Easy to Read; Lots to Say

One morning, a white man, Anders, wakes to see that he has turned “a deep and undeniable brown.”  He feels like a stranger to himself; he is deeply shaken; he calls in sick, he won’t leave the house.  The color does not change back and eventually he tries to resume his life.  He goes to work; he calls his girlfriend; he tells his father. 

But Anders isn’t alone.  There are rumors of others turning dark and the rumors are true.  Soon, the nation is in turmoil as more whites turn dark brown.  Hamid’s riff on skin color, appearance, and sense of self, probes the depths of feeling this change exposes.  “I’d rather kill myself,” says his boss when he looks at Anders.  It took me awhile to realize that no one in the story felt that turning brown was a good or even neutral thing.  They all felt that no longer being white was a loss.  I’m still thinking about the implications of that. 

As more and more people turn dark, a sense of panic sets in.  There are echoes of the pandemic – hoarding, violence, isolation.  His girlfriend’s mother turns to right wing television, believing that “we” are winning, and “they” will disappear.  Anders’ father takes him in, feeling a visceral need to protect this son although he no longer looks like one.  For Oona, the girlfriend, these deaths of identity echo the recent deaths of her father and brother.

This story has a happy ending.  But one of the reasons it is happy is that everyone is now the same color.  Hamid leaves so much unsaid, leaving the implications of the plot to emerge slowly.

From the very first sentence, I thought of Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, a comparison, I believe, Hamid meant to evoke.  In it, a young man wakes up to find that he has been turned into a cockroach.  He also can hardly look at himself, waits to return to normal, won’t go to work, etc.  The points of the two stories are different but the openings are equivalent, Hamid implies.  In one, a person wakes up dark brown; in the other he wakes up a cockroach.  This innocent appearing novel has driven its accusation home.

Dai Sijie uses this desire as the basis of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. During the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, two teenage boys are sent to the mountains for reeducation for the crime of having parents who were professionals.  The boys live among the peasants, joining them in hard labor, sometimes dangerous, sometimes repulsive.

Then, two pivotal things happen.  First, they find and appropriate a hidden cache of forbidden books (Western novels!) which they read for the first time. 

“We were seduced, overwhelmed, spellbound by the mystery of the outside world, especially the world of women…with the ardour and earnestness of my eighteen years, I fell in love with one author after another…I would never have understood the splendour of taking free and independent action as an individual…”

Second, the boys fall in love.  She is the beautiful daughter of the local tailor and Luo, the leader of the two, resolves to read the books to her.  The power of literature is felt by all three in ways they could not have imagined.

This short easy-to-read novel, based on events in the author’s own life, is full of information about a particular time and place in history, plus the universal experience of coming of age.

And for the word lovers among us: The title reminded me of that obscure, interesting word synecdoche which means a part of something representing a whole. For example – what will the White House do to prevent bank failures? (“White House” representing “Federal government.”) In the case of our novel, Sijie uses “Balzac” to represent “great literature” and the ability it has to change lives.

In this current novel, she looks at the political ideals of 18-year-olds from the perspective of middle age and recognizes how one impassioned behavior can affect the trajectory of a lifetime. 

Venice still casts its spell; Brunetti decides that deceit can be an excellent tool; Signorina Elettra is disappointed in the computer skills of Interpol; Sara, a stray dog, taken in by the next-door convent, provides the key to the mystery.

Leon develops the biblical quote in the title by using two garden images.  There is the peace and fruitfulness of the well-kept, orderly garden of the nuns and their Buddhist helper which is the ideal.  There is the ugly chaotic overgrown garden which is the reality the police deal with every day.

At the end it is Sara who enjoys both gardens plus her new home. “In the manner of Saint Francis, she considers humans to be her brothers and sisters, and thus she passes her days in harmony with both nature and mankind.”

Here is something fun to end with: