August 30, 2023
Did you ever play a game where you picked three pieces of paper each with a word on them and you had to make a coherent sentence using all three? Because seems to be that game - and the words were 'gay', 'sea-creatures' and 'Chinese'. It almost sounds like it was an exercise in a writing class.
The author writes a lot about her sexuality and mostly not in a very cheery way, interesting sea creatures and deep-sea vents (very interested in those and their fauna) and her Chinese mother and her background. None of it hangs together at all.
There was one stunning paragraph where the author knows she is being hypocritical, but is talking only of her own half-Chinese ethnicity and complaining of it.
Actually that paragraph really struck a chord with me too. Why can't I just exist? People who don't know I'm Jewish which is almost everyone since I don't look like Hitler's or Chanel's idea of Jewish - dark, big nose, big eyes, dark hair - I am a green-eyed redhead with a quite unremarkable nose and a fair complexion - don't feel the need to define me. I'm just another ... white, which is the standard in the US. On the island I live on, I will be described as white because Black is the standard.
Jew stuff
The book was most interesting when it talked about the sea-creatures, and least interesting when it went on and on about her gay sex life. The Chinese bits were small but quite fascinating - a neighbour of her banker grandfather having (at least) six concubines. What year did they stop that in Shanghai and when did they stop referring to extra-marital girlfriends as 'concubines'? Would Hefner have been so successful in his modernisation of (male) sexual attitudes if he had used the word 'concubines' instead of 'girlfriends'? (Not really relevant since they were paid and therefore sex workers or whores as that was the word back then). Language and its changes can strongly influence mindset.
The saving grace of the book, was that the author knew her sea-creatures and writes well. Maybe she won't play the three-word game next book and stick to one subject, my preference would be a science book, I think it might be very good. 3.5 stars rounded down, just nowhere close to 4.
__________
Reading notes This book is after a few chapters, so far successful, very strange mix of science, being young and gay and full of angst, and the story of her mother in China. It's quite unclassifiable but interesting. There are quite mind-boggling sentences, "My grandmother grew up believing she was ugly because everyone told her so. A friend of her father's, their wealthy neighbour's sixth concubine always told my mother she was ugly, even for a five year old."
Her father was a banker in the city and the neighbour had a wife and harem! That sounds like two different worlds, but was in Shanghai, a sophisticated, cosmopolitan city, a melting pot of Chinese and Western cultures in the 1930s! But not one with Western attitudes towards women.
The author writes a lot about her sexuality and mostly not in a very cheery way, interesting sea creatures and deep-sea vents (very interested in those and their fauna) and her Chinese mother and her background. None of it hangs together at all.
There was one stunning paragraph where the author knows she is being hypocritical, but is talking only of her own half-Chinese ethnicity and complaining of it.
I am complaining about the moment when the Asian woman's parentage is explained by one white person to another - Chinese mom and Jewish dad - like a caption, a specimen ID.So having to have the Chinese defined is upsetting, why can't she just exist? But the Jewish bit, well that's ok. It's the only mention of 'Jewish' in the book, so it's pretty obvious that she doesn't think there is anything wrong with defining the white partner as Jewish. Jews, in her head, don't have the same right to 'just exist'.
"Why can't she just exist without explanation?" I complain, and as I complain, I know that I am being a hypocrite; if her parentage wasn't given, I would wonder what her mix was, if it was like mine."
Actually that paragraph really struck a chord with me too. Why can't I just exist? People who don't know I'm Jewish which is almost everyone since I don't look like Hitler's or Chanel's idea of Jewish - dark, big nose, big eyes, dark hair - I am a green-eyed redhead with a quite unremarkable nose and a fair complexion - don't feel the need to define me. I'm just another ... white, which is the standard in the US. On the island I live on, I will be described as white because Black is the standard.
Jew stuff
The book was most interesting when it talked about the sea-creatures, and least interesting when it went on and on about her gay sex life. The Chinese bits were small but quite fascinating - a neighbour of her banker grandfather having (at least) six concubines. What year did they stop that in Shanghai and when did they stop referring to extra-marital girlfriends as 'concubines'? Would Hefner have been so successful in his modernisation of (male) sexual attitudes if he had used the word 'concubines' instead of 'girlfriends'? (Not really relevant since they were paid and therefore sex workers or whores as that was the word back then). Language and its changes can strongly influence mindset.
The saving grace of the book, was that the author knew her sea-creatures and writes well. Maybe she won't play the three-word game next book and stick to one subject, my preference would be a science book, I think it might be very good. 3.5 stars rounded down, just nowhere close to 4.
__________
Reading notes This book is after a few chapters, so far successful, very strange mix of science, being young and gay and full of angst, and the story of her mother in China. It's quite unclassifiable but interesting. There are quite mind-boggling sentences, "My grandmother grew up believing she was ugly because everyone told her so. A friend of her father's, their wealthy neighbour's sixth concubine always told my mother she was ugly, even for a five year old."
Her father was a banker in the city and the neighbour had a wife and harem! That sounds like two different worlds, but was in Shanghai, a sophisticated, cosmopolitan city, a melting pot of Chinese and Western cultures in the 1930s! But not one with Western attitudes towards women.
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