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Lit Review: ‘Four Treasures of the Sky’ by Jenny Tinghui Zhang

by Cass Chia

When I started reading Jenny Tinghui Zhang’s Four Treasures of the Sky, seated behind the counter at work, I wasn’t expecting to fall so deeply in love. A stirring debut of historical and literary fiction, Four Treasures explores a young girl’s coming of age set against the backdrop of historical and personal tragedy.

Born in 19th-century China to a loving family, 13-year-old Daiyu has spent her life in the shadow of her namesake Lin Daiyu — a doomed maiden from Chinese folklore. When Daiyu loses her parents under ominous circumstances, she can’t help but feel that her name is to blame. Her grandmother sends Daiyu off to Zhifu, a seaport town, disguised as a boy named Feng, where she meets Master Wang, the owner of a calligraphy school. With his guidance, Daiyu unlocks a love for calligraphy that breathes new life into her distressing world.

But her fate sours once again when she is abducted, smuggled across the ocean and sold to a brothel. In America, Daiyu becomes Peony. Every day is a fight for survival with only Master Wang’s teachings for comfort. When an opportunity to return to China arises, Daiyu manages to escape the brothel only to face cruel betrayal. She ends up in Pierce, Idaho, where she is taken in by two Chinese shopkeepers, Nam and Lum, and a violinist named Nelson — all of whom know her as Jacob Li. As anti-Chinese sentiment spreads across the country, Daiyu’s newfound stability is threatened, and she faces a difficult choice: should she stay or go?

Four Treasures of the Sky is a powerful story about searching for identity despite extreme circumstances. As I sat to write this review, I was stumped on what to even call the narrator. Daiyu, Feng, Peony, Jacob Li. Which name is the most truthful to the character? Which name is the least? Is she all of them at once, or something else entirely? (The answer to why I landed on ‘Daiyu’ lies in the ending, so no spoilers!) To most of us, finding who we are is an organic process; to Daiyu, that timeline is a luxury. Seeing Daiyu deal with impossible situations time and time again with the measliest of resources is a gruelling experience. But the high stakes are what make her hero’s journey so compelling. When Daiyu finally succeeds and learns to forge her own identity, I was moved, haunted and ultimately satisfied.

In terms of craft, the book is elegant in its economy. The writing is buoyant, the pacing quick, and the world brilliantly immersive. What makes Four Treasures special, however, is how it bridges lyrical prose and loaded subject matter, especially given that part of the book was inspired by real-world events following the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Zhang deftly delivers emotional punches one after another, and you barely have time to appreciate the setup before feeling the blow. Here’s a little taste of what I mean:

“[In America], I am special. The white people make me that way. Why else would they step aside when I walk by, or avoid my eyes, or whisper things that I cannot hear under their breath? My body is covered in the syllables of another language, the scroll of a kingdom that has existed long before they did and will continue existing long after they are gone. I am something they cannot fathom. I am something they fear. We all are.” (207-208)

Thus, Zhang proclaims the beauty in pain, and how that beauty is anchored in art, history and community.

This book has earned its place as one of my favorite books, period. If you’re in the market for a heartbreaker, Four Treasures of the Sky is for you. Prepare to be sucked in and sucked dry.

Get a copy of the book here.

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Lit Review: ‘At the End of the Matinee’ by Keiichiro Hirano

by Fong Min Hun

If there is a lesson to Keiichiro Hirano’s At the End of the Matinee, it is this: love endures. A quiet romance replete with all the clichés, Matinee can, nevertheless, resonate with the right reader at the right time. It is also a reminder that however much love can strike one like a bolt of lightning, a whole series of accidents and happenstances need to fall into place in order for love to work. 

Matinee is the story of two people, Satoshi Makino and Yoko Komine. The former is a genius classical guitarist and the latter a renowned journalist. The two meet entirely by chance as they both reach what would be the first apex of their respective careers and are immediately drawn to each other. Their time together at the first meeting is short, but they would build their relationship through emails and video calls, finding succor in the company of each other even as they find their individual powers starting to wane.

But the course of true love never does run smooth, and the very deliberate intervention of Makino’s jealous suitor proves insurmountable for the pair. They separate and life goes on. They find new partners, start families but neither can shake the feeling that something essential is missing in their lives. They eventually come to know of the sequence of unfortunate events that had led to their break up, which brings with it some comfort. They are drawn again to each other, but has too much time passed, for better and for worse, to pick up where things had left off?

There is little that is new in Matinee but the old-fashioned charm it does possess makes for a refreshing read. The lovers are earnest and uncomplicated, and the relationship is derailed only due to the highly unlikely and malicious intervention of a third party, whose only function in the book, really, is to do just that. There are no last minute dashes to the airport—

He didn’t want to do anything that drastic—or rather, he didn’t want Yoko to put him in the position of having to do something that drastic… he had the painful feeling that going after her would not only make him into [sic] a pitiable figure but the fact that she’d made him go might also lower her ever so slightly in his estimation.

—because, let’s face it, those Hail Mary passes never work. Lofty discussions are liberally scattered throughout the dialogue to remind us that our lovers are forces of nature to be reckoned with, wholly constituted with intimate knowledge of Bach, art house films and philosophy. 

It will be difficult to imagine At the End of the Matinee standing as a testament to the endurance of love or as a story of romance par excellence but there are certainly layers in the book that deserve further attention. There are pleasures to be had from the story, and the loftiness is told well enough to be interesting and only occasionally hint at their being artifices for a more profound truth. Worth picking up together with a nice chardonnay from the left bank.

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Elaine’s Favourite Reads of 2021

What a doozy of a year 2021 turned out to be — trying in so many ways. But it is times like these that I am so grateful that I can turn to books and find solace, truth, and escapism. These are the five books that made an indelible impression on me this year.

Midnight Chicken by Ella Risbridger
During the lowest moments of her life, Ella Risbridger found meaning, purpose, and catharsis in the act of cooking and baking. This book — which is a memoir, cookbook, and manifesto for living all rolled into one — was such a balm to read during this anxiety-ridden and despair-filled year. Risbridger’s evocative and conversational style of writing sparkles with warmth and sincerity, and it was a joy to follow along with her as she shared all kinds of wonderful recipes (which are easy to make for the most part) and told the stories associated with them: a burrata salad with plums that she first made in Rome where she went on a whim, and how baking challah bread and giving them away helped her in grieving her grandfather’s death. This gem of a book is an ode to living, and cooking and savouring food; it is a call to make for oneself a life worth living.

A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
What makes fiction good? This is the question that Saunders, the author of bestselling novels such as Lincoln in the Bardo, explores in this book. He takes readers on a delightful romp through seven short stories by Russian masters such as Chekov, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Gogol. And he does so in an accessible, entertaining way, revealing the technical craft behind great stories (there are even writing exercises included) and guiding readers to see the world with renewed curiosity. It articulates the reasons we get swept up in a story and conversely, why we don’t. It makes the case for why fiction is the lens through which we can see the truths that reality obscures, to quote Ralph Waldo Emerson. This literary master class gave me a new perspective on literature and life, and a fresh appreciation for great stories.

Should We Stay or Should We Go by Lionel Shriver
Lionel Shriver takes the very serious topic of dying well and turns it into a darkly comic, thought-provoking work of wry humour and wit. The story is about Kay and her husband Cyril who decide that they want to exit this life with dignity when they reach the ripe old age of 80, and so they make a pact to commit suicide. Well, that’s one scenario, but what Shriver has done is imagine 12 other different ways this story could play out: from living in a terrifying retirement home, to waking up in an unrecognisable future from a cryogenic state, to taking a cure for ageing, and discovering the surprising pleasures of dementia. It is at turns touching and laugh-out-loud funny, sobering and irreverent. Along the way Shriver makes known her position on present-day issues including Brexit, mass migration and COVID-19, for better or worse. What’s undeniable, though, is how skilled of a writer Shriver is — this novel is brilliantly and masterfully executed.

We Could Not See the Stars by Elizabeth Wong
Malaysian author Elizabeth Wong’s debut novel beguiles with its lyrical prose and imaginative plot set in an alternate Malaysia. Mystery and intrigue abound in a story of a young man, Han, who sets off in search of an artefact that belonged to his late mother and which got stolen. His journey takes him from his sleepy fishing village across the seas to an island of lush forest where a curious tower stands. There are several narrative strands and voices that Wong deftly weaves into a complex whole with fantastical elements and dreamlike sequences that elevate it above the ordinary. It is also imbued with a wonderfully Malaysian flavour with the deliberate use of local vernacular. A tale of loss, memory, and remembering, this literary speculative fiction surprised me at every turn.

Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe
Investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe’s fourth book earned him the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2021 — and truly, it deserves nothing but superlatives. Epic in scope and depth, Keefe recounts the Sacklers’ role in the opioid crisis in the US. This isn’t a strictly straight-forward story, as many of the conditions and practices that enabled the abuse of the highly addictive painkiller oxycontin produced by the pharmaceutical company the Sacklers used to own was put in place by the generation before. Keefe peels back the curtain behind the impunity of America’s super elite and presents an indictment on the greed and indifference that drive them. I found this book compelling and unputdownable — this exposé is narrative reporting and writing at its best.

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Min Hun’s Favourite Reads of 2021

Deciding a best of list is always a frustrating experience because there are so many books to choose from in any publishing year. Then you also have to decide if books that elicit a strong emotional response is more or less deserving of a place than a novel that is, though more subdued, on the whole, a more technically accomplished work — it’s tough. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your reading year as much as I did.

Summer by Ali Smith
Each entry of Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet has made my “Best of” list in the past three years and Summer has unsurprisingly made the list again. While not my favourite of the four books in the series, Smith’s pretty good is still terribly good although I couldn’t bring myself to read it until there was a lull in the pandemic newsfeed. Tackling prickly issues including immigration, nationalism and COVID-19, it is a true testament of Smith’s storytelling ability and deftness of touch that the novel can seem light and even delightful at times. Which is not to say that the novel panders. It is sharply critical as were the previous three entries and, as with the previous novels, near impossible to sum up briefly what it is about. Nevertheless, we find the redemptive value of art again a central theme and a reminder that the tragedy of evil persists because of the inaction of good men and women.

How to be a Liberal by Ian Dunt
The title is misleading because Dunt doesn’t really dwell very much on how one is to be a liberal. Instead, this is a masterful work chronicling the genealogy of liberalism from its philosophical roots to its political, economic and moral instantiations. Dunt does a good job in correcting widely held misapprehensions along the way, e.g., by restoring Harriet Taylor’s rightful role as John Stuart Mill’s collaborator rather than just a hanger-on, and expertly weaving together the disparate threads to create a cogent historical sequence of events. Starting out as a polemic against the rising tide of nationalism, How to be a Liberal charts the development of liberalism from philosophical ideology to economic and political dogma, and reveals the way this cornerstone of the 20th century has now come to be reviled and abused by political leaders. Written with the aplomb of a page-turning thriller, this book is particularly worth reading for those of us with poor knowledge of European history.

The Giant Dark by Sarvat Hasin
The Giant Dark doesn’t feel particularly exceptional during the reading; however, the impression it leaves after turning the final page makes it one of my most memorable reads of the year. A stunning retelling of the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice, The Giant Dark follows the doomed love affair of cult rock star Aida and Ehsan, an erstwhile poet and artist who has lost his mojo. The story picks up with the lovers meeting again after having broken up for the last 10 years after Aida returns to the US from their London home. In that time, Aida has channelled her heartbreak and longing into her music, which has turned her into a rock star with a fanatical following. A chance dinner date brings the two of them back together. For Aida, it is the fulfilment of a decade’s longing; for Ehsan, it is a rebirth but to what end? Comes replete with a Greek chorus (read bacchantes) ready to worship and tear down their hero with equal aplomb.

The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman
Richard Osman’s cosy mystery — and I use that term advisedly because there seems to be something pejorative in it — is an excellent read to wind down the year. We return to Cooper’s Chase in this second instalment of the Thursday Murder Club series where a group of old age pensioners (OAPs) choose to unravel unsolved mysteries and crimes that occur in their surrounding environs. In The Man, Elizabeth, the de facto leader of the group and a former spy, receives an unwanted visitor in the form of her ex-husband. Also a spy by training, he has been called out of retirement to infiltrate the home of a crime lord, which, naturally, goes wrong. Meanwhile, Ibrahim, the brains of the outfit and the voice of reason, has been the victim of a snatch-theft and is suffering from post-event trauma. Joyce, the ever-cheerful and enthusiastic member of the group, is trying to hold everything together. A page turner that is readable in every aspect.

Silent Parade by Keigo Higashino
I am a huge fan of Keigo Higashino so anything new from him almost automatically makes it to the list. Silent Parade is the latest of the Detective Galileo series featuring Manabu Yukawa, Higashino’s sleuthing physicist who is always ready to pitch in whenever the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department encounters a sticky case. This time, it’s the death of the prime suspect involved in the murders of two young girls 20 years apart. Reticent and more cunning than his external demeanour lets on, Kanichi Hasunuma has already escaped the judgment of the court once, and the family and neighbours of the second victim wasn’t about to let him get away again. Hasunuma is conveniently murdered during a popular parade through the neighbourhood but everyone seems to have a rock solid alibi. Our returning flatfoot, Chief Inspector Kusanagi, is again stumped and calls on the deductive powers of his university friend Yukawa to help solve the seemingly impossible murder. A gripping page turner, Silent Parade is a book you want to finish in one sitting.

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Lit Review: ‘The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again’ by M. John Harrison

by Fong Min Hun

A few years ago, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to accompany my wife and her brother on their sibling-bonding hike up Mt. Kinabalu. This was — is — something that I am not particularly keen to do, and the only reason I would have ventured to do so would be out of love or, as it was in this case, out of spite. The hike up Kinabalu is not particularly difficult or treacherous but it can be dire when the weather is inclement — which it was — and when the hiker at issue is unfit and overweight — which I was. There were plenty of occasions on the way when I’d simply wanted to quit, turn around and say, this is not for me. However, it was one of those occasions in life when you just had to keep going forward because you couldn’t turn back. 

M. John Harrison’s The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again reminds me of that hike: beautiful, grueling, unforgettable, momentous. I would add ‘regrettable’ but as with the hike, I think I’m rather glad for having read the book/ascended the mountain than if I had not. It is not the most accessible of books and it does not yield readily to judgements of “I liked it” or not; indeed, it may be almost sublime (in the technical sense of the term). Seldom does a book prompt immediate re-reading but this one did, if only for one to piece together the various clues scattered throughout the book.

Sunken Land follows the lives of two protagonists: Shaw and Victoria, unlikely middle-aged lovers whose lives are linked by a conspiracy website and the myth of an ancient, atavistic race of water people. Both are gripped in some form of low-key existential crisis — Shaw, recently unemployed, checks into a low-rent guest house on the bank of the Thames while Victoria, tired of city life, opts to move into her late mother’s house in Shropshire in the Midlands. They have a tenuous relationship, further strained by Shaw’s continuing effort to give up any and all forms of agency, while Victoria’s attempt at bucolic life is interrupted by a parade of strange characters at her new home by the river Severn. 

Shaw picks up work with the eccentric Tim Swann whom he meets at a cemetery harvesting muddy water from a depression in the ground. A general dogsbody, Shaw is set to work on a number of seemingly random tasks, including visiting derelict wholesalers in the depressed outskirts of Greater London, jotting down the testimony of a retired civil engineer who had been arrested for violent disorder, and video recording the actions of a psychic during a séance. Shaw is happy to go along with Tim’s increasingly strange bequests, including the transport of a pale green body from a swimming pool to places unknown and bearing witness to an incestuous coupling.

Victoria, meanwhile, settles into a community where the locals seem to be participants in a strange cult that has as its bible Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies, a Victorian-era fable about a boy who transforms into a water sprite. Her only friend is Pearl, the owner of a café in town who occupies a queenly position of sorts in relation to the other oddballs in town. Victoria’s suspicions become even more piqued by the strange gatherings of men in the middle of the night, a mysterious voice calling out to her at all hours of the day, and Pearl disappearing into a pond only inches deep. 

Drained by their experiences, Shaw and Victoria meet once more but find themselves unable or unwilling to connect with each other. “I’m living without explanations, if you can understand that,” Shaw explains at one point. And Victoria: “I always want to tell you about my life but somehow I never can. Isn’t that weird?” 

No and yes. 

From a plot perspective, Shaw is doing exactly what he says — living without explanations. Things happen to him, around him, by him, but he is simply there accreting circumstances. One reviewer describes Shaw as “post-critical” — he no longer questions or wonders or connects, but simply allows things to happen around him, effectively transcending the subject-object dichotomy. This aloofness, if it can be called that, finally fails him at the end of the book:

Shaw stood in the doorway. He became convinced there was another person in the room with them, then recognised in a single pure instant that it was himself. Events seemed to have paralysed him, casting his consciousness into the old root of his brain whence it struggled to escape.

Victoria, who has more of her wits about her, finds that she, too, has lost her agency. Driven into a psychic noose by the cult-like inhabitants of her city, Victoria confronts a reality of her home in the Midlands that jars with her big city London sensibilities. Unlike Shaw, she is caught in an eschatological maze that defies her will at every turn and prods and leads her to an inescapable fate.

Reviewers have read in Sunken Land a psychogeography of Brexit Britain. While it may be difficult for anyone not residing in Britain to ascertain the veracity of that claim, it must be said that Sunken Land can be a discomfiting experience. The inconclusive and allusive plot that leads the reader on with the promise of closure — “Everyone gets an answer in the end,” an exasperated Victoria is told; “All will be revealed” Tim tells Shaw on another hapless adventure — never comes to a satisfying close. And yet there is something beautiful but haunting in the writing that both gladdens and terrifies at the same time; while I’m reluctant to draw parallels with Lovecraft, there is more than a nod in that direction viz the watery gothic imagery that saturates Sunken Land. The book is also about forgotten places: spaces left behind and forgotten by the passage of time, and in which the distinction between legend and reality becomes inseparable. 

This was my first Harrison. Despite a substantial backlist of work in the realms of speculative and literary fiction spanning decades, I’d not come across his work until he showed up in my newsfeed as having won the Goldsmiths Prize for 2020. I tend to give this award, which recognises excellence in experimental writing, a wide berth. I will likely continue to do so but Sunken Land will at least make me pause to reconsider, and pick up a book out of spite. 

The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again is available here.

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Lit Review: ‘How to Avoid a Climate Disaster’ by Bill Gates

by Fong Min Hun

Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster doesn’t set out to change your mind about climate change. Not really. Instead, Gates — who says he thinks more like an engineer than anything else — sets out to do what an engineer does best: the book is a comprehensive and accessible summary of the problem, and the tools and solutions that he thinks will help stave the climate disaster. Which is not to say that he is a climate fatalist — say like Jonathan Franzen — Gates is optimistic throughout (almost annoyingly so) but one can expect no less from a billionaire philanthropist who has spent the better part of this century on aid programmes and developmental schemes. 

The main thesis of the book is that humanity needs to reduce our current rate of carbon emission from 51 billion tonnes each year to, well, zero within the next few generations. Failing to do so would result in disasters of epic proportions that will be costly both in terms of resources and human lives. He then goes on to detail the main human activities that must be addressed in order to curb carbon emissions — power generation, construction, transportation, heating and agriculture — and some of solutions that are already available or on the horizon that may solve the issue. Gates is a wonk so no surprise that his solution to climate change is a technological one. 

He is well aware that climate change is as much a geopolitical issue as it is a technological one; carbon emissions will only increase as lower income nations climb up the value chain and it would be “immoral and impractical” to try to stop them. The only solution, it seems, is to once again put our faith in the marketplace and price the new carbon-neutral or carbon-negative alternatives so that they become more affordable than the current carbon-emitting solutions. This will require a radical rethinking of existing laws and pricing mechanisms that must of necessity be cross-border and holistic. 

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster is a handy guide which gathers all the relevant information into one place. If nothing else, it is an accessible and informative book that spells out the scale and challenges of the problem. However, climate change is perhaps the intersectional issue and any solution that addresses it from one or two perspectives, as this book does, may seem ineffective. How to Avoid a Climate Disaster might not change any minds, but it might give the right reader some ideas on how they might make a greater contribution. 

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Lit Review: ‘How Do You Live’ by Genzaburo Yoshino

by Fong Min Hun

Genzaburo Yoshino’s How Do You Live? is a beloved Japanese coming-of-age novel that has been translated into English for the first time by Bruno Navasky. Originally published in 1937, How Do You Live? is regarded as a classic and an important children’s title in Japan. Soon to be an anime directed by the auteur Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli, the book is a meditation on what it means to live with honour and integrity, and what it means to live a meaningful life in society. 

The tale revolves around Junichi “Copper” Honda, a reflective 15-year old with precocious intellect and curiosity. Having lost his father at an early age, Copper’s uncle takes the boy under his wings. A naturally curious and energetic boy, Copper enjoys a lively relationship with his uncle who he turns to for advice on subjects ranging from science to social relationships and ethics. These ponderings typically arise from Copper’s interactions with his peers or his observations of the empirical workings of the world. 

The uncle, recognising the intellectual spark in Copper, encourages these musings and challenges the boy on his positions. These interactions are later recorded in a notebook that expands on the advice bequeathed to his nephew and elaborates on connected themes. Citing a broad range of thinkers including Copernicus, Napoleon and Goethe, the notebook serves as a handbook for living well. 

How Do You Live is a charming story reminiscent of books such as Jostein Gaardner’s Sophie’s World and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince where the central vehicle that moves things along is the mentor-mentee relationship between Copper and his uncle. The book is divided into two distinct narratives: the first follows the journey of Copper, as an every-day school boy making his way through life with all the accompanying quotidian drama of a young teen, while the second are essays written by the uncle in the notebook which are didactic in function. 

While the combination of the two might seem to be a recipe for a somewhat dull read, the opposite is instead true; as Neil Gaiman says in the foreword, “the joy is that the book contains both parts, pulling at each other, each informing the other side, and that if you removed either part you would have a less interesting book.” How Do You Live? Is a thoroughly enjoyable read and the anime should be no less interesting.

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Lit Review: ‘Klara and the Sun’ by Kazuo Ishiguro

by Fong Min Hun

It’s difficult to read Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun without locating it among the rest of his writing. What makes the job more difficult is the Nobel laureate’s tendency to produce variations on a theme, unlike, say, David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas, Bone Clocks, Utopia Avenue) whose past performance is no guarantee of future results. Ishiguro’s self-professed “dirty secret” is that he has only ever written one book over and over again with varying levels of virtuosity.  

Ishiguro’s big tussle in each of his books is invariably the question of truth and the reliability of his limited and flawed narrators. These narrators construct imprecise and incongruous worldviews because it turns out that these are essential to their survival. In Never Let Me Go, Kathy H. and her fellow clones hold on to the unlikely hope that a display of their humanity will delay their inevitable sacrifice. Masuji Ono in An Artist of the Floating World can only justify his existence by believing himself to have been a far greater monster than he really was. Stevens, the butler of the Nazi-sympathising Lord Darlington in Remains of the Day, sacrifices truth at the altar of duty and dignity until he can no longer afford to do so. 

Whatever their flaws, these narrators remain sympathetic characters if only because they reflect our own fragile grip on the meaningfulness of the world, and our need to create narratives for ourselves despite our own limited and narrow understanding of the people and events around us. The difference for Ishiguro’s characters is that they are almost always ultimately caught in their self-deceit; as Stevens says, “One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event.”

So what do we make of Klara in Klara and the Sun, the protagonist of Ishiguro’s eighth and most recent book? An Artificial Friend, or AF, Klara was built to be a companion for children in a fractured society that has stratified into an Orwellian caste system. Power has become concentrated in the hands of the few while automatons increasingly act as “substitutes” for human workers. Schools have been shut down in favour of homeschooling through remote devices known only as Oblongs, and chosen scions of a select few participate in a genetic editing process that results in their being ‘lifted’. Brought up in isolation, children in this dystopia socialise in mediated “interaction meetings” where they practise disguising their backhanded compliments as social grace. (This dystopic future, written in a time of pandemic, seems almost laughably kitsch until one realises that it’s not too far off from the current state of learning.) 

The world in Klara and the Sun is not a happy place; but it is a hallmark of Ishiguro’s novels that the worst evils are attenuated through the use of normalised language: “lifted” and  “substituted” in Klara, or “completions” in Never Let Me Go referring to the death of an organ donor mid-vivisection. Klara’s world is a morass of contradictions and genteel horrors, but as with Ishiguro’s other books, this horror is very much softened by Klara’s experience and understanding. 

Precocious for an AF with unique powers of observation and synthesis, Klara begins life as a display model at the AF store. Because of these traits, she is  extremely sensitive to the nuance and patterns of human behaviour around her, even when they are incongruous with each other. This comes up in an interesting bit of philosophy of mind when Ishiguro describes just how an AF might view the world, which builds a unified intuition from discrete perceptions that are given to her in discrete perceptions a la Kant. When contradictions in her perceptions occur, the unity is broken up into individual “boxes”, indicating that the scene before her is contradictory, confusing or otherwise incongruous. For example, In one passage, her perception of the store manager is broken into boxes, one of which showed her eyes “that were filled with kindness and sadness” even as another box focused on the manager’s jaw which reflected “anger and frustration”. 

These incongruities would pop up regularly during her time spent with Josie, the teenager who purchases Klara and brings her home. Josie is very ill and her relationship with the people in her lives are tense, especially in relation to her overbearing mother, Chrissie, and her neighbour, Rick, with whom she has a youthful romance. Josie has already lost her older sister Sal to a similar sickness, and the loss has coloured her world — from the estrangement of her father to her mother’s overprotective demeanour. 

Klara is an excellent AF, not just to Josie but to the other people in her lives. Reflective and spiritual — again, unique traits for an automaton — she becomes involved in the private sufferings of the people around Josie. Incapable of self-deception, Klara’s beliefs and actions are motivated by her empirical observations and her sense of duty. Nevertheless there is something at the core of her being that adds to the synthesis, which motivates her to make some very un-AF-like decisions, such as rejecting a potential customer while waiting for Josie to return to the store, and deducing the nature of love in her reflections at the end of the book. Klara may not be an unreliable narrator in the traditional sense, but neither is her portrayal of the world one that is truly representative. (Then again, whose understanding of the world can be truly representative?)

As with Ishiguro’s other books, the world constructed in Klara and the Sun is by necessity narrowed by the first-person perspective, but one of Ishiguro’s strengths is his ability to do so without suffocating the reader. Instead, it becomes an intimate marriage of self and experience which leads to beautifully reflective prose. An oddity in the book, however, is the tonality of the dialogue between the teenaged children who speak with an American patois that is distinct from everyone else in the book. It broke the reading momentum the first few times I encountered them but they eventually became niggling irritations rather than severe disruptions. 

There are some inexplicable issues in the book; for example, how does an AF with a highly developed scientific cognitive mind fail to understand the true nature of the sun? Or misidentify objects such as a roadworks machine to be some sort of mythological creature of evil? It is unclear if Ishiguro’s world is logically consistent, but then again perhaps that is not the point of this book, or any of his books for that matter. Klara and the Sun might not hit the same artistic heights as his previous novels but it is still a beautifully quiet, elegant novel. 

Klara and the Sun is available in hardback (RM116) and trade paperback (RM75.50) here.

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Five reads to kickstart the new year

The dawn of a new year inadvertently brings with it a renewed desire for self-improvement, whatever form that may take. This is a lifelong endeavour, however, and what’s important isn’t so much the destination as the path and process. To quote Michelle Obama from her memoir, Becoming, “[It] isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.”

To help us along the way, we can certainly turn to books for wisdom — begin with some or all of the following titles for insight and inspiration.

Limitless by Tim Peake, RM86.90
If there’s anyone who understands the sheer amount of dedication, perseverance, and discipline it takes to attain a goal, it would be an astronaut. One such individual is Tim Peake, who recounts his unusual path to becoming an astronaut in vivid detail in his new autobiography, Limitless. Peake served 18 years as a British army pilot and was chosen out of 8,000 applicants to be one of six new astronauts of the European Astronaut Corps. He endured six years of grueling training before he was able to experience what few have – the exhilaration of heading out to space. Peake writes in a manner that’s engaging and humorous, and his inspiring story speaks of the power of following our dreams and of striving to reach our potential.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, RM49.95
There are two systems that drive the way we think and make choices: there’s fast, intuitive, and emotional thinking, and then there’s slow, rational, and more deliberative thinking. In this book, renowned psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman reveals how these two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions. He makes the case for not trusting our intuitions which can often lead us astray and explains the benefits of slow thinking. He also gives practical techniques of how to do so, as well as how to guard against our minds tripping us up. A phenomenal book on human rationality and irrationality, this book will likely change the way you make decisions.

Beyond the 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch, RM79.90
Successful entrepreneur Richard Koch first published his book on the 80/20 principle in 1997, and it has since become one of the definitive business books of the 20th century. In it he showed how one can achieve much more with much less effort, time, and resources by identifying and focusing our efforts on the 20% that really counts. He provided a systematic and practical way to vastly increase our effectiveness, and improve our careers and our companies. This is a revised edition of the book, with 92 more universal scientific principles and laws that will help you achieve personal success in an increasingly challenging business environment.

Lessons in Stoicism by John Sellars, RM46.50
There’s much that we can learn about how to live from the three great Roman Stoics – Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. Philosophy professor John Sellar’s excellent book draws from the lives and works of these three Stoics to elucidate how their ancient ideas can help us live better lives, including how to understand one’s place in the world, how to cope when things don’t go well, how to manage one’s emotions, and how to behave towards others. Comforting and enlightening, this delightful book serves as a thoughtful guide to the philosophy of a good life.

Indistractable by Nir Eyal, RM58.90
If you’re struggling with being distracted all the time, you’re going to want to read this book to learn how to reclaim your attention and focus. Behavioral design expert Nir Eyal shows the hidden psychology that drive us to distraction, and why it’s not as simple as abstaining from our devices. He lays out a four-step, research-backed model that will help you design your time and not let technology overrun your life. This empowering and optimistic book will help you live a more fulfilling life.

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Susanna Clarke returns with mystery novel ‘Piranesi’ 16 years after epic debut

by Elaine Lau

Susanna Clarke’s new novel, Piranesi, is a mystery. It is not, as the title might suggest, a novel about the 18th century Italian architectural artist famed for his etchings of Rome and atmospheric imaginary prisons. But his art must have served as inspiration for the British author, for in her novel we enter a dreamlike World that is at once beguiling and bewildering, haunting and enigmatic — much like the Italian master’s exquisite artworks.

This World is a decaying House with an innumerable number of marble halls like “an infinite series of classical buildings knitted together” and divided into three levels. The tides inhabit the Lower Halls, the Upper Halls are the “Domain of the Clouds”, whereas the Middle Halls are the “Domain of birds and of men”. Statues of varying sizes and composition inhabit every nook and cranny of this labyrinthine House. Outside, there is only the sun, moon and stars, and nothing else.

We know this from the journal entries of the novel’s titular character, Piranesi, although he tells us that is not his name. He regards the House with reverence and childlike wonder, and considers himself a “Beloved Child of the House”. Piranesi believes he is between 30 and 35 years old, and considers himself “a scientist and an explorer” who is determined to explore as much of the House as he can in his lifetime. He records every happening in his notebooks, be it tidal patterns or the behaviour of the rooks that come to nest, and catalogues the thousands of Statues.

Piranesi subsists on fish, seaweed and molluscs, and tends to the 13 skeletons in the House. Aside from biweekly visits from a figure called simply The Other — who is on a quest to uncover “a Great and Secret Knowledge hidden somewhere in the World” and needs his help — Piranesi lives a contented life of solitude.

One can draw parallels of his solitary existence with Clarke’s own ex­perience of finding solace in con­finement. For the past 15 years, the British author has been suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, among other conditions, which has at times impeded her writing and caused her to withdraw from the world. In an interview with The New Yorker, she said that she would imagine herself in a place with “endless buildings but silent — I found that very calming”.

Clarke became a literary sensation with her 2004 debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. This heady 800-page period fantasy tale of rivalling magicians set in sumptuously detailed 19th-century England won the 2005 Hugo Award, among other prizes, and sold more than four million copies worldwide. The novel firmly established Clarke’s narrative prowess and she was heralded as an exciting new literary voice to watch.

Which is why her second novel, Piranesi, published in September, was met with keen anticipation, especially more so because it has been 16 years since her debut. Piranesi is a very different animal from her debut — gone are the loquaciousness and helical plotline that made Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell either an exhilarating or laborious read, depending on whom you ask. By contrast, Piranesi is a breezy 270-page novel of bite-size journal entries in straightforward language. But its deceptively simple form belies the story’s complexity and inventiveness. Clarke has crafted an evocative novel that explores alternate worlds, memory and the sense of self, madness and imagination, and the detrimental pursuits of the vainglorious.

Piranesi is a mystery, and true to form, the first 80 pages or so rendered me utterly mystified. But as with all well-constructed mysteries, it gets good, and it subverts all expectations.

Where things start to shift is when The Other tells Piranesi that someone is looking to infiltrate their labyrinth and means to cause harm, and he should not engage with this person, whom Piranesi dubs “16”. But of course, 16 does show up, and here is when the story turns into a puzzle-box mystery. We follow along with Piranesi as he slowly puts the pieces together and, in the process, uncover his real identity and past — and what a bombshell of a reveal it turns out to be.

But more than plot, Piranesi is an exquisite depiction of something primeval, namely man’s earliest attempts to make sense of our sublimely ordered universe. It comes as no surprise that the arrangement of Piranesi’s World is eerily reminiscent of ancient cosmology, whose ordering of the universe is perhaps more a reflection of the human psyche, in its attempt to impose a meaning to his wonderment and place in it.

This article first appeared on Oct 12, 2020 in The Edge Malaysia.