AWARD-WINNING SIDES
of the literary coin
What about reading juxtapositions? Though they say, there’re never two similar books in the world, after finishing one you specifically browse for another of a different literary genre, plot and even length. At least I do. Exhausted with a deeply intellectual read, I tend to entertain myself with a gripping but simultaneously relaxing murder mystery before going back to another mind blowing award winner. But even those might turn out to be a different kettle of fish.
I’ve just finished reading the 2020 winners of two most prestigious literary awards in the English speaking world – the Booker Prize (UK) and The National Book Award for Fiction (USA) – and still can’t recover myself from the thought of apples and oranges, which, despite their differences in color and texture, might actually produce the same savory taste.
Charles Yu
2020 Booker Prize winner Douglas Stuart and his debut novel Shuggie Bain, based on the personal experience of the writer, portraits what it is like to grow up with an alcoholic mother in the filthy and poor suburbs of the 80s Glasgow. Hopelessness screams from the very beginning of the novel, it whispers in your ear and waves from the pages to follow. It all is so realistically dark and contagiously violent that the wish to drag Shuggie up from this paper quagmire and run without looking back is no longer a fantasy.
The only thing that stops is love. Shuggie’s love for his mother is unconditional and bright. He takes care of Agnes when she lies dead drunk, he searches the city to take her home from never-ending parties, he stays with his mother when everybody else abandons her, and he admires her shallow pride. This care that Shuggie embraces his mother with is difficult to comprehend for the reader who has never had an alcoholic parent. You might even feel the rising inner indignation towards this heartbreaking manifestation of love. But it stays there till the inevitably approaching tragedy. The farewell is so gentle, so caressing, with proudly colored lips and the last kiss.
Meanwhile the acknowledged US best book of the year is a true product of its homeland. Why roll in the mud when you can creatively jibe the issue? Written in a style of a teleplay (even in the typical Courier font), Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu hilariously hits a bull’s eye by describing underrepresentation of Asian Americans in the everyday life of America.
Willis Wu is a young actor who paradoxically is a central character of the novel but actually plays only episodic and trivial gigs as a “Generic Asian Man” in the TV series called Black and White, which takes place in the Golden Palace restaurant and the tenant building above it. His life ambition is to become a “Kung Fu Guy” but he’s yet managed to climb the ladder up to a “Very Special Guest Star.”
The power of certain stereotypes towards Asian Americans gushes from every page with dark sarcastic streams. Moreover, being the screenplay writer for Westworld, Charles Yu is a master of layering his story in such a way that soon you just lose the track “where reality starts and the performance begins.” Up till the moment when the plot turns into a reflection of Kafka’s The Trial where Willis is forced to stand both as a victim and a suspect, pleading guilty for continuously playing the role of “Generic Asian Man” and finally internalizing it as his own identity.
Behold this controversial continental clash: the horrifying Dickensian realism versus the witty Hollywoodian satire. Regardless of genre difference, they still are the sides of the same coin: because juxtapositions or not, these two novels definitely rock the boat. So take a solid grip to stay onboard and enjoy the ride.
Literary Yours,
Douglas Stuart
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