by S. Swea
Last week, I finished a novella by Nghi Vo called When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it ever since. Set in the same fantasy universe blending Chinese and Vietnamese elements as the author’s longer, just as critically-acclaimed work, The Empress of Salt and Fortune, this is the story of—or more aptly, the story of a story of—a human scholar and the tiger-woman who loved her.
Let me first set the scene. Our protagonist’s name is Chih, a nonbinary cleric who following a series of unfortunate events becomes cornered by a trio of bloodthirsty tigresses. The only way they can delay what seems like an inevitable death is to offer the tigers something more tantalizing than their flesh: a story. Being a cleric, Chih is keeper of many stories, and mercifully for them, they happen to know just the exact one which will appease the tiger sisters—the marriage of their ancestress, Ho Thi Thao. This is where the story really begins.
Many years ago, a scholar named Dieu was bound for the imperial examinations when she came across a beautiful, impossibly dangerous tiger-woman named Ho Thi Thao. She shared with the tiger first her glutinous rice-cakes, then her bed, and then after, and perhaps most intimately, her favorite poem. (And any literary lesbian will let you know just how big of a deal that is.)
Neither Chih nor the tiger sisters, who interject from time to time to “correct” her story, beat around the bush about the nature of the tale: right from the start, the reader understands this is a romance between Dieu and Ho Thi Thao, and one in which will she, won’t she refers to not if your beloved loves you back, but rather if someday while you are asleep, she will not break your neck between her great jaws in some distorted display of affection. Tiger courting rituals are, after all, difficult to comprehend. And it is this gentle balance between violence and devotion, both such uniquely othered manifestations of desire, that makes When The Tiger Came Down the Mountain such an unforgettable love story.
Just take this line for a taste: “It came to Ho Thi Thao that perhaps she wanted to learn how else the scholar was beautiful, and even in what ways the scholar could be ugly, which could also be fascinating and beloved.” Or how in the differing versions of the tale told by Chih and the tiger sisters, Dieu releases Ho Thi Thao from a cage she herself put her in or is released by Ho Thi Thao from a cage she put herself in; yes, the distinction matters. And it matters in a way which goes beyond considerations of just this novella alone, too.
After all, what is queer love if not something monstrous, to be set aside for more noble considerations? What is queerness if not an affront to polite society? Something to be drugged, chained, caged, something to run away from only to run back into the arms of, naked and afraid, wanting, afraid of your own wanting? The metaphor is getting away from me here. What I am trying to say is: Sometimes I don’t want to read about queer people who are punished for their queerness by some notion of god or society; sometimes, I just want to read about queer people who understand that even if they run, they will be punished—by themselves, if no-one else—and who choose to stay nevertheless. Because that is a choice some of us consciously, explicitly, with full volition, make every single day of our lives, and yet it is also a choice not all of us have the privilege of making.
Another thing I cannot get enough of about this novella (and the extended universe it is part of) is how unapologetic it is about its characters’ queerness. Chih goes by they/them pronouns, Si-yu’s ex is female, Ho Thi Thao and Dieu’s odds-defying love is never spoken of in inferior terms because they are both women. We are in a strange age of representation where often even if there is a queer character onscreen or on the page, there’s an apologetic air about them: Sorry, am I taking up too much space? Or, conversely, a character that is all but writing on their head, “I am gay, look at how gay I am, isn’t our network soooo diverse?” and it is just so damn refreshing to see a world where none of that is necessary, where we don’t have to bend over backwards or make a caricature of ourselves just to be allowed to exist. A world in which sapphic romance is the journey and the destination, not just a landmark on the way, but also not necessarily where the story ends.
“I was wrong to leave you,” says Dieu near the end of the tale. “I was wrong to starve you.” The starvation she means is not just physical. It is a hunger deeper than the stomach, which I’m told is the most reliable way to one’s heart, and one which is so rarely satiated. This book satiated it for me. If it is the first and only title you add to your bookshelf this Pride Month, it would be enough.