Bangkok Wakes to Rain – Pitchaya Sudbanthad

Sudbanthad has immense talent and skill for creating convincing character voices. This collection features short stories that are connected but separated by time and space. If you pay attention, you’d start to recognize the the same world, group of characters, but told through different voices. Each person or animal faces their own instincts, fears, hesitations, trauma… The outside world is full of unexpected dangers: flood, plague, violence, and Sudbanthad’s brave imagination takes him inside the psyche of creatures fighting to survive in this world. There are moments of calmness, comedy, hopefulness, and no matter how the story ends, I feel that the characters live on beyond the last sentence.

In one group of stories, we follow the lives of Mai and her friend Pig, from youth through old age, show them changing fortunes, dealing with new fears and struggles. I really resonated with Mai’s struggle as a teenager growing up with friends that are richer and better looking than her. This gnawing feeling of “I am not good enough” is hard to shake, and her accomplishments are not internalized.

The few times anyone ever says something nice about her are when they talk about accomplishments that look great on paper.

Becoming

The disconnect between her view of herself and her achievements puzzle her parents, but I sympathize with her choices. We don’t get to hear from Mai again whether she was happy with her cosmetic surgery, but have the same hope as the doctor’s last thought in the story, hoping that appearances become the least important of all.

Fast forward many pages, we meet Pig and Mai again, but now the tables had turned and Pig is the one struggling. Pig’s hesitancy to bring her son to meet Mai and her daughter is revealed only half way through the story, and I just have this happy hopeful feeling at the end when the two friend reconcile.

Pig turns to watch thousands of candles bob away in the ebbing tide, each carrying pleas into the dark. She feels Mai’s hand clasp around hers.

Birds

In the last story, Mai and Pig reflect on their lives of being mothers, and now close to the final years. Their internal voices both sound a lot more assured, as if they had left the jealousy and low self-esteem parts of themselves in the past. This mature identity helps them see their past self in a different way, and they see that in their own children.

When you have children, your own childhood comes back in full relief against theirs.

Crossings

Sudbanthad created three different voices for each of these two characters, and perhaps they are his own reflections of his youth and hopes for his old age. Mai and Pig’s thoughts feel like intimate diary entries that the writer has shared with us all. I also adore Sudbanthad’s prose. He describes scenery but more importantly reveals what a character is thinking of, longing for.

She gazes up into the canopy, away from the crowd gathered at the rocky shallows. Misty slivers of light shoot through wavering treetops. Long wispy branches trace dark shapes against the bright colorless day. A cool breeze sweeps through, sending dried leaves into lofty, airborne rolls, except those dried leaves are golden-winged butterflies thickly clinging to the edges of branches. They return to perch after a few short spirals, settling and resettling on different parts of the trees, as if visiting old friends and lovers.

She loves it so: to be a woman breathing on this earth.

Crossings

Sammy and his father deal with a different problem. they live their entire lives aloof and even in the end, we are not sure they reconcile. What is the cause of their distance? Is it the geographical divide between London, Bangkok and LA? Or is it the decades of mistrust, hurtful betrayals and words left unsaid? An unhappy ending linger on every page of this story, and I felt that father and son held onto their own secrets until it’s too late.

Sammy looked back to see an old man leaning on his cane. His father wasn’t looking at or for him. His gaze seemed fixed on someplace invisible to everyone else. […] It turned out that his father had been elsewhere all along.

Birthright

Sammy’s conversation with his father are short and succinct, and more is revealed through what is left unsaid. We don’t hear Sammy’s dad’s voice, but his hidden letters describing his love for his last wife, give us a peek into the desire for happiness and peace that he wasn’t able to fulfil with Sammy’s mother. Meanwhile, Sammy had kept a lot of his thoughts to himself as well, maintaining the wall that divide them.

Later on, it is Sammy that confronts his own memories of a failed marriage.

She returned to him not as one whole person but as an apparition in parts: a collection of stills that appeared to him for no longer than the flash of a strobe light. […] It turned out that he had felt then only the first wave of psychic tides that would arrive years apart. The high ecstasy of assured comfort that greeted him when he first landed with the love of his life in Stockholm was followed by depths of dread on staring out at the bluest and most serene of bays and its postcard islands of pine and rock, and spotting only the final resting place of his own contentment.

Heirloom

In this story, Sammy lives with regret, longing for the past, but also unable to live in the moment and always looking for a different future. I don’t think he has a clear idea of what “better” future is, but rather just a different one. It is almost like a fantasy that helps him escape his current reality.

Finally we meet Sam as an elderly man who was given a reason to finally plan a future. With his lover pregnant, he faces a future of being a father, requiring him to be stable and reliable. This future for him is different than ever before.

The future used to be his haven. He escaped to its large open country when he felt his present life constrict around him. It was where he could live out the stories that seemed to happen only to other people. […]

What is his future now? It appears less and less expansive: no more than a strip narrowing into a corner bordered by the endless dark.

Sons

I relate too much to this feeling. It is an escape to think of the “what ifs” rather than stay in the present and accept it. We don’t know the rest of Sammy’s life, and his ending is so ambiguous. Is this is happy or sad ending? He is now “trapped” in this life, with no more futures to fantasize about, but he is also infinitely less miserable than the boyfriend of the girl who bears his child. Each life has its own sorrow, and perhaps Sammy can finally be content with what he has. Sammy’s voice through these three story are somewhat sedated. He is not easily excitable, but he is also doesn’t plunge into the depths of despair. Perhaps he represents the perfect mediocre person: never happy with the present, but not fighting for anything in particular either.

The most striking single story for me is “Outpour”. The main character, an engineering student, gets involved with protests in 1973, also known as “Day of Great Sorrow”. This is a real event, but there are moments in Sudbanthad’s narrative that feel like a dream. The student’s daily life, worrying about exams, taking trips to hometown during school break, listening to Coleman Hawkins peacefully, only worried about matters of working, meeting a girl he likes. This feels like a different world, with routines that may seem boring but are taken for granted. His story could easily be someone’s mundane diary: dinner with girlfriend’s mother, watching a new movie, special occasions getting steak or macaroni. Carrying on with daily life, falling in love and subsistence in the backdrop of growing dissent and brewing violence are dangerous but also so precious. Intertwining normal life and violence makes the story ever more tragic and heartbreaking. When reality is a nightmare, then dreams of normal life are not possible.

She couldn’t be sure if it was because her ears were full of water, but by afternoon all sounds had disappeared. It was the quietest she had ever heard the campus, not one sparrow noisy over classroom roofs. She felt like she was somewhere else, watching a terrible silent movie.

Outpour

Another example where Sudbanthad uses different voices superbly is in the short story “Uprising”. In just one story, we hear from a child worker on a construction site (Gai), construction lead (Tohn), building manager (Duang), and a couple who’s interested in buying an apartment (Mohd and Mehta). They are each concerned of entirely different things, although they work in the same building, same piece of land. The land outlives everyone, and the world goes on regardless of the fates of the unlucky.

The city’s eyes had shifted to fresher news of deaths and mayhem that reminded them again of the mysteries of karma.

Uprising

The last character that left an impression on me is Dr. Stevens, who appears in the beginning and we don’t hear from him again until near the end of the book. He goes through a spiritual and intellectual awakening, from a racist, prejudiced doctor, he started to see the benefits of local medicine.

each poor soul I encounter, I’ve come to know, is also my own. The lifelong accumulation of their hours; their betrayals, blindness, and failings; their genius and heart: mine, too. I shall come to God through their eyes.

Return

Perhaps that’s what Sudbanthad wants for his readers: to observe the world in the same way he does, attentive to detail, curious about other people’s voices. And if we do that, we may also go through a spiritual change.

Peach Blossom Paradise – Ge Fei

I was immediately entranced by this book. Each chapter opens up new mysteries and plants the seed for the next. I read most of the book in one sitting and the next day finished the book, feeling both inspired and also melancholic. The book has a powerful grip on me, perhaps because of the beautiful and textured prose, or perhaps because of the haunting darkness of the world. Feels ironic that one book can achieve both, but that’s why I couldn’t stop reading. At times the book feels like a surreal fairytale, at other times it feels like a real historical archive. The scenery, people, even the story all are so familiar and I feel like I’ve learnt about them in history lessons, seen them on ancient drama, but still no one writes like Ge Fei and his imagination took me to an alternative world.

a) Utopia, paradise and different realities

There are many people searching for utopia in this novel: the protagonist Xiu Mi, Lu Kan – her father, Zhang Jiyuan – a strange man, Dapples, Wang Guancheng… They all end up in different places. Xiu Mi dies after a lifetime of tragedy and solitude. Lu Kan goes missing without any trace. Zhang Jiyuan gets murdered. Dapples defends his town against the Japanese invasion. Guancheng is also brutally murdered. This is a small representation of a lot of people in China following the 100 days of reform, just at the end of the Qing dynasty. Millions of people died and were displaced, bureaucratic records destroyed and many were never heard of again, migrated and fled the country. The reality of revolutionary movements is harsh, and one could never ensure their own outcome. Even those who don’t participate in revolutions are subjected to the ruthless sways of power. We never hear again about many (the nun Han Liu, the second wife Lilypad, the treacherous stable boy). We witness the painful deaths of others (Madam Lu, the teacher Ding Shuze) who are swept away by time. In the whirlwind of political change, power struggle and global forces, one could end up dead, a martyr, a poet, or rich, glorious, or inconsequential, desolate.

But Ge Fei isn’t necessarily interested in giving his reader a lesson in history – do your own research if you wanted to know the context of the Qing dynasty’s collapse, of Sun Yat Sen and the Republic of China. Instead, he creates these fiction spaces, Puji village and Huajiashe, that are representative, whether for a long or short time, of paradise. Huajiashe is allegedly a paradise before Xiumi arrived, and she witnessed the crumbling and corruption of the complex. Puji tries to become a paradise, but perhaps was only a utopia for a brief moment during the bleakest days of starvation that threatened to kill many. Paradise is the end goal and the road there is revolution. But no one could really grasp what those two concepts really are. Lu Kan thought by planting peach trees all over and building a cover for all the villagers he could make paradise, but his own plans couldn’t go past his own house. Guancheng established a whole village that maybe did exist as a utopia for some time, but it was not sustainable. Xiumi herself tried a different way to push change, through education and eventually also preparing for war, but she could only see a vision of this paradise fleetingly. These visions of utopias fade in and out like a dream. Some feel so close but also fuzzy and conceptual.

Revolution is when no one has any idea what they’re doing. You know you’re making revolution, it’s true, but you have absolutely no idea what’s going on.

Xiumi, to Tiger

Puji is so completely different from Huajiashe, yet sometimes they merge together: the description of rural life, domestic chores, quiet houses are so similar whether Xiumi is with Han Liu in Huajiashe, or with Magpie in Puji. They exist like two alternate universes, and much of Xiumi’s perception of reality becomes blurry.

She [Xiumi] suddenly felt like Wang Guancheng, Zhang Jiyuan, and her missing father were all one and the same person. Their figures and their dreams were like mist and clouds in the sky, evaporating into nothing at the first sign of wind.

But Ge Fei offers an explanation that avoids turning this novel into science fiction. These different places, with different people, and different temporal existents, may not be parallel universes, but rather many sides of the same dice. The way Ge Fei slowly unravels each narrative illustrates this point. In the first chapter, we only hear about Xiumi’s perspective as a naive girl. She can sense strange things about the world around her: Zhang Jiyuan’s unusual relationship with her mother, the existence of a society outside her understanding, revolutionary forces that she can’t control. In the second part we get peeks into Zhang Jiyuan’s diary and understand the sexual desires, the political schemes, the deathly consequences that explains the same things Xiumi had observed before. They are not separate from Xiumi’s world, but rather, an extension, another piece of the puzzle. In part three, we see the story from Tiger’s perspective, knowing he does not know Xiumi’s history and his understanding of her is limited to her eccentric behaviour. In this sense she appears as a mad woman to him – yet another perspective that does not invalidate Xiumi’s character development from the two previous parts, but rather builds upon the story so far. Ge Fei gives us different pieces, and each piece is mysterious in its own way, yet still cohesive and fits perfectly into the next piece. And these pieces could be a material place, or a place in one’s mind. Can’t a utopia and a nightmare be in the same place?

Who could know all the sides of the universe? Who could have all the pieces? Xiumi ponders,

It’s like a centipede that crawls over the walls of Black Dragon Temple every day. It knows every part of the temple, every crack and cranny, every single brick and tile. Yet if you asked it, ‘What does Black Dragon Temple look like?’ it couldn’t answer you.

Xiumi to Tiger

Later in life, Xiumi reflects on this again when she wanders into her garden at midnight,

If a diving beetle were to find his path blocked by fallen flower petals, might he accidentally wander into a Peach Blossom Paradise, like the fisherman in the story? Xiumi felt as if she herself were an ant lost among the flowers. Every facet of her life was inconsequential, quotidian, and without meaning, yet also permanently visible, and unforgettable.

So that beetle, living in dirt and mud, could enter paradise unknowingly, even if just briefly. It’s a perfect explanation for the fleeting and mysterious encounter with utopia. Ge Fei presents these different facets, “petals”, routes, even different species of flowers – they are all part of life, of revolutionaries, of paradise.

b) Symbolism

There are many objects that repeat itself throughout the novel, strategically placed so that one can’t stop guessing what they might mean.

The golden cicada appears first with Zhang Jiyuan, then with the nun Hua Lin, later, with Little Thing when he is buried, and late in the novel, with Dapples as a final gift to Xiumi. When I first hear of this cicada, I am curious, then when I encounter it again, I am absorbed; finally, I am saddened when it is linked to death and a symbol of farewell. It is a valuable object, but its value changes depending on who has it and at what time. When the idea of utopia is rich and growing in secret, the golden cicadas are very treasured and sacred. They signify a bond between the outlaws, and act as a subtle way to communicate their loyalty. Once the utopia falls apart, it is to Little Thing just a symbol of his mother Xiumi, who more or less abandoned him. It is representative of broken dreams, of his death, and also Xiumi’s dying dreams. When the cicada appears last with Dapples, it signifies abandonment, a vision cast away and refused.

Another object that appears intermittently is the water basin that Lu Kan bought from a beggar. By the end of the novel, the only explanation we get about this object is that it creates a pleasant sound when tapped. This sound alone inspired Lu Kan to dream, all the way to insanity; and this sound finally awakened Xiumi to her last coherent self.

She flicked its side lightly with a fingernail, then bent her head to bring her ear closer. Ripples of sound expanded into the rain and empty darkness like the peals of a temple bell. Xiumi tapped the basin over and over, as tear stains smeared the heavy layer of powder on her cheeks. Then she looked up at Magpie and stuck her tongue out like a willful child. At that moment. Magpie felt as if Xiumi had transformed into her original self.

The basin was admired by Zhang Jiyuan, but is worth nothing to Magpie or Lilypad, who use it as a bowl in the kitchen. Despite the rust and the neglect, the basin outlasts a lot of the people. This object of humble appearance hides a delight that only those who know could cherish. Perhaps this is a symbol of one’s dreams. There is an undying hope that gets passed down from one dreamer to another, and once touched by that hope, one would find inspiration again. But if one doesn’t see or understand this dream, then it is of no value to them.

Finally I want to ponder on the significance of the peach flowers in contrast with the lotus. There is a long paragraph where the teacher Ding Shuze explains the importance of each flower species.

The orchid resides in the tranquil valley, the chrysanthemum hides in fields and hedges; the winter plum piles fragrant snow on the mountainside, while bamboo fans its green airs across the scholar’s window. Only the lotus endures the shame of life in filth and bottomless mud, yet it emerges from there without stain. Its moral character is pure and restrained, its nature warm and gentle.

Each flower with its own meaning, but we hear about the peach blossoms and the lotus the most in this novel. Peach flowers appear in the painting that Lu Kan treasured so much, in the folk story about paradise, and in the title. These blossoms stand for that unattainable and short lived beauty that no one succeeded in achieving. At the end of her life, Xiumi specifically wanted to grow lotuses. She brought together the smelliest and dirtiest ingredients to nurture the bulbs to life. Perhaps that is her wisdom in the end: she stopped hoping for peach blossoms and instead put her efforts into something else equally beautiful but attainable.

c) Beauty

Just like flowers, Ge Fei’s writing is incredibly beautiful. No matter if he’s describing a manmade prison, holding powerless women captive, or a humble garden at the end of Xiumi’s life, he finds moments and images that bring calmness, and makes me want to stay there in that space.

When Xiumi first set foot on the island a month earlier, the scene before her – the dilapidated house and garden, the flowers and trees, the clouds rolling unimpeded across the sky – inspired an unexpected sense of familiarity. She felt she must have been here before, as the whole scene, even the swallow nests in the eaves above, aligned perfectly with some part of her memory.

[…] Quiet had reclaimed the world after the storm’s passing. The evening sky was utterly cloudless and a deep green, glowing with the faint light of new stars. Reeds along the bank swayed slowly against each other. Huajiashe was a silent twinkling of lights. The moon had risen high.

The book’s translator compares the 100 Days of reform to “a quiet inhale, a calm before the storm”. I feel the same of Ge Fei’s writing. Scenes of violence, upheaval, horror, are punctuated by quiet, calm prose, letting the mind rest and indulge in temporary beauty. In particular I felt Magpie’s first line of poetry so endearing and hauntingly pretty, it almost feels like a different story to be told.

Xiumi: beyond the lotus pool echoes distant thunder

Magpie: lamp ash winter snow endless nights

There can be beauty in the moments before we lose everything, and there is beauty in a new life starting. It is not always the story of the phoenix rising from the ashes, but rather, of the hidden growth and unexpected spurt from the mud. Even in Xiumi’s grief and solitude she was able to find beauty in flowers, in her friendship with Magpie, and was able to see the villagers come together. And Ge Fei plants these moments of happiness, content, peace. Once again, beauty and darkness are the different sides of the same story, and we can only really appreciate them together. Completely different from Aldous Huxley’s and George Orwell’s writings, Ge Fei tells a story of utopia that is dystopia, and seduces us into his world.

The Word of the Speechless – Julio Ramón Ribeyro

It took a few short stories to warm up to Ribeyro’s writing style, but once I started to pay attention to the details and the clues that he drops in his narratives, I appreciated more of his dramatic finales and intense conflicts. Usually writers draw from experience, but I can see it is Ribeyro’s rich imagination that brings out his unique stories. I don’t know how he is able to put himself in the shoes of so many different people: a debtor facing his creditors, a father building his life on a cliff just to lose everything, a writer regretting his decision to evict his annoying friend, an estate owner searching for meaning in his empty life, some female friends preparing for a doomed literary discussion, a husband contemplating how to deal with his cheating wife, a lover waiting in vain for his beautiful seductress…. Ribeyro tells these stories sometimes in less than 5 pages, but the characters all grab hold of my attention and I keep wanting to know what happens beyond these short stories. Here I mention a few of my favourite stories, each with their own mood and charm.

“At the foot of the cliff” has a melancholy and stoic quality that haunts me long after I finish reading the story. The protagonist, a poor fisherman left alone to raise his two sons, found purpose in life by setting up a bathing and snack station for beach goers. His life seems simple and tranquil enough, until the sea took away one of his sons, and the other son grew aloof because he preferred life in the city, away from the ups and downs of the ocean. The protagonists battles the waves, the lows and highs of business, the changing of the seasons, and even the bureaucracy of the authorities. Never does he lose hope, and never does he stop.

To lose a son who works is like losing a leg or like a bird losing a wing. I was like a cripple for many days, but life reclaimed me because there was a lot to do. We had a stretch with bad catches, and the sea had become stingy.[…]

In these parts all the months are the same: during some periods, there might be more fog, during others, the sun is hotter. But, deep down, it’s all the same.

In some ways the man is resilient and pragmatic, but somehow we still feel that his loneliness consumes him day and night. There is so much left unsaid in his story that perhaps Ribeyro wants us to use our imagination to complete. Does he miss his dead son? Does he miss the mother of his son? Does he regret making a life at the foot of this cliff where everything is difficult? In the last part of the story, the man loses his patience and yells at the other poor folk like him who depend on the sea. He casts away society and refuses to help his fellow people, and in turn they also abandon him. What might seem like a sad story doesn’t feel like a tragedy, for he picks up his belongings and moves on.

I wandered aimlessly, for a while watching the waves, then looking at the cliffs, tired of life, actually, tired of everything, as the day dawned.

What I read wasn’t a sorrowful tale of someone who worked hard and then lost everything. What I read was a story of survival and the desire to exist in a harsh world. The man’s motivation is very simple, and his feelings are hidden, but the readers can glimpse a bit into his soul. He just longs for a place to call home and spends his days. And that’s why the story’s resolution is so fast and simple as well. The man continues on, just like a stubborn plant growing in the rocks.

I ran to him, and there, up against he cliff, in between the white shells, a higuerilla was growing. I looked for a long time at its rough leaves, its coarse stem, its pods covered in spikes that cut any hand that tries to caress them. My eyes clouded over.

“Here,” I said to Toribio. “Hand me that crowbar!”

And, digging through the rocks, we raised the first timber of our new home.

My second favourite story is “The Solution”. In roughly 11-12 pages, Ribeyro lures us into an entertaining discussion at a writer’s low key party. The friends who attend dinner energetically discuss a fictional character that the writer is crafting in his next story. What would you do if you found out your wife had not one but four concurrent lovers? Ribeyro leaves us with questions of sexual scandal, moral dilemmas, duties of love. I had fun playing along. I think the fictional husband should divorce the wife and find someone else, or keep the wife but start his own affairs on the side. It all sounds hypothetical and almost a fun thought exercise to go through.

With one page left in the story, Ribeyro then drops the first foreshadowing, a gunshot, and then it was brushed off as an accident. With half a page left in the story, Ribeyro still doesn’t change the lighthearted tone of his narrative. It isn’t until the last phrase of the the last sentence, that we finally understand the meaning of the entire story. Now all the previous discussions, sometimes half jokingly, comes under a new light and we fully comprehend the gravitas of “the solution”.

Finally, I also really enjoyed “Silvio in el Rosedal”. I think it’s because I am a student of the violin, just like the main character who found solace by learning the Bach duet for Violin. The story is set on a large estate, consisting of a colonial mansion and a rose garden. One symbolizes the relics of the past, one symbolizes the fleeting beauty or the present. Neither of them brought Silvio any happiness. He relied on the wealth of his estate and grew into lazy habits, without much purpose in life. I always fantasize about being rich, but Silvio made me realize how being endowed with too much wealth could be a curse.

The main plot rests Silvio decrypting the layout of the rose garden, and he found that the roses were arranged in the word “SER”. He spends the rest of his life looking for the meaning of this word in his dream. Ser in Spanish can mean “being” or “to be”, but there were other interpretations that keep circling in Silvio’s mind. Its meaning so wide and so alluring that he never ceased to keep looking, and everything inspired him to look for “SER” or “RES”. This puzzle seems unsolvable. And perhaps it is not meant to be solved. Along the way, Silvio learnt violin, learnt how to invite people into his life, including his cousin and niece, how to break free from pleasing society. But most importantly, he finally realized there was no puzzle to solve, no hidden meaning.

There was no riddle or message in that garden, or in his life. […] In so doing, he felt serene, sovereign. The fireworks were over. […] Picking up his violin, he pressed it against his chin and began to play for nobody amid the uproar. For nobody. And he was certain that he had never played better.

Silvio found happiness in being alone, entertaining himself. Perhaps Ribeyro wrote this ending because he himself was a lonesome person, but evidently in that loneliness he found comfort and peace,

Child of Fortune – Yuko Tsushima

The best way to enjoy this novel is to assume nothing. Tsushima took me gently by the hand and lead me into a forest. Dark, but enticing, filled with strange plants, creatures, and I wasn’t sure where I was going. But after the short walk with Tsushima, I start to see emotions more clearly. Not just Koko’s emotions, but my own. There’s so much to unpack in our experience of being alive, and Tsushima offers some sympathy for how utterly confusing and scary it can be.

Koko, the protagonist, faces her fears everyday. Her father died young. Her brother was sent away from her. She has to raise a child on her own,. She worries if she has enough money to sustain herself and her daughter. She is traumatized by her past marriage. She remembers her abortion. Her daughter keeps her distance and refuses to stay with her every day. There’s so much uncertainty and instability in her life that Koko’s stream of consciousness feels fragmented, fearful and incoherent. But as the story unfolds, I start to understand that Koko is doing her best to handle each stab of anxiety at a time. Once, when her fear of her daughter abandoning her comes up, she retreats to memories of a trip with her daughter. She recalls that trip she had with Kayako and Doi, and reimagines the smallest details. The train, the hotel, Kayako’s mittens. Even in this trip to the past, Koko goes back a few years and remembers something else that happened. Her fears run so deep that each event triggers another buried emotion. So reading her thoughts feel like going through a disorganized maze, but actually each pathway relate to an event that happened in Koko’s life. They make up who she is in the novel, and they are legitimate reactions to trauma and fear.

But Koko also lives in the present, and like everyone else she has desires. She wants to be a good mother. She longs for Doi. She enjoys sex. She wants a life free of violence. What do we get when desire and fear are mixed together? Here the intricacies of fear and desire come out in Tsushima’s writing.

The only way she could escape the molten lava of her own sexuality had been to conceive and have the baby. And when she remembered the looks she’d had from Osada and her sister, and Doi and Hatanaka before them, it was with anger this time. Giving birth to this baby was the only way to show Doi why she wouldn’t become pregnant during her time with him, and how badly she wanted to escape the power of sex. To Doi her body must have seemed safe as mud.

Even though Koko had these thoughts when she was drunk, I see clearly her emotions. She wants to be a mother again. She wants to enjoy sex. She is scared of society’s and her family’s judgement of her life. She wants to feel powerful, and have control over her life and boy. She wants to feel safe and protected. What Koko wants are basic human needs. But they are denied to Koko. One could blame her choices for how she is, but I see her stubbornness to persevere and make it on her own as an answer to a cold and unsympathetic society. Mothers get blamed for not being able to support their children. But wives are shunned for leaving their abusive husbands.

Women also quickly get labelled as “mentally unstable”. We’ve seen this trope before, with Bertha Antoinetta in Jane Eyre, Ophelia in Hamlet, Anna in Anna Karenina, Alias Grace. These women are just examples of lives that are taken advantage of and then shunned by society when they turn to “madness”, and their endings are always tragic. Koko seemed to head down the same path when she started to hallucinate about her pregnancy. But Tsushima offers a different outcome here. Despite Yoko’s surreal narrative, there is extraordinary clarity in her thoughts. She reflects,

The baby itself might have been an illusion, but she’d never gone so far as to make Doi the father. She may have wished he was, with ever-deeper regret, but she’d never lost sight of the fact that the baby’s father was Osada. It was the ease of her connection with Osada that had sustained her, her lack of attachment to him that encouraged her; while her eyes, as always, were on Doi.

Koko is able to separate her desires from her needs, and her own survival instincts. To be honest when I found out that Koko’s pregnancy is a result of her own imagination, I felt like I was tricked and had to laugh at Tsushima’s ingenuity – her ability to make me believe in Koko and make me care about a fetus. But just like I realize Koko’s daydreaming is a means of self-preservation, I started to understand Koko’s fake pregnancy is her way of surviving. Worrying about an unborn child gave her strength, courage, and purpose. Her instincts are strong and keeps her going:

Koko was shaken by the realization that even now, more than twenty years later, she still lacked any compelling reason to go on living. And by the fact that the will to live was still there.

In the last part of the novel, Koko scares off a young boy by pretending she was an alien. This is a strange way to end a novel. But what is Tsushima’s point here? Koko experiences her own moments of alienation from her body, her family and her reality. But at the end of the day, she finds herself again and keeps going. Unlike the boy who runs away scared, Koko has to stay and face her fears. Her pretending also signifies the part she plays in her life. She has to enact her role: a pianist, a good mother, a desirable lover, a strong independent woman. She is good at it, and that’s what keeps her going.

Rubbing her eyes, Koko began to walk along the faintly tinged pavement.

Exploring history through imagination: A Suitable Boy, Wolf Hall, War & Peace, Hong Lou Meng

In the past few years, I overcame my fear of long books and embraced the beauty in dense, rich and extravagant details. Then, I found out the seductive quality of historical fiction. What we know through history books is only what had been recorded, but there are so many stories that were never preserved. To imagine and feel the world of the past is a power that not many of us have. Four books, A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and Hong Lou Meng by Cao Xue Qin, gave me that ability to connect with the mysterious past in my own ways. Through these works, I am able to humanize the people from many years ago, in some cases, centuries ago, and imagine a world that is not that far different from my own present day. This is the power of fiction. These novels give voices to those who are under-represented in history, whose image and story are forever controlled by others.

a) A changing world: A Suitable Boy

The most recent of these books is “A Suitable Boy”, set in India in the 1950s. I grew up in a fairly harmonious country, with not too many racial or religious conflicts, so it was eye opening to read Vikram Seth’s narration, one that is full of violence. Even though the novel’s main plot about a romance leading to marriage, the bulk of the novel describes in vivid and unashamedly detail the clashes between generations, religions, social classes (brahmin), political outlook… At this period in its history, India’s burgeoning independence brought about an excitement and vibrant quality to the character’s lives. There are people of all sorts of educational backgrounds in the book: literature students, poet, shoe maker, singers, farmers, land owners, banker etc. Many Indians grasp the new political and economic opportunities to build new lives for themselves. Every character is driven, passionate and unique. These different passions also bring about conflicts and struggles, on top of the long standing strife in different belief systems and ways of life.

There is the changing ethical and beliefs between two generations. Rasheed, an Urdu teacher, clashes with his family’s rigidity and emphasis on customs and ceremony. But he demonstrates more sympathy and determination for justice than his elders. Going against his family, to take the side of people of different religion and social status than his family, had devastating effects on his life, and his tragic fate shows that change is not easy.

In microcosm those two pages reflected the passage of an empire and the birth of two countries from the idea – tragic and ignorant – that people of different religions could not live peaceably together in one

A divergent of lifestyle is also transparent through the characters of Arun and Meenakshi, in comparison to Amit, and Mahesh. Arun works for a bank and shows off his superficial understanding of England, preferring Western style of dress and friends. Amit, on the other hand, is a poet and has his own creative processes, hangs out with his own friends, irritating Arun and his wife. This character is further juxtaposed against Mahesh, a down-to-earth and hard-working shoe maker. The different paths these characters take and the conflicts that arise when they have to share the same space for a brief time highlight the diversity of culture and society at that time. Just like these characters, post-independent India is bestowed to many opportunities and paths. However, they each have their internal struggles and prejudices owing to their own upbringing and the values instilled in them by their families. They also face discrimination in increasingly international industries. Mahesh fights against stubborn and vile company owners who think he is below them, then against the prejudices of foreign bosses, and even against Lata’s judgement of his accent. Arun has to play his cards well to get along with his British superiors and their families, so that he can provide an adequate life for his family. Arun struggles to gain recognition and produce meaningful poetry in English. These struggles are different, but also similar, as examples of the challenges India has to face in its quest to grow as an independent nation.

b) A dangerous world: Wolf Hall

While Seth was interested in a change in an entire society, Hilary Mantel was concerned more specifically with one historical figure. If it wasn’t for Mantel’s daring and rich imagination, I would never care to find out more about Thomas Cromwell. So far away in the past, Cromwell’s story is easily condensed and portrayed as a villainous manipulator of court affairs and corrupted government bureau.

But Mantel takes liberty with what is not written in history. She imagines the way Cromwell speaks, with cunning, charisma, power and persuasion. She brings his pains to life: the abuse of his father, the fall of his trusted mentor, the loss of his beloved family. These dark moments that Mantel focuses on, bring me closer to Cromwell of the 16th Century, no matter that it is a different time and place than where I am now.

Cromwell’s rise to power is punctuated by his strategic and well-timed decisions. I was struck by the phrase “arrange your face” that Cromwell tells himself. His ability to cater his services to what King Henry needs the most, wants to hear the most, and desires the most, is what brought about his rise in the ranks. History only tells us what the observer records, but what goes on behind the many “faces” of historical figures is left for us to guess, and imagine. Maneuvering a political landscape where King Henry is unpredictable and powerful, Cromwell played his cards perfectly and lined up the King’s interests spectacularly. I was particularly struck by the scene where Cromwell attended the King and interpreted a scary dream in a way to refuel Henry’s confidence and determination. He took a dangerous situation and made it advantageous for himself.

Isn’t this exactly how politics works these days anyway? Mantel respected the historical facts, and re-envisioned 16th Century England in a way that is not so far off from our current political world. There are strategies, truths that are spun in a certain way to benefit the most privileged, and people who hide their true intentions.

If this is a lesson from history then we can be sure those who are the most adept at reading between the lines and “rearranging” their faces, would be the ones to prevail. (At least for Cromwell before his own downfall)

c) A crumbling world: War & Peace

While Cromwell seemed to have really good control of his cards, the characters in War & Peace are swept away and flung around by the current of war. At the end of his 1000+ page novel, Tolstoy spent many pages discussing what propels history, what causes events, and how to tell the story of the past. Tolstoy admits the difficulty in portraying history as cause and effect; there are so many chain reactions – how could one properly find the root causes or initial events?

In the flow of history, Tolstoy’s characters are motivated by a universal need for love, affection and belonging. This is also the main concern of Tolstoy, just like Vikram Seth’s approach to reimagination of history.

Most of the people at that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people whose activities at that period were most useful.

Tolstoy is more interested in historical figures, like Napoleon and Alexander I, as a individual people, what they looked like and how they behaved with the people around them, rather than what history books write about them.

so the result of all the complicated human activities of 160,000 Russians and French – all their passions, desires, remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and enthusiasm – was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the so-called battle of the three Emperors – that is to say, a slow movement of the hand on the dial of human history.

In one memorable scene, Rostov rides around at the end of the battle of Austerlitz to find Alexander I. In a rare moment, the emperor of Russia is portrayed as a human being, saddened by his loss, lost in the chaos of broken up soldiers, defeated by forces greater than him. In another scene, Napoleon visits the wounded Russian prisoners of war. He is portrayed as a man with small stature and soft spoken. This formidable historical figure is just an ordinary man for a moment.

Even the “drivers” of history like Napoleon and Alexander I are just humans, so all the other characters, no matter how much money and status they have, are also just people. They all find themselves scrambling to react to the destruction of war. All families endured the horrors of war, death, the invasion of Napoleonic forces, and have to adapt to the power changes. Tolstoy interprets history by imagining the small inconsequential moments, by giving life to people whose story is never recorded. Perhaps when we can write history from the voices of the people, rather from the perspective of world leaders and military strategy, then we can fully appreciate the lessons of the past.

d) A surreal fantasy of the past: Hong Lou Mong

Out of all these books, Hong Lou Mong is the only one with a fantastical spin. The line between what is real and Cao Xue Qin’s imagination is blurred. Magical dreams, unclear endings, mysterious disappearances and deaths – these are perfectly suitable explanation for what we don’t know for sure happened. When I finished Hong Lou Mong, I realized there will always be the version of what actually occurred, and a version of what I wish happened – even the ending of the novel is much debated by scholars.

This is also the only book of out these four that was written about the author’s contemporary era. But just like Tolstoy, Cao Xue Qin turns his eye to the ordinary people. What surprised me the most is the amount of detail and sub-plots he dedicated to the lives of lowly servants, especially female servants. These are people that are often missing from records, but Cao Xue Qin pays special attention to their injustice, plights, and also their love affairs and talents.

Similar to “A suitable boy”, the main plot follows an unfulfilled love story. However, the major achievement of the novel is the meticulous description and recording of aristocratic life under Imperial China. Ceremonies, architecture, medicine, poetry etc. are all written down in painstaking detail. It takes a very patient reader to go through all the material – but it is a worthwhile effort. One of the most extravagant chapters of the book is the description of the garden that the Jia family built for the Emperor’s Consort. Each pavilion, pond, bridge, landscape… had intention, and had an accompanying piece of poetry to highlight the intellectual and cultural richness of Chinese aristocracy at the time. This chapter is followed up by an equally detailed scene when the Consort arrives. The many ceremonies, careful language and customs that lead and follow her arrival, is a depiction of complicated Imperial expectations.

This life is definitely indulgent and extravagant, but is it all part of a dream. The main character, Bao Yu, has many dreams throughout the novel, some give him a hint of the future to come, some give him guidance on what to do next in life. The entire novel is framed by the fantastical legend of heaven and an angel that came down to earth as a stone. The entire “reality” that is described in so much detail is actually surrounded by a surreal narrative, mixing the imagination and the observations. Perhaps it is also the writer’s way to explain the ups and downs, the justice and injustice, the hapless and the lucky, as heaven’s will. Where history is not what we hoped for, or not something we can fully explain, imagination helps us cope with the harsh reality.

Women in Alias Grace and Anna Karenina

I (unintentionally) happened to recently read Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy concurrently. The two books are set in two different countries but are set around similar times, and deal with similar topics regarding the perception, expectations and treatment of women, particularly women who have committed a crime or act that is deemed morally wrong by society. In both these novels, society constantly scrutinizes and make judgements on how the female protagonists should behave, and their stories give us an idea of the kind of pressures women face in those times. One novel, by a female novelist in modern times, and the other, by a male writer in the 19^th Century, share similar sympathy for this oppressive climate, but offer two different points of view of what is fair treatment of women.

a) Her beauty

Both societies in Atwood’s and Tolstoy’s novels are obsessed with female beauty. It is not just any definition or standard of beauty, but only the kind of beauty that is considered feminine and appropriate by the male gaze. Dr. Simon Jordan interviews Grace Marks but is often distracted by his own thoughts about her poise and how suitable she would be as his wife. Even though her psychology is his subject of study, his thoughts gravitate towards features of her body, and the idealization that she is simple minded and innocent:

Whereas the picture shows a pretty woman, she is now more than pretty. Or other than pretty. The line of her cheek has a marble, a classic, simplicity; to look at her is to believe that suffering does indeed purify. […] Simon can smell her as well as look at her. He tries to pay no attention, but her scent is a distracting undercurrent. […] He wonders how often the female prisoners are allowed to bathe.

Alias Grace

With other women, Simon also considers them within the societal norms of marriage and what is considered “ladylike”. His attitude towards Miss Lydia and other women in the same social class as her also revolves around marriage:

He suspects she’s flirting with him. […] their morals have been irreproachable, their manners candid as spring water; their minds have been presented to him as unbaked pieces of dough which it would be his prerogative to mould and form. […] They are now so young in relation to Simon that he has trouble conversing with them; it’s like talking to a basketful of kittens.

Alias Grace

Women are considered as inferior to the morality and intellectual capacity of men, and women are viewed as beautiful as long as they uphold the values of wives and mothers. Towards the end of the novel, Simon imagines what Grace would be like as his wife, and how well she would please his mother as a daughter-in-law. Throughout the entire novel, her horrific story, insights, and sensibility do not make a mark on him, other than what her value is as a domestic provider of care.

In Anna Karenina, every woman enters marriages, and the few who don’t are social outcasts. Every woman is valued in relation to her service towards her husband and children. When Anna was still loyally married to her husband, Tolstoy describes Anna’s beauty with grace and praise, but as the novel progresses and Anna continues with her unsanctioned affair, her beauty becomes terrifying and destructive. Female beauty is something of great power and mystery to the male gaze, but only as far as men can control the women and enjoy that beauty within his rules. When Anna’s desire and ambition become a violation of religious and social confines, then her beauty is dangerous and tragic.

b) Her abilities and freedom

Not only are women subjected to the male gaze and is valued as what men want them to be, they also have very little choice in marriage and career. Tolstoy recognizes this discrimination and reflects on the choice women have when accepting or rejecting a marriage proposal:

Yes, I understand it all now,” said Darya Alexandrovna. “You can’t understand it, for you men, who are free and make your own choice, it’s always clear whom you love. But a girl’s in a position of suspense, with all a woman’s or maiden’s modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust – a girl may have, and often has, such a feeling that she cannot tell what to say.

Anna Karenina

Marriage is always offered by the man, and even though the woman has a choice on whether to accept, she is often bounded by her family and society’s expectations, and she has no chance for an open discussion. With Kitty, she had no control over when the proposal is made, and being able to discuss her needs, expectations and hopes. Further in her own marriage, she is entirely absent from any passages where the men discuss moral, societal and political matters. The erasure of women from these discussions further comply with the notion that they are inferior to men’s capabilities.

For Anna, her marriage binds her to a husband she doesn’t love, and prevents her from finding freedom. She bears the brunt of the injustice, being cut off from her own son, cast aside by society, while Vronsky is still unscathed:

He wants to show me that his love for me is not to interfere with his freedom. But I need no proofs, I need love. He ought to understand all the bitterness of this life for me here in Moscow. Is this life? I am not living, but waiting for an event, which is continually put off and put off. No answer again!

Anna Karenina

Both Vronsky and Anna commit an immoral act, but he does not face the consequences, while Anna sacrifices her life and everything dear to her.   

For Grace Marks, poverty is another layer that bars her from fair and free movement in society. Discriminated against because of her class status and her gender, she does not have a lot of choices around where to work, who she may or may not befriend. Her small circle of acquaintances limits her opportunities and bounds her to work in households, headed by men, managed by their mistresses. Despite this, she demonstrates an astounding understanding of this limitation of her life, and explains in great detail the choices for her actions in the context of this oppression. She understands her confinement to the domestic sphere, and reflects:

You may think a bed is a peaceful thing. Sir, and to you it may mean rest and comfort and a good night’s sleep. But it isn’t so for everyone; and there are many dangerous things that may take place in a bed. It is where we are born, and that is our first peril in life; and it is where the women give birth, which is often their last. And it is where the act takes place between men and women […]; and some call it love, and others despair, or else merely an indignity which they must suffer through. And finally beds are what we sleep in, and where we dream, and often where we die.

Alias Grace

Here, Atwood portrays women as having the ability to profoundly consider the importance of the aspects and objects of domestic life, its relation to life, death and society. In this regard, Atwood provides a narration from female perspective that Tolstoy did not, and subtly leaves it open to the readers to re-examine their own expectations of women. The novel may have started with the question of whether Grace is a cold hearted murderer, but as the novel goes on, I am more confronted with the question of Grace’s real, hidden intellectual ability, and how much of her intelligence did she intentionally suppress to adapt to the misogynistic society she lives in.

c) Fairness

While Anna’s ending is tragic, Grace’s ending is forgiving. Do these endings reflect each writer’s idea of what each woman deserves? It is difficult to say. In cultivating Anna’s story, Tolstoy expressed a great deal of sympathy to the plight of women, unable to obtain divorce and subsequent legitimate marriage with the people they love. Anna’s death can be interpreted as a scathing criticism of Tolstoy’s society, one that would push a woman to death rather than grant her freedom. Perhaps Grace’s ending portrays Atwood’s hope that women do find their peace and happiness, regardless of what judgement had been thrown at them. Both writers leave it up to their readers to consider what is fair for each of the protagonists. Does Anna really deserve to die, despite breaking her marriage vows and abandoning her son? And does Grace deserve her quiet ending, even if she was a real murderer? Or perhaps the readers should refrain from judging these characters, just as we should not judge women in our own societies for the choices they make. Both characters had suffered their own share of hate and scrutiny, just as women continue to endure in our current times.

Middlemarch – George Eliot

I first read a short excerpt of Middlemarch during the AP Literature exam in 2011. (Wow! I didn’t realize how long ago it was now). I didn’t remember how I responded to the question, but I remember being relieved that it was not some old style of writing that I could not understand. Now, thinking back, what impressed me the most was how George Eliot portrayed characters that lived a long time ago in a way that modern readers can still relate to. Universal themes of love, marriage, courage, dignity etc. are explored in response to the questions of what motivates us to live, work, and love? How do emotions and rational thought interact when we make life decisions? In this post I will focus on the relationship between religious and secular, spiritual and worldly, and whether they are conflicted or not. I will also discuss different forms of ambition represented by the different characters. In closing, I will share some thoughts on whether this is a feminist novel.

Even though organized religion plays an important role in Victorian society, each character has a different belief system and takes a different approach in acting out those beliefs. Here, George Eliot explores a different question about religion than Dostoevsky – it is not about who believes in God or not, but to what extent each character places God as an important part of their lives. For Casaubon and the Vincy parents, theology and working for the church plays a large role in their lives. Casaubon dedicated his life to serving as a clergyman and contributing to the study of Christianity (successful or not…). Walter and Lucy Vincy held a high opinion of Fred’s pursuit of becoming a clergyman, whether or not that was the best for him. These characters valued religious thought and lifestyle, considering work for the Church as an honourable and dignified occupation. Bulstrode was also religious and demonstrates to society his pious actions of regularly attending service. They are sharply contrasted with Mary Garth, Fred Vincy and Will Ladislaw, who did not find religious devotion an appealing lifestyle. Fred confessed to Farebrother his views about the pressure from his parents to become a clergyman:

I don’t like divinity, and preaching, and feeling obliged to look serious. I like riding across country, and doing as other men do.

This is shared by his love interest, Mary, who saw the same in Fred:

Fred has sense and knowledge enough to make him respectable, if he likes, in some good worldly business, but I can never imagine him preaching and exhorting and pronouncing blessings, and praying by the sick, without feeling as if I were looking at a caricature.

Both of them were true to their intentions and did not try to pretend that they can accept a life devoted to God. Slightly different from them, Will pursued beauty:

“What is your religion?” said Dorothea. “I mean – not what you know about religion, but the belief that helps you most?”
“To love what is good and beautiful when I see it,” said Will.

One cannot be religious and secular at the same time, and the contrast between these sets of characters lead them to different fates. Perhaps George Eliot’s point here is that having a religious life does not guarantee morality, happiness and accomplishment. Will, Fred and Mary found their happy endings, while Casaubon and Bulstrode did not.

The relationship between spirituality and worldliness is more complicated. In Dorothea, we find both qualities. She is fiercely loyal and devoted to believing in the goods of others, even when it is difficult to do so, and when the obvious evidence does not support that. Throughout her marriage, she forgave Casaubon for his coldness and misunderstandings. She believed in Lydgate’s goodness when the Middlemarch society turned their back on him. She constantly believed that:

people are almost always better than their neighbours think they are.

Meanwhile, she also showed her worldliness in her generous donation to Lydgate’s hospital, her giving up Chettam’s marriage proposal with hopes to be her own person, and her finally giving up wealth for love. She was not only concerned with spiritual matters but also in pursuit of learning more of the world around her, by travelling, reading and improving herself. Her worldliness is not so much related to materialistic gains, but rather in her pursuit of a well-rounded lifestyle beyond the limits of Middlemarch.

In other characters, notably Rosamond and Bulstrode, spirituality and worldliness do not harmonize. They were eagerly focused on the materialistic gains for themselves, and neglect any reflection on their thoughts and morality.

These separate beliefs and lifestyles are also evident through different forms of ambitions. Each character is motivated by their own burning desire. For Lydgate, Dorothea and Ladislaw, the intellectual beckoning was strong and persistent. They devoted themselves to bettering the world around them, making a positive impact in their communities. This is contrasted with Rosamond and her marriage fracture with Lydgate, highlighted as one of the most drastic conflicts in the novel. Motivated by social ambitions, Rosamond found smart ways to uphold her image, at the expense of Lydgate’s morality:

His superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he had imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set aside on every practical question. He had regarded Rosamond’s cleverness as precisely of the receptive kind which became a woman. He was now beginning to find out what the cleverness was – what was the shape into which it had run as into a close network aloof and independent.

Rosamond’s goal from the start was to marry Lydgate for his “high-bred” background, to be considered by society to be more than her parents’ occupation, and to indulge in a highly expensive, albeit superficial lifestyle. Her beauty was blemished by her corrupted ambition, yet George Eliot still portrayed her with an immense amount of sympathy. In her sadness and desperation, readers realize Rosamond may be greedy, but she was also just naive and a product of her parents’ lavish lifestyle. Comparing her downfall to Bulstrode’s, we find her corruption to be more forgivable than his. Bulstrode, motivated by social and political ambitions, distorted religious morality to fit his own pursuits:

But a man who believes in something else than his own greed, has necessarily a conscience or standard to which he more or less adapts himself. Bulstrode’s standard had been his serviceableness to God’s cause – had been mould into which he had constrained his immense need of being something important and predominating.

Bulstrode’s corruption was further heightened by his hypocrisy and pomposity. He gilded his own flaws with religious justifications, and never fully found remorse in his actions, because he was never honest with himself about his motivations. Modern readers can easily find these types of ambitions in our own societies. Perhaps each of us have a bit of greed, indulgence and passion. In that sense Middlemarch is a microcosm of human life regardless of era.

One thing that has definitely changed since Victorian time is the treatment of women in society. Being a female writer who hid her true identity, George Eliot was able to frankly and insightfully explore the expectations, role and power of women in that time in history. Mr. Brooke let us in on how women were expected to behave by men:

there is a lightness about the feminine mind – a touch and go – music, the fine arts, that kind of thing – they should study those up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know. A woman should be able to sit down and play you or sing you a good old English tune.

This ideal is outdated by today’s standards, but the female characters of Middlemarch showed us a different inspiring aspect of female empowerment. Dorothea, Rosamond and Mary all took charge of their own marriages, rejecting to be an object for society. They voiced their standards and demanded fair treatment from the men who married them, though in different ways. Dorothea touched the people around her with her faith, generosity and honesty. Rosamond with her cunning and headstrong personality forced Lydgate’s hand to give her what she wanted. Mary and her uncompromising spirit motivated and inspired Fred. Even though marriage and societal expectations limited what these characters could achieve on their own, they took an active role in their lives, making decisions for themselves and pursued love, material satisfaction and ambitions. I read the novel as a feminist work, an achievement by a female writer, using her platform to showcase female accomplishments in a time period when little is credited to females. Not only did the characters show depth, multi-dimensional rational thought and sympathy, but also a great understanding of the political and historical context of their time. This extended to the male characters as well – George Eliot portrayed them not just as stereotypical ‘bread-earners’ and achievers but also as humans who loved, failed, had weaknesses, impulses and passions.

Abigail – Magda Szabó

“Abigail” published by NYRB, translated by Len Rix

I was lucky to have found a copy of this recently translated book (early 2020) at a local bookstore. I was not sure what to expect from the grim cover, but the review on the back compares the book to Jane Austen’s works. So I read the book without much prior research, and I was delighted to find it such a tour de force. I couldn’t put the book down for days, and was too restless so I spoiled myself the ending, and got the experience of reading the mystery, thrill and tragedy unfold while knowing the fate of the characters. Magda Szabó presents multiple sides of the dice, multiple facets of the same reality. I was gripped with fear, thrill, and overwhelming emotion as the protagonist, Gina, navigates a dangerous, violent world in the heat of World War II, to find her escape. This is nothing like any other coming-of-age story I have ever read.

Coming to age means growth, which is a result of experiencing conflicts and making choices: desire and duty, loyalty and betrayal, war and peace, reality and illusion. Gina is confronted with all these contrasting options, while not necessarily fully grasping the consequences of her actions yet. Readers see her flung into an unfamiliar world, and see her slowly make choices that reveal her morals and essence as a human being. This aspect of growth is sometimes gripped with pain and anger, but Gina is always firm, assertive, forward-thinking and brave.

The conflict between reality and illusion is the most striking to me. As the story unfolds, a lot of things Gina discovered are not as it is. The fortress that she’s imprisoned in is actually a sanctuary. The man she loves is actually an enemy. The teacher she despises the most is actually her guardian angel. The ideals she’s taught in school are actually murderous and destructive. The friends she was originally alienated from turn out to be the most loyal and supportive people. It is actually an uplifting message that Szabó sends to her readers. As much as childish fantasies and illusions shatter when we grow up, we are also given the chances to realize beauty and friendships in the hardest times.

Gina is one of the lucky ones to be able to grow up with guardians. Apart from her absent father who ceaselessly watches over her, there are hidden figures surrounding her: Abigail, the school’s gate keeper, the organized group of the resistance. They are heroes, making silent sacrifices for Gina and others who are victims of the war. Szabó leaves clues along the way, with heavy, sometimes ominous, foreshadowing, to guide readers along this journey with Gina. Even though I knew who was Abigail all along, I was still gripped at every turn the story takes. These secret figures symbolize the invisible systems around us that guard and protect us. For some, it might be their religious faith and belief in God that guide them through life. For others, it might be their supportive family, mentors, community, that give them the shelter they need. Szabó reminds readers of another optimistic part of growing up: that we don’t have to do it alone.

Despite these hopeful themes, the novel is still overshadowed with horror. Death is present at every corner. Gina never had to witness war and death in person, but their images, consequences and devastation follows her even in the fortress. When Gina found a fish tank shattered, she reflected on death:

the gleaming little corpses spread across the sodden carpet and parquet flooring, all with their mouths gasping for air, for a last taste of life itself

The scariest part of the novel is actually how far away violence and the war is from Gina, yet so close to her. It’s a haunting demon that takes away her father, and puts her close to danger. Reflecting on a moment during a party for her school principal:

Gina often thought back to that last evening […] because it marked the beginning of […] her adult awareness allowed her clearly and finally to see the two contrasting sides of the occasion – the gaiety and laughter, the flow of high spirits inside the massive walls, and the darkness outside […]

The horrors of war surround her, chase her – symbolized by the last rally she had to endure to get to safety. With a lot of foreshadowing, emphasizing the crucial events that lead to Gina’s escape and ultimate loss, Szabó creates an atmosphere of pervasive anxiety and tension. The climax of the novel is not resolved until the last two pages, and Szabó leaves her readers to imagine the rest of Gina’s enduring life.

As I got to the final pages of the novel, I held back tears thinking about the moment Gina’s father came to see her for the last time.

Her eyes followed him for a few moments, and she saw his face once again when he turned round, his eyes glittering in the blue light of the porch. She was sure she could make out his form even after he had disappeared into the street. She had no idea that she would never see him again.

The annihilative war robs Gina of her childhood, her father, and her real identity. This final tragedy is actually revealed about two-thirds through the novel, but Gina carries on. This is perhaps the biggest lesson of growing up: to not give up. She is endowed with such an infectious, indestructible and optimistic spirit throughout the entire novel. Szabó wants her readers to also be like Gina – to persevere.

The Slum – Aluísio Azevedo

Edition published by Oxford University Press

I was introduced to this novel by a friend who studied this in school in Brazil. Unfortunately I didn’t have a lot chances in school to read world literature, so this was an enriching experience for me to read a novel with different context, style and themes than what I was used to. In the first chapter or so, I was seduced by the liveliness and vibrant portrayal of the micro-society. As I read on, themes of race, class, gender inequality and struggle became more prominent. The introduction by David H. Rosenthal was a good summary of the social issues that Azevedo focuses on. There’s the class conflict between the capitalists, the owners, and the poorer, working class, renters. And there’s the clash between cultural differences of the native, “tropical”, sensual lifestyles, and the colonial, “modern”, “whitening” values that are forced to interact. Justice is not always upheld, and each character has a different survival mission, depending on their racial, gender and class background. One analysis I found particularly helpful when navigating the complexities of the novel is an essay by May Bletz (https://lljournal.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2007-1-bletz-texto/). One concluding remark by Bletz highlights the crux of the conflicts and struggles in the novel:

O Cortiço represents then the failure and the inconsistency of new national alliances, the insurmountable gaps between conflicting racial groups in the heterogeneous territory of the nation. 

May Bletz

For me, drawing on my separate experiences living in a tight urban space, grown organically without much planning and zoning, and living in countries with diverse ethnic inhabitants, I was drawn to Azevedo’s ability to recreate a society with amazing detail and dynamic shifts in perspectives. Each character represents a segment of their society, but they don’t lose their unique personality and emotions. Instead of focusing on analyzing gender, class and race in this blog post, I want to capture some of the passionate and vivid motivations and emotions that each character represents.

For Leonie and Jeronimo, lust is the driving force of their actions. Seduced by Rita’s sexual appeal and exciting lifestyle, Jeronimo completely changed his own way of living, forsaking his family and job. The dramatic change in him almost seems a bit surreal. His spiral into lust lead him to committing a murder that was unthinkable before. When he was determined to pursue pleasure at all cost, he also erased his identity before meeting Rita, and committed entirely to a hedonistic lifestyle. His fulfilment is achieved at the cost of the destruction of his family, values that he once upheld (discipline, industriousness, cleanliness). I wasn’t sure if Azevedo wanted readers to sympathize with him, or simply to present us with a picture of what would happen to someone if they completely indulged in lust. Perhaps the author was making point about the extremities of two opposing ways of living life: one is an organized, disciplined, bland life, and the other is an indulgent, lustful and precarious life.

Meanwhile, Leonie also pursues a hedonistic life, but is able to take advantage of her sexual and financial freedom. She makes money off her clients, and is able to afford luxuries in life that people in the neighbourhood cannot. Her lust also drives her to committing a crime against Pombinha, raping and seducing her. In the end, however, it seems like she is the grandest winner. She is not only prosperous, but also liberated from societal judgements, successfully convinces Pombinha to join her, and is able to continue her extravagant lifestyle without repercussions.

For João and Miranda, obsession drives them towards each other. Hungry for both money and status, they invest strategically in materialistic and titles that make them feel superior to the others. Both characters lack any trace of moral compass, or sympathy for others, and they are willing to overlook loyalty to get to their end goals. Miranda continuously flaunts his wealth and status to make his neighbour jealous, and does what it takes to continue enjoying his wife’s money. João betrayed his lover and partner who played a large role in his ascent to power. Despite being rivals at the beginning, both men’s obsessions drive them towards each other, helping the other achieve even more status and wealth by the end of the novel. Their corrupted, repugnant joint enterprise is not without victims. The inhabitants of the slum continue to live in squalid conditions, and crimes go on without any due justice.

Among characters who suffered the most in the novel are Piedade and Bertoloza. Both are victims of partners who succumbed to blind passion of lust and obsession. Piedade gave up on fighting and let herself descend to a ruinous life. Bertoloza tried to fight back, but her status is not protected in society and she didn’t stand a chance against both the legal system and the systematic racism that pervades her life. Both characters also suffer because of their status as women in a society that does not value their labour and contribution. While João benefitted immensely from Bertoloza’s unpaid labour, he pushed her to a desperate situation, leading to her suicide. And Piedade, being abandoned by Jeronimo, could not find an identity separate from him, and lost control of her life. Both women endured the darkest fate of the novel, and perhaps represent the most tragic individuals of a changing society.

With this diverse set of characters, Azevedo described a life that haunts his readers. At the beginning, he writes about life in the slum as:

And on the muddy ground covered with puddles, in the sultry humidity, a living world, a human community, began to wriggle, to seethe, to grow spontaneously in that quagmire, multiplying like larvae in a dung heap.

Azevedo does not reserve any euphemisms in this description. At the end of the novel, he follows up with a similar passage, and re-emphasizes the reality of life in a poor neighbourhood:

[…] a breeding ground for lustful larvae where brothers and sisters sleep together in the same slime, a paradise for vermin, a swamp of hot, steaming mud where life sprouts savagely, as from a garbage dump.

However, while the lives that Azevedo portray can be revolting, they are also resilient, vigorous and passionate. Children, parents, animals all survive the harsh realities that they face, and they continue to sing, dance, procreate and fight for a chance to exist in this world.

Tun-huang – Yasushi Inoue

In the short novel “Tun-huang”, Yasushi Inoue takes us on a brutal, violent and unexpected journey into the past, and across China from the capital to the western contested areas. Tun-huang is an area of historical importance, being a major stop on the Silk Road, and a site of an astonishing discovering the 20th century. Using his imagination and research, Inoue offers a tale that allows readers to travel back in time and transcend the geographical expanse of the Gobi dessert. As I immerse myself in Hsing-te’s journey, I am both captivated by the mystery of this faraway land and time, and deeply inspired by his incredible growth.

At the beginning of novel, Hsing-te’s journey is a pursuit of knowledge and intellectual enlightenment. His curiosity was sparked when he comes across a befallen woman who showed extraordinary bravery and spirit. This encounter also leads him to the seeing the Hsi-Hsia’s script for the first time. Guided by his curiosity of this new language, Hsing-te was determined to learn the writing and culture of a foreign nation. Throughout his journey, he shows perseverance in obtaining knowledge, learning and practicing new skills, and searching for people to teach him. He forsakes his goal of becoming a government bureaucrat to pursue greater knowledge, and expands his understanding of the world beyond the lands of China’s Song dynasty. Later on, he gives up his position in the army to translate Buddhist scripts, leaving behind glory and wealth to achieve intellectual excellence. This journey symbolizes human’s never ending desire to explore the world beyond our comfort zone, no matter how dangerous and uncertain that process may be.

But Hsing-te, and humans in general, is not exempt from the external forces of history. His journey is also a response to fate and overwhelming pace of time. After he is forcefully drafted into the army, he marches to battles, camps and contested lands, often as a result of being swept up in the war and violence. There is a ruthless reality to the position of a single individual in the context of history. Just like other soldiers, commanders, civilians, Hsing-te’s only route to survival is to flow with the current, and submitting to the power of leaders, warlords etc. This reminds me of Leo Tolstoy’s laments in “War and Peace” about how history is often driven by heads of state, important figures and leaders, often with no clear purpose, origin or motivation:

The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance compared to the magnitude of the events

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

A lot of times, the flow of causeless events is so immense and fast that humans’ fates are brutally and mercilessly determined. We rarely have any written and official records of the lives of an average person, and we can only imagine what a person’s response is to the destruction of war and turmoil of powers changing hands.

Despite these large forces, Hsing-te journey is still a remarkable pursuit of love and spiritual awakening. The necklace from the Uighur princess symbolizes immortal love. Just like how war and violence can be overwhelming forces, love also has a mysterious and amazing power. Driven by love and loss, Hsing-te dedicates the rest of his life to the preservation of the valuable necklace, defying danger and death. Parallel to his love is his spiritual growth. Even with only a few days to spare and save valuables before enemy troops run over Tun-huang, he insisted on saving the forty thousand Buddhist scrolls. He realizes that,

material goods, life, and political power belonged to those who possessed them, but the sutras were different. […] The mere fact that they survived was of value in itself.

These scripts symbolizes a priceless treasure that is the everlasting legacy that one individual has the power to build and pass down to the next generations. Standing in opposition against the forces of fate and power beyond his control, Hsing-te takes actions that left his mark in the world, with consequences that endured the next 900 years. He is driven by his spiritual strength and faith, and commitment to the betterment of the world beyond his time.

Finally, I found a great importance in the Gobi desert, and the destruction of the Uighur princess’ necklace. Most of the novel takes place in areas in or around the desert. This vast, overwhelming natural setting is such a contrast with the smallness of human beings. Yet so much history and culture is created in this area. The Silk Road runs along the desert, facilitating the exchange of human creations, intellectual enlightenment and culture. So much of that rich history is however lost in time, and even nowadays, anthropologists have not been able to transcribe all the found text belonging to nations who settled in or around the desert. The presence of this vast nature in the novel is a reminder that humans may come and go, but the desert will also be there, against the passage of time. This point is further emphasized through the final destruction of the princess’ necklace. As Hsing-te and Kuang fight over this treasure, one motivated by love and the other by greed, the beads are taken away into the depths of the sand, forever buried. What else is forever lost in this land? We will never know the stories of individuals who lived in this era, and we can only imagine their stories from what nature kindly preserves. In this case, the desert did not offer that preservation, and the princess’ necklace, along with her royal dynasty, Hsing-te’s love, Kuang’s royal heritage, etc. are erased with time.

Yasushi Inoue’s journey to Tun-huang evokes in me the question of the role of individuals in our collective history, and how we compare to the powers of nature. I think, despite the many elements that we have no control over, we still have the power to love, pursue knowledge, to imagine and explore. This is what makes us humans.