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Race-conscious and class-conscious but with a young, street-smart cast of characters, What We All Long For should have been amazing. It should have deserved every bit that “Globe and Mail Best Book” seal on its cover. Dionne Brand should have wowed m...moreRace-conscious and class-conscious but with a young, street-smart cast of characters, What We All Long For should have been amazing. It should have deserved every bit that “Globe and Mail Best Book” seal on its cover. Dionne Brand should have wowed me with her portrayal of first-generation Vietnamese Canadian Tuyen versus Tuyen’s immigrant parents and sisters. The troubled relationship between Carla and her kid brother, Jamal, should have opened my eyes to the subtle difficulties of living in a city where the colour of one’s skin still creates certain expectations and raises certain obstacles. Nature versus nurture, class versus conscience, youthful rebellion versus the wisdom of one’s elders … these are all motifs in What We All Long For, and Brand squanders each and every one of them.
As one might expect from a notable poet, Brand’s prose is beautiful. Although, in the end, I did not enjoy the story itself, the act of reading this novel was still pleasant. Brand has a very good grasp on the conceptualization of space in a way that makes it easy for me, as a non-visual reader, to appreciate. Not only does she conjure images and sounds, but she pays close attention to textures and smells. Environments are an important component to her scenes, from the artistic chaos of Tuyen’s apartment to the contrasting refuge from the world of Carla’s next door. There’s a great deal of pathetic fallacy and other literary devices that authors less devoted to the craft of writing occasionally omit from their novels. What We All Long For is disappointing, but it is beautifully disappointing.
I’m going to be hard on this book because it starts out with promise. I picked it up for free on a whim from a table at the university where such free books occasionally manifest. I had not heard of Dionne Brand before, and to be honest, the back cover copy makes this book sound like what it turned out to be: an unremarkable and somewhat mediocre story centred around identity, family, and Toronto. It’s the same sort of bland fare that gives CanLit a bland name. But I decided to give it a chance, because I like to keep an open-mind about books and authors I haven’t encountered before. And What We All Long For starts off strong, with a child lost while emigrating from Vietnam, and another child lost after she grows up and decides she should move out.
Vu Tuan and Vu Cam lost their son Quy as they fled Vietnam. In the decades to follow he would grow up in Thailand and Malaysia, becoming a criminal out of necessity and then because he knew nothing better. This part of the book is a fascinating look at the effects of environment on a child’s upbringing. Quy’s chapters are in his own voice, and they communicate the careful pragmatism that a child in his situation has to adopt. Unsavoury people use him for their own ends, so he learns to use them in return. For him, crime is not a question of morality or ethics; it’s business and survival. The fact that he once had a family, and that his parents might still be looking for him after all these years, is largely immaterial—an afterthought against the overriding need to keep moving and keep innovating before someone else does.
Most of the novel, however, follows Tuyen, Carla, Jackie, and Oku. Four twenty-somethings living in Toronto, they all have their twenty-something problems and their conflicts with their parents. Also, their racial heritages—Tuyen is Vietnamese, the others are from various Black communities, and Carla’s mother was White—play an important role in the story and these characters’ conflicts. Tuyen has embraced the life of an artist free from obligations; against her parents’ wishes, she moved out from the family home and in so doing feels that she has escaped from beneath their thumbs. Their persistence in trying to find Quy seems like her to be grasping at straws from the past. Meanwhile, Tuyen struggles with her relationship with Carla, her best friend—except that Tuyen would like it to be more.
Tuyen’s obsession with Carla borders on creepy:
Carla had made it clear to Tuyen that she was straight, but Tuyen could not quite believe her. If she made herself useful enough, if she listened and coaxed enough, maybe Carla would come around. Straight women were never as straight as the put out, Tuyen figured. She had, after all, slept with numerous straight women. They merely had to be convinced.
Straight ladies, is this true? (I somehow doubt it.) I realize I shouldn’t identify everything Tuyen says with what Brand believes, but this did nothing to help me sympathize with Tuyen as a character. For someone who likes to think of herself as artistic, creative, and open-minded, she is awfully self-centred. Yet I suppose there is a small element of the romantic idea of unrequited love here: Tuyen loves her best friend, who does not by a quirk of her biology return that affection on the same level. But the creepiness goes deeper than that:
And there had been a few times, after one of their parties, when she had found herself in Carla’s bed, cuddling on the pretext that they were both high and drunk. Which was pretext enough for Carla to pretend that nothing had happened and to pull herself away from Tuyen’s sleeping body quickly in the morning.
… so far her entreaties had been rebuffed and she’d had to settle for near-unconscious probings and feels when Carla could claim drunkenness or drug-induced forgetfulness.
Consider that for a moment. Tuyen is so wrapped up in this idea of Carla’s hidden sexuality that she pushes Carla when she is under the influence. If that doesn’t seem creepy, imagine if this were the same scene, but with a man in Tuyen’s place. Yeah.
Oh, but What We All Long For does have a man experiencing unrequited love. Oku has feelings for Jackie, and while Jackie has been good enough to have sex with him once or twice, she doesn’t feel the same way for him. To be fair to Oku, he doesn’t approach this the same way Tuyen does with Carla. But his approach is also clingy, and if not creepy, it walks that fine line between sweet and stalking. Oku strikes me as a nice guy genuinely trying to find out what he wants to do with his life: he dropped out of graduate school in literature but wants to avoid the life of manual labour that his father believes is the only acceptable career path. As with Tuyen’s unrequited love, though, I’m not so comfortable with how Oku pursues Jackie.
Carla’s plot is probably my favourite after Quy’s. Her childhood was troubled: her father was living with another woman, Nadine, when he met her mother. And he continued to live with Nadine after Carla and Jamal were born. Eventually, this took its toll, leading Carla’s mother to commit suicide. So Carla and Jamal moved in with Derek and Nadine, and they were one awkward family unit. Then Carla moved out, Jamal started boosting cars, and Derek continued to ignore his paternal responsibilities. Carla has become Jamal’s bail-person and surrogate mother, but she has no idea how to rescue him from the vicious circle of crime into which he has fallen. Every time she gets him out of jail, he quickly finds a way to be “in the wrong place at the wrong time”.
Like so many other disadvantaged youth, his story is a mixture of racial discrimination and poor judgement, a dangerous combination that puts him at risk for prison time on the order of decades or life—if life on the street doesn’t kill him first. There is no right answer, no easy solution, to Carla and Jamal’s quandary. And I really like how Brand explores that from its various angles, including the emotional confrontation that Carla has with her father. Blame flies around like it’s on sale; tempers flare; and Carla storms out and commits the act of a child punishing a parent.
What We All Long For would not be all that bad were it not for the ending. I don’t want to spoil it. Suffice it to say, two disparate plotlines don’t converge so much as collide in such a contrived way that it made me almost—almost—throw the book across the room. I don’t know what Brand was thinking; I guess she thought the coincidence was poetic and particularly ironic as a way to end the book. But the effect is cheap and tawdry, and it undermines what little good will her socially-conscious politics had otherwise incurred. And then, of course, we never get to learn about the aftermath. The “violent, unexpected encounter that will alter forever the lives of Tuyen and her friends”, as the back cover copy promised it, certainly does just that—not that we ever get to see how it alters their lives.
Good book? Bad book? What We All Long For is well-intentioned, I suppose, a brilliant attempt that falls short of the mark. It’s burdened by clumsy characterization and poor plotting. This is regrettable, because we need more novels like this—authentic, Canadian novels with main characters from visible minorities, novels written by authors who aren’t white guys trying to sound multicultural. So I wish I could have given What We All Long For the praise it seems to have earned from everywhere else … alas, its provenance does not excuse its flaws, which are too numerous to ignore.
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Should Otis change his profile picture?
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" Rivka isn’t the founder of Goodreads though. :P
I vote Otis post two or three candidates and we have a poll to pick the best (*cough* funniest *cough*)...moreRivka isn’t the founder of Goodreads though. :P
I vote Otis post two or three candidates and we have a poll to pick the best (*cough* funniest *cough*) one!(less)"
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I understand the need to cut slack to authors whose viewpoints are racist or bigoted in light of today’s values. This is particularly important when an author’s views were progressive in their day. For instance, Thomas Jefferson can hardly be called ...
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(purchased at Powell's bookstore in Portland, OR; at the famous GR Portland Babes' Reunion)
I don’t mean to nitpick but the story introduces us to triffids- motile plants with lethal stings, which feed on human flesh. Nobody knows where t...
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The blurb for this book includes a) an extract from a review likening it to The Secret History and b) a quote from Scarlett Thomas, calling it 'one of the most powerful and gripping debut novels I have ever read'. A comparison to my favourite contemp...
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Napier's Bones
by
Derryl Murphy (Goodreads Author)
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My dad occasionally wanders into my room with that look on his face communicating the depth to which the books he borrowed from the library have disappointed him, proceeds to the shelf where my to-read books live until I devour them, and borrows a bo...moreMy dad occasionally wanders into my room with that look on his face communicating the depth to which the books he borrowed from the library have disappointed him, proceeds to the shelf where my to-read books live until I devour them, and borrows a book before I read it. That happened with The Night Circus. Afterwards he commented that it reminds him of World of Wonders. I can see why. Both books are set, at least partly, in a circus/carnival even stranger than most. Both are about the convoluted relationships of several central characters. But The Night Circus is much more overtly fantastical, centred as it is around a magical duel of surprising subtlety.
Celia and Marco are proxies, pawns in a challenge conducted between two magicians of incredible longevity and power. This is the latest—and apparently the last—such challenge, which ends only when one of the two players’ proxies dies. But it’s no ordinarily duel, magic or otherwise. Celia and Marco are not supposed to interfere with each other; instead, they compete in displays of their magical prowess, attempting to show the other’s methods and abilities are far superior. For the challenge’s venue, Prospero and his counterpart, the mysterious Alexander, arrange the creation of a circus like the world has never seen. This is the eponymous nightime circus, moving from town to town with no schedule, no warning. Within this circus, Celia and Marco compete to prove themselves the better magician.
And what a circus! The book straddles the transition into the 20th century. Set amid the decline of Victorian England and the rise of the United States of America, it has that particular atmosphere of sepia-toned photographs, gas lighting, and quaintly dressed couples in the autumn air. The circus is similarly romantic, a combination of impossibly efficient and magnificently mysterious. Some of the tents have performers: acrobats, fortune tellers, even an illusionist. Others are far less conventional, including labyrinths of ice and wish-granting trees. It truly is a world of wonders.
The circus is the brainchild of one M. Lefevre, but its success and vitality is due to Celia and Marco. Gradually, the circus changes from setting to material for their duel. Marco lights an eternal bonfire that allows him to watch and manipulate the circus from afar, for he is usually in London while the circus is on the road. Celia is the one responsible for the train that transports the circus to each new destination, not to mention whatever magic enables its setup and takedown. In between these more quotidian tasks, they find time to design new tents and attractions. At first they work separately, designing and implementing their own creations. But once Celia and Marco discover each other’s identity as their opponent, they begin to collaborate—and their sponsors are none too happy with such fraternization.
That this is a love story should come as no surprise. It’s advertised as such in the dust jack cover copy, and even if it weren’t, then every rule of storytelling would still demand it! Celia and Marco’s romance is not sappy, but it isn’t particularly well-realized either. For one thing, there’s Isobel. Marco meets her long before he meets Celia—long before he properly begins the challenge, even, though he has been training almost his entire life. Isobel reads tarot, and they develop a comfortable but not necessarily passionate relationship. Indeed, Isobel clearly wants (or needs) Marco more than he does her, to the point that she volunteers to join the Night Circus so as to spy on Celia for him. Later, when all is said and done and it’s clear that Marco has chosen Celia, Isobel’s reaction proves to be a major turning point, sending ripples throughout the circus. Yet Isobel bears no malice toward Celia, and while this is refreshing, I kind of wish she had gotten mad, at least at someone.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there never seems to be a serious obstacle between Celia and Marco being together. There’s a notable one during the climax, of course, but even the solution to that was rather predictable. Theirs is a storybook romance without the troubles that should accompany any two literary characters’ attempts to make it work: where are the disagreements, the arguments, the fights? Where are the misinterpreted phrases, misconstrued glances, and awkward moments? It’s not sappy and not overdone, but Celia and Marco’s relationship is still just a little too smooth.
This glossiness translates to other areas of The Night Circus, including the magic that Celia and Marco perform. Its products are amazing but the magic itself is not as flashy: Celia can alter her gown colour at will! Marco can write stuff in his notebook! Actually, I’m going to disagree with some reviewers who express their disappointment that the duel is not so much a duel as a talent show. I loved this aspect of The Night Circus. I like that Morgenstern took it upon herself not to make this some kind of conflict related to force, or even to wits. Rather, it is a conflict of stamina. Celia can feel herself slipping as the strain of managing the circus begins to become too much. Marco has been keeping the circus performers from aging, not to mention carefully managing the mind of his employer, M. Lefevre. The magic takes its toll on both of them—but they can’t give it up, for they have been bound to this challenge by the magic of those who would see them dance until one of them drops.
I wish we had learned more about the pasts of Prospero and Alexander. It’s implied that they are extremely old, on the order of centuries at least, but that each of them is beginning to reach his limits: Prospero traps himself in a ghost-like state after attempting to achieve true immortality; Alexander remains corporeal but is feeling the weight of his age more than ever. This is to be their final challenge, one more game for old times’ sake. The point of the challenge, if it has one at all, seems to be to gauge which theory of magic is better—Celia’s almost psychokinetic manipulation of the world around her, or Marco’s textual, wordbased sorcery. Yet with so little background on these characters, we are left without a mythology for The Night Circus.
Finally, I just have to add how much I enjoyed Bailey’s story. His subplot progresses asynchronously with Celia and Marco’s challenge, but he becomes an integral part of The Night Circus and its resolution. I found Bailey a much easier character to identify with than Celia, Marco, or any of the others associated with the circus. His conflicts in life were real and recognizable, with the lure of the circus a classic juxtaposition. Along with Herr Thiessen, Bailey is one of those supporting characters who make a novel a lot better than it might have been if the author had chosen only to focus on the main plot.
My review is somewhat more lukewarm than I thought it would be after finishing The Night Circus. I really enjoyed reading this book. Erin Morgenstern’s prose is poetic to the point of seductiveness. In my descriptions of this book to people I have tiptoed around the term magical realism, for it connotes an idea similar to what comes to mind when I consider The Night Circus. But the fantasy in this book is overt; I suppose I might call it magical surrealism for its use of illusion and the subtlety of its magical acts. Although the relationships between the characters are not the highest point of this book, I think it’s definitely worthy of the acclaim and hype it seems to be receiving so far. Instant classic? No. But something to consider if you too are disappointed with your choice of library books.
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The Mirage
by
Matt Ruff (Goodreads Author)
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