Much like when I read The Historian, I was unable to decide if what I was reading was fiction or nonfiction. (Of course, there were no vampires in this book so maybe this isn't the best comparison except for the way they both made me feel.) I couldn't put down Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien despite how much I sometimes wanted to in order to spare myself further heartbreak. This is the story of those who lived through China's Cultural Revolution and their successors a world away in Canada...at least a tiny little slice. Our main characters rotate between Sparrow, Kai, and Zhuli who lived during Mao Zedong's reign of terror, Ai-Ming who took part in the demonstrations of Tiananmen Square, and Marie who wants to piece everything together in present day Canada. This is also about music and its power to lift the soul or to mire it in secrets. A lot of sensitive topics are touched on in this book including but not limited to torture, public humiliation, and sexual assault. This is not just a work of historical fiction but also a mystery about people, events, and a book that keeps resurfacing. Intricately woven with details which seem to make the story come to life in vivid color right before your eyes this book is one that I think everyone should experience. This is the hallmark of excellent historical fiction. 10/10

 

For a nearly complete list of the classical music mentioned in the book: Spotify.

 

Source: Goodreads

 

 

What's Up Next: Hunger by Roxane Gay

 

What I'm Currently Reading: Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories

My father's stories came back to me, all the heroes that persisted in Khmer poems and myths, so many stories that promised us we were braver than we were.

Πολλά βιβλία έχουν γραφτεί για τα τέσσερα χρόνια κατά τα οποία η Καμπότζη βρισκόταν υπό το ζυγό των Khmer Rouge, από το 1975, όταν βγήκαν νικηφόροι από τον εμφύλιο πόλεμο, ως το 1979 και την απομάκρυνσή τους από την εξουσία μετά την εισβολή του Βιετνάμ στη Δημοκρατική Kampuchea. Παρόλα αυτά, πριν διαβάσω το βιβλίο της Madeleine Thien δε μπορούσα να φανταστώ πως ένα έργο μυθοπλασίας θα μπορούσε να αναπαραστήσει μια ιστορική εποχή τέτοιας σημασίας χωρίς να υποπέσει σε κοινότυπα συναισθηματικής φόρτισης μοτίβα, χωρίς να είναι προβλέψιμο αφηγηματικά και θεματικά.

Η Thien κατατέμνει την ιστορία χρονικά, η αφήγηση εναλλάσσεται μεταξύ του παρελθόντος πολέμου της Καμπότζης και της ζωής στο Μοντρεάλ του 2005. Ο κύριος πρωταγωνιστής είναι η Janie η οποία μολονότι έχει μεταναστεύσει στον Καναδά συνεχίζει να βιώνει στο παρόν και να καθορίζεται από τα τραύματα των πρώιμων εμπειριών της ως θύμα του πολέμου στην Καμπότζη, ως μάρτυρας σε δολοφονίες και σε απώλειες. Το κατακερματισμένο υποκείμενο αντανακλάται αφενός στην αφήγηση που ρέει από το παρελθόν στο παρόν κι αφετέρου από την κατάτμηση σε δύο των προσώπων που αναλαμβάνουν να αφηγηθούν εν πολλοίς μια παρόμοια ιστορία.

I would like to know which part of the mind remains untouched, barricaded, if there is any part of me that lasts, that is incoruptible, the absolute centre of who I am.

Πρόκειται για μια αφήγηση που στηρίζεται περισσότερο στην εμπειρία και την παρατήρηση παρά στη φαντασία, καθώς η συγγραφέας φιλοδοξεί να παραστήσει τη ζωή όπως ήταν, με τις περιπλοκές και την ωμότητά της, δίχως προκαταλήψεις κι επιθυμία συγκίνησης με την επίδειξη του πάθους. Με τα λόγια του Proust:

Αυτό που αποκαλούμε πραγματικότητα είναι μια ορισμένη σχέση ανάμεσα στα συναισθήματα και τις αναμνήσεις που ταυτόχρονα μας περικυκλώνουν[…]

Η ουσία του έργου της Thien βρίσκεται λοιπόν στο μηχανισμό της μνήμης, καθώς το μυθιστόρημα δεν είναι οργανωμένο γραμμικά, μάλλον μοιάζει με πραγματικές μνήμες, με την ιστορία να λέγεται σε θραύσματα, να παρασύρεται πίσω-μπρος μεταξύ του παρελθόντος και του παρόντος, προκειμένου να ανασυρθεί η πονεμένη μνήμη.

You can follow the trail but you can't know in which direction you are headed, down to the end, or reversing, forever, to the beginning.

Η κατασκευή της Thien είναι ποιητική, αρέσκεται στη λεπτομέρεια και στη γνήσια πολυπλοκότητα, με τον πόνο του παρελθόντος να είναι εξαιρετικός, να ρίχνει τη σκιά του στο παρόν και παρόλα αυτά να μην εμποδίζει το χαρακτήρα να ζήσει μια πλήρη ζωή, ενώ η πρόζα της παρακάμπτει τα συναισθηματικά «δίχτυα» τα οποία θα της περιόριζαν τη διευκρίνιση και την αποτύπωση μιας πραγματικότητας προσωπικής και συνάμα που δεν ατομικοποιείται, προτείνοντας την αλήθεια της αναγνωρισμένης πραγματικότητας.

“Do Not Say We Have Nothing” is a moving story of musicians who suffered during and after China’s Cultural Revolution. Jiang Li-Ling, the narrator speaks to us from the present day telling us about her father, a brilliant musician, who committed suicide in Hong Kong when she was a little girl.

In Ms. Thien’s novel there is so much going on it is easy to get lost trying to keep track of the people and movements in order to keep everything straight. The numerous details and complexity of the book’s structure gives us an idea what we are up against. Part one: contains eight sequential chapters, Part Zero: seven chapters in reversed order from seven to one, followed by a coda to conclude. A real mishmash…..

At its heart, the novel explores the history of two families while examining the love of musicians in 20th century China, the effect of political changes which had terrible effects on the people. But it doesn’t stay there and to complicate things added into the mix are coded stories from a novel called Book of Records. Time shifts back and forth within chapters weaving back to China’s civil war and up to the present day and shuffling between characters. The story spans some six decades, so don’t blink an eye this novel needs our entire attention, so much is said. To top it all, throughout the novel language is central: English, Mandarin, Chinese and music plays a good part. This is definitely an exhausting read.

No doubt Ms. Thien did extensive research to masterfully layer a story within a story and pen this kind of demanding novel that is full of scenes that linger in our imagination long after the closing page. Ex: the student-led demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The author vividly describes those scenes with passion.

Some will love this novel for its riveting and lyrical phrases and other will find the experience confusing, disjointed and very-long. Although I made it to the end I admit to have struggled all through….At this time, I sit on the fence ….looking more towards the ground….

This Booker prize short listed novel is a story of fragments and shards, stops and starts, texts and copies, mathematics and unfinished symphonies and words with dual meanings. Ostensibly, this is the tale of several related families set in and around the cultural revolution in China, but also springing forward to Tiananmen Square in 1989 and Canada in the early 90s. It describes the struggles in particular of Sparrow, a talented composer, who--in order to preserve his family--destroys his own work and is put to laboring in a factory (and dreaming of a perfect silence). It also describes his lover-in-all-but-physical-deed Kai, who has a “purer” peasant family history and a quicker turn to the Red Guard and thus prospers as a musician in Beijing despite the revolution, yet loses his soul.

In some ways, Thien's writing is unconventional with quick shifts of point of view. In others, it is quite conventional, and symbols hit you on the head like cartoon anvils. However, the novel grew on me, as the restrained passions (even at times passivity) of the characters acquired over time a narrative momentum and quiet emotional charge. Terror, denunciations, humiliations, beatings, false confessions, disappearances, vicious mobs, and wasted lives are part and parcel of this novel, so it is no easy read, but there are survivors and there are heroes and a host of well-drawn secondary characters.

This year's strongest contender for the Man Booker Prize: Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. It is an epic, wonderfully imagined tale of two generations struggling through China's political campaigns, first in the 1960s, then in 1989. Do Not Say We Have Nothing is an incredibly intelligent and ambitious novel; it is multi-faceted, combing theories of mathematics and language with literature and musical composition.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a complex work, however, and can be hard to follow. Initially, the story seems to be about Marie, then Marie and Ai-Ming, but it isn't long before the reader is catapulted into backstory and stories within stories. It's easy to forget Marie even existed in the first place, which is unfortunate because I was anchored in her tale and her tale was effortless reading.

I had some difficulty staying connected, but in full disclosure I believe much of this was my own fault. Do Not Say We Have Nothing is the sort of novel that needs to be savored. By its very structure, it requires a careful reading. In my effort to read the entire Man Booker shortlist before the announcement (made difficult by US publication dates), I sped through this novel in a mere fourteen hours (not nearly enough time for me and for a work of this magnitude). As I approached the concluding chapters, I sincerely regretted that I hadn't taken more time to enjoy this great novel.

For the last several years, the Man Booker Prize judges have favored historical works. Many of these contained chapters from humanity's brutal history. Assuming the judges do not feel the need to deviate from the pattern for the sake of breaking the repetition, I don't believe this year will be an exception. Madeline Thien will win the 2016 Man Booker Prize.