Aitken, Paul Alexander, 2006: “Genre Trouble: Hall, G., 2003: “The Book of Salt by Monique Locating John Zorn’s Painkiller, a Transtextual Truong.”
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