"Is it surprising if a seed grows where it lands, once it's been scattered? Can it be helped? In 'Brooklyn,' Colm Toibin quietly, modestly shows how place can assert itself, enfolding the visitor, staking its claim." This passage in Liesl Schillinger's NYT review of Colm Toibin's novel Brooklyn made me thoughtful because the question of how "place can assert itself" is the subject of two of my novels, The Swing of Beijing and Waiting for Love Child.
In both books, the "place" at issue is Beijing. In The Swing of Beijing, Beijing is asserts itself in anything but a quiet, modest way. Rather, the city is a constant challenge to its expatriate residents, an obstacle to their goals, a menace to their souls.
In Waiting for Love Child, Beijing is more seductive and less aggressive. The city still crushes Dean Cannon, the expatriate protagonist of Love Child, but the city isn't confrontational; rather, it lures Dean into burrowing into its trap.
In my real life, having been an expatriate in Beijing for more than four years now, the ways in which extpatriates grow in relation to, and in resistance of, Beijing has been consistently fascinating because of the unique landscape of the city. It's generally welcoming to foreigners (as long as you're not a democracy or Tibet protestor, or Falun Gong supporter), but it's also isolating of outsiders. You can't join Beijing society; as an expat, you'll never be Chinese. (Even if you marry a Chinese person, you can't get citizenship).
Outsiders are allowed to form their own enclaves in Beijing, enclaves that are free from the social regulation of both Chinese society and the societies from which the expatriates hail. Up until recently, expatriates were virtually above the law, as well. In this context, free from constraints that keep seedlings growing ever "up" in the U.S., seeds can grow in truly warped and delightful directions in Beijing.
Liesl Schillinger's two questions, "Is it surprising?" and "Can it be helped?" are also interesting. I haven't yet read Brooklyn, but from Schillinger's review, the circumstance that prompts her questions is that Eilis, the protagonist, falls in love with an Italian, rather than holding her life in stasis, waiting to return to Ireland. Should it be surprising that Eilis falls in love with an "outsider" in this strange land? Can it be helped?
Having lived in Beijing and responded to its rhythm, and watched others do the same, I'm not surprised. When people are ready to get married, they fall in love with whoever's around them, whether at home or in a far-away place.
But I do think it "can be helped." Occasionally, I see an expatriate in Beijing holding themselves back from the city, refusing its provocations and temptations, treading water until they can return again to the open-seas-like-pond of the U.S. And, although I empathisize with their fear of how Beijing will change them, and although I recognize in their self-control and defendedness a kind of strength, I'm not really interested in these people.
Not interested enough to write two novels about them.
In both books, the "place" at issue is Beijing. In The Swing of Beijing, Beijing is asserts itself in anything but a quiet, modest way. Rather, the city is a constant challenge to its expatriate residents, an obstacle to their goals, a menace to their souls.
In Waiting for Love Child, Beijing is more seductive and less aggressive. The city still crushes Dean Cannon, the expatriate protagonist of Love Child, but the city isn't confrontational; rather, it lures Dean into burrowing into its trap.
In my real life, having been an expatriate in Beijing for more than four years now, the ways in which extpatriates grow in relation to, and in resistance of, Beijing has been consistently fascinating because of the unique landscape of the city. It's generally welcoming to foreigners (as long as you're not a democracy or Tibet protestor, or Falun Gong supporter), but it's also isolating of outsiders. You can't join Beijing society; as an expat, you'll never be Chinese. (Even if you marry a Chinese person, you can't get citizenship).
Outsiders are allowed to form their own enclaves in Beijing, enclaves that are free from the social regulation of both Chinese society and the societies from which the expatriates hail. Up until recently, expatriates were virtually above the law, as well. In this context, free from constraints that keep seedlings growing ever "up" in the U.S., seeds can grow in truly warped and delightful directions in Beijing.
Liesl Schillinger's two questions, "Is it surprising?" and "Can it be helped?" are also interesting. I haven't yet read Brooklyn, but from Schillinger's review, the circumstance that prompts her questions is that Eilis, the protagonist, falls in love with an Italian, rather than holding her life in stasis, waiting to return to Ireland. Should it be surprising that Eilis falls in love with an "outsider" in this strange land? Can it be helped?
Having lived in Beijing and responded to its rhythm, and watched others do the same, I'm not surprised. When people are ready to get married, they fall in love with whoever's around them, whether at home or in a far-away place.
But I do think it "can be helped." Occasionally, I see an expatriate in Beijing holding themselves back from the city, refusing its provocations and temptations, treading water until they can return again to the open-seas-like-pond of the U.S. And, although I empathisize with their fear of how Beijing will change them, and although I recognize in their self-control and defendedness a kind of strength, I'm not really interested in these people.
Not interested enough to write two novels about them.
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