I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts at work, and reading Harry Potter with my son at home. That hasn’t left a lot of space in my life for reading for me. I’ve kind of made up for that over the last week, but I’m still quite a bit behind where I should be this year.
I think I haven’t generally read a lot of contemporary fiction because it seems to often consist of bad things happening to broken people. Even looking at the books I’ve read recently, Izumi Suzuki’s Terminal Boredom was full of stories of troubled women being unhappy. The Yoko Ogawa books The Housekeeper and the Professor and Revenge all fit this mold to some degree. The Vegetarian by Han Kang, Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin (does this even count as “contemporary” fiction?), The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz……
I liked all these books (some more than others), so I’m not even complaining – but I put most of these books down kind of feeling worse about humanity.
There’s nothing like contemporary fiction with a little charm – like Richard Russo or Haruki Murakami….but they have their own issues (writing convincing women, for instance).
Anyway, I really liked this story – even if it was depressing.
The narrator, Min, is an immigrant to America from Taiwan. She meets a Chinese man, Tian, while working as a hostess at a Chinese restaurant. They get married, and this story covers their life together. Tian left his home because he wanted to play the violin, which led to his being permanently rejected by his family. Min and Tian end up having two daughters. Tian, initially, doesn’t want either. He warms to their youngest child, though, as she demonstrates an aptitude for the violin. He all but abandons their oldest daughter, and focuses all of his attentions on Anna. Min spends almost the entire story yearning for the love and acceptance of her family, but never gets it from Tian or Anna. She also never learns to speak English fluently.
Ultimately, this is the story of immigrants who never fully assimilate into American society, and never really cohere around one another, either. Min is lonely, and meek, and unable to break out of her cycle of unhappiness. But she’s also not wholly a victim. She does come to a realization of her own responsibility for her lot in life.