The Empress of Salt and Fortune
by Nghi Vo
August 3, 2024
Finished | I think this was the book that really allowed me to enjoy reading again. I read it right before I went on a staycation with my partner in May that kind of was the turning point of the year for me. I enjoyed that weekend so much that I was extremely depressed about returning back to my daily life, and so I made a list of things that were important for me to do regularly so that I could stay alive. Reading was one of them.
This was also the first book I read after someone online said that they listen to audiobooks to help days when they are bedbound pass better. I've struggled with it before because I can't really focus much, and I used to be the kind of person who likes to hold onto every single word. But I put this audiobook on, and found my sweet spot is 85% speed, and I would just replay the whole chapter if I caught myself too unfocused to catch on. The recording itself was about 2 hours long, but it took me maybe 4 or 5 hours over a couple of nights. And I enjoyed it so much. So much so that I didn't have a chance to make myself feel bad about my cognitive difficulties.
I love the storytelling format of the book, because the main character is someone who is tasked with hearing stories from someone else, so the story is told to the main character by someone else, and thus the story evolves through dialogue, or monologue really, to the person's discretion and as the person trusts the main character more, we learn more too. It was very queer and very Asian and very poetic. And I guess it connected so much to me because as a diaspora kid, I have access to our culture and history only through our family's elders, who only share as much as they are comfortable with. They are war refugees with a bunch of trauma and quirks. We speak in english, and while I was raised only speaking english fluently, they had to learn english later in life. The preservation of our stories is like archeologists' work, digging gently and then trying to cut and brush away the dirt so carefully as to not damage the original item. And I think this book honors that kind of work.