Review: Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

This little novella is the sixth work I’ve read by Nghi Vo, making Vo the fiction author I’ve returned to most frequently over the last four or five years since her 2020 debut. What I appreciate about Vo is how each of her books explores the same theme, which I previously summarized as “the relationship between reality and the stories we tell, and how this relationship is modified by who tells the story.” I also enjoy her ability to linger in a strange world, letting its foreign logic wash over you without explaining it.

Mammoths at the Gates is the fourth instalment in her Singing Hills Cycle series, which each feature the monk Chi travelling through the land to collect stories to be stored in their monastery. Unlike in The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Book 1) and When the Tiger Came Down The Mountain (Book 2), the monk Chi is our protagonist, rather than the characters featured in the stories Chi collects. This fourth book therefore carries on in the vein of Into the Riverlands (Book 3), which was the first to bring Chi to the forefront, although story-telling remained a core aspect of the narrative. In contrast, in this novella most of the emotional moments and thematic exploration occurs within the “frame” story; story-telling makes up just brief passages mostly towards the end of the novella.

The book packs in a lot of world building, but rather than adding to the development of the themes or characters, it felt like rote exposition. We learn more about the long-memoried bird companions, the operational logistics of the monastery, and the monastery’s relationship with local politics. I wondered if this lore dumping was in response to fan questions. Myself, I preferred swimming in the more mysterious world of the previous volumes.

Without the distinctive features I enjoy about Vo’s work, the rest of the story was just fine. It’s a cozy setting: Chi returns home to their monastery after years of traveling. The plot is relatively simple and low stakes: the abbot has passed away and both the monastery and his granddaughters lay claim to his remains, a dispute that must be solved while everyone mourns his passing. The ideas explored revolve around homecoming and grief. Whether you leave or stay, the world moves on; it is never possible to go back to the same home you knew, but you can reconnect. You can grieve someone who was never in your life to begin with, like the abbot’s granddaughters, who only ever heard of him in stories. The loss of someone close to you can be transformative. This last theme underpinned the emotional climax of the novella, but having just read the heart-wrenching Ti Amo, which explored the same theme but more intensely introspectively, it felt a bit limited and plain.