A Review of Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness (Viking, 2021)
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ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
This book is another standout read of 2021. Ruth Ozeki continues the strong transnational themes of My Year of Meats and A Tale for the Time Being in her latest. Let’s let the official marketing description provide us with some key contexts: “A brilliantly inventive novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things. One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous. At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world. He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many. And he meets his very own Book—a talking thing—who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.”
This description is quite detailed, though doesn’t fully convey the scope of the minor characters, who do have a large impact on Benny’s experiences. Indeed, as Benny continues to grapple with the voices she hears in all the objects around him, he faces what might be inevitable: the question of whether or not he may be experiencing some sort of mental illness. Ozeki masterfully balances this complicated line by depicting a range of characters, such as a psychiatrist as well as mental ward patients. It is through Benny’s experiences with those who have been institutionalized or cast off as mentally unstable that Benny begins to generate a kind of alternative kinship, one that will be ever-more crucial given the deteriorating circumstances of his home space. The transnational dimensions I mentioned at the outset of this review come in the form of Benny’s mother, Annabelle, who begins to correspond with a Marie-Kondo-esque character, a Buddhist who publishes a tidying up manual from which Annabelle derives some comfort and inspiration. Annabelle is the other one struggling with her own challenges, dealing (or not fully dealing with) her grief and melancholy. The connection that Annabelle makes with this figure is essential toward the latter stages of the plot, finally providing a sense of closure that Annabelle and Benny might need. At the same time, the novel’s most exceptional aspect is perhaps its focus on what the cultural critic Jane Bennett might call Vibrant Matter. Ozeki’s attention to the animatedness of things: books and other objects, gives us pause to engage this book as yet another manifestation of the rich terrain of posthumanist representation. The more domestic and intimate nature of Ozeki’s plotting is especially intriguing given its length, as the novel comes in at over 500 pages. It’s definitely one you want to savor, perhaps next to a crackling fire or that space heater that’s getting you through the winter. As always, Ozeki’s prose is dynamic, and the changes in narrative perspective give this work dialogic energy that will move you all through those many pages.
Buy the Book Here
comments
ljiang28
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
This book is another standout read of 2021. Ruth Ozeki continues the strong transnational themes of My Year of Meats and A Tale for the Time Being in her latest. Let’s let the official marketing description provide us with some key contexts: “A brilliantly inventive novel about loss, growing up, and our relationship with things. One year after the death of his beloved musician father, thirteen-year-old Benny Oh begins to hear voices. The voices belong to the things in his house—a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce. Although Benny doesn't understand what these things are saying, he can sense their emotional tone; some are pleasant, a gentle hum or coo, but others are snide, angry and full of pain. When his mother, Annabelle, develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow more clamorous. At first, Benny tries to ignore them, but soon the voices follow him outside the house, onto the street and at school, driving him at last to seek refuge in the silence of a large public library, where objects are well-behaved and know to speak in whispers. There, Benny discovers a strange new world. He falls in love with a mesmerizing street artist with a smug pet ferret, who uses the library as her performance space. He meets a homeless philosopher-poet, who encourages him to ask important questions and find his own voice amongst the many. And he meets his very own Book—a talking thing—who narrates Benny’s life and teaches him to listen to the things that truly matter.”
This description is quite detailed, though doesn’t fully convey the scope of the minor characters, who do have a large impact on Benny’s experiences. Indeed, as Benny continues to grapple with the voices she hears in all the objects around him, he faces what might be inevitable: the question of whether or not he may be experiencing some sort of mental illness. Ozeki masterfully balances this complicated line by depicting a range of characters, such as a psychiatrist as well as mental ward patients. It is through Benny’s experiences with those who have been institutionalized or cast off as mentally unstable that Benny begins to generate a kind of alternative kinship, one that will be ever-more crucial given the deteriorating circumstances of his home space. The transnational dimensions I mentioned at the outset of this review come in the form of Benny’s mother, Annabelle, who begins to correspond with a Marie-Kondo-esque character, a Buddhist who publishes a tidying up manual from which Annabelle derives some comfort and inspiration. Annabelle is the other one struggling with her own challenges, dealing (or not fully dealing with) her grief and melancholy. The connection that Annabelle makes with this figure is essential toward the latter stages of the plot, finally providing a sense of closure that Annabelle and Benny might need. At the same time, the novel’s most exceptional aspect is perhaps its focus on what the cultural critic Jane Bennett might call Vibrant Matter. Ozeki’s attention to the animatedness of things: books and other objects, gives us pause to engage this book as yet another manifestation of the rich terrain of posthumanist representation. The more domestic and intimate nature of Ozeki’s plotting is especially intriguing given its length, as the novel comes in at over 500 pages. It’s definitely one you want to savor, perhaps next to a crackling fire or that space heater that’s getting you through the winter. As always, Ozeki’s prose is dynamic, and the changes in narrative perspective give this work dialogic energy that will move you all through those many pages.
Buy the Book Here
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