The Mountain in the Sea

The novel explores the tension between memory and forgetting to highlight the different ways the characters cope with trauma and form their identities in the interstices of the past and present. Eiko contends that memory shapes one’s identity, whereas Indra believes that forgetting is a mode of survival. In a parallel fashion, Rustem extols Evrim’s perfect recall, while Ha believes that a persistent past obstructs personal growth.

Eiko’s mind palaces, both in the forms of the Minaguchi-ya inn and the humble cabin, are places of refuge and conscience. In the inn, he stores the details of the ship’s components, which gives him hope that he may one day recall the information to free himself. In addition, he stores the names of Thomas, a crew member who died, and Con Dao as reminders to never again be indifferent to the lives of others and the meaning of home. As his situation becomes more dire, he builds the cabin to hold even more personal and intimate memories of people’s emotions and facial expressions. For Eiko, memory restores his humanity and helps him define himself. He tells Indra, “It’s important to remember things. It is who we are” (279). As he fills the inn and cabin, he thinks “[t]here had been something broken in him, until then. Maybe now it was getting fixed” (73). Eiko’s memory allows him to look back at his past to improve his present and future.

By contrast, Indra desires “a forgetting palace” (279) to move beyond the horrors of his enslavement and the violence of the mutiny. Memory traps him in a cyclic reminder of brutality, both at his hands and those of others. He agrees with Eiko that memories shape a person’s identity, and that is exactly what burdens him: “I don’t want to be the person carrying these memories around anymore” (280). Indra no longer recognizes himself, and the inability to forget prevents him from healing. Whereas Eiko needs his memories to give him the will to live, Indra’s inability to forget drives him to die by suicide.

In a parallel narrative, Rustem and Ha regard Evrim’s perfect memory from contrasting viewpoints that mirror Eiko’s and Indra’s, respectively. To Rustem, Evrim’s flawless memory is a gift of superior intelligence and near omniscience: “Imagine how much you could learn about the world, with that kind of mind. How much you could grow” (399-400). The inability to forget is a potential that combats ignorance and insularity. Whereas Eiko values memory to reassert his humanity, Rustem regards the ability to remember everything as transcending human limitations. Conversely, Ha regards perfect recall as the very trait that makes Evrim “most inhuman” and “abnormal” (244). Like Indra, Ha believes that remembering everything locks one in an immutable past, burdening one with reliving intrusive, painful memories repeatedly and with vivid clarity. She contends that “through forgetting, we reorganize our world, replace our old selves with new ones” (245). Both Indra and Ha want to disassociate from their pasts for their mental health. Indra wants to bury who he was when he killed the guards, and Ha wishes to forget her younger, insecure self, the “thing that she had been” (91). Forgetting allowed Ha to cope with the pain of unrequited love and redefine herself with more strength and security. However, she also used willful forgetting to deny her poor treatment of struggling villagers and her culpability in the death of the cuttlefish. In remembering this part of her past and confronting it, Ha became self-aware of her values and her flaws.

For all the characters, the balance of remembering and forgetting operates as a type of storytelling that helps them define who they are and who they wish to be. The novel illustrates the complexity of memory and forgetting as both formative and destructive forces to achieving a sense of an authentic self.