Review: Little Gods (by Meng Jin)

My Rating: 3 stars

 

As I sit down to write this review, I’m struggling a bit because I’m trying to figure out what my feelings are toward this book.  Normally, when I read a book, I will either gravitate towards one side or another in terms of liking the book or not liking it – interestingly enough, this is actually one of those rare instances where I feel ambivalent and perhaps, if I’m being honest, not really sure how to react.  While there were definitely things that I appreciated about this book – such as the historical and cultural references, which I thought were incorporated seamlessly throughout the story -- there were an equal amount of things that made the reading experience a bit more exhausting than I would’ve liked. 

The structure of the narrative is unique in that, even though the main character of the story is Su Lan, a Chinese woman who overcomes her village upbringing to become a brilliant physicist, we as readers never get to “meet” this character directly.  Instead, we are given glimpses into Su Lan’s life through the recollections of those who had interacted with her or had been a part of her life at some point – a nameless nurse at the hospital in Beijing where Su Lan had given birth; Zhu Wen, who was Su Lan’s landlady when she lived in Shanghai and also the last person Su Lan interacted with before leaving China; Su Lan’s husband Yongzong, with whom she had daughter; and finally Liya, the daughter with whom Su Lan had a strained, complicated relationship.  Through these anecdotal recollections, almost all of which were told from each character’s first-person perspective, we are slowly given the various “pieces” that eventually come together to form an enigmatic portrait of Su Lan’s life.  This narrative structure was indeed interesting, however by the end of the story, I actually felt confusion rather than clarity, as each character seemed to paint conflicting images of Su Lan, to the point that, despite being told so much about her, I still felt like I never really “knew” her.

I think the biggest issue I had with this book was the writing, which I would describe as being a little too “experimental” for my tastes.  I know other reviewers mentioned the lack of quotation marks for all the dialogue, which didn’t bother me too much actually.  Instead, what didn’t work too well for me was the abstract quality of the writing, especially with the descriptions of events that took place or things that were happening to the characters — I’m not sure if I’m describing this correctly, but it felt almost as though the story and the characters kept “shape-shifting” from one scene to the next.  For example, the scene would be about Liya encountering someone from Su Lan’s past and suddenly, Liya would become Su Lan, wearing the same clothes as her, thinking the same thoughts as her, but then the next minute, she would be Liya again.  Throughout most of the story, it felt like the characters kept jumping in and out of dreams and memories that would get mixed in with their current realities – this made trying to follow the story quite a bit more difficult than it really needed to be.  In addition, interspersed through the story were mentions about various aspects of science – more specifically, about theoretical physics as it pertains to human behavior, the laws of thermodynamics and its relation to time, mathematical theory and probability, etc. – all of which went way over my head, as I’ve never been interested in science or math and so had no clue what any of that stuff was about.  Thankfully, the segments that actually went into detail about the science aspects were few and far between and also relatively brief, which made it a tad less tortuous but definitely added to the difficulty in following the story.

Also, despite this being a largely character-driven story, I actually didn’t feel much of a connection with the characters, even though the fact that we share the same culture should’ve made it easier.  In addition, I felt a sense of being emotionally detached from the story and the characters, which, thinking about it now, I’m wondering if that was intentional on the author’s part, given that all the characters themselves seemed to also be emotionally detached from the subject they were reminiscing about (Su Lan).

Overall, I would say that this was a “different” reading experience for me.  It wasn’t completely negative of course (otherwise my scoring would be lower), but I wouldn’t say it was hugely positive either.  While I appreciate what the author was trying to do here and applaud her for breaking from tradition and delivering a well-written (in the larger scheme of things) literary debut that is both unique and thought-provoking, I recognize that perhaps I just wasn’t the right audience for this book.  Hopefully the “right” audience for this book will be able to read and appreciate it better than I have.

Received ARC from Custom House (HarperCollins) via NetGalley.