What We All Long For - FIRST IMPRESSIONS
I
finished Dionne Brand's What We All Long For because it is an AI book
club selection. I would not call it easy reading. It took a while to
hook my interest in these second-generation immigrant young people
trying to make lives for themselves in Toronto in 2002. Carla, the
daughter holding the baby witnessing her mother's suicide; Tuyen The
artist and Binh the MBA, the two BIC children raised by parents
haunted by a lost child; Jackie, the daughter of hippy parents
mourning the loss of dancehalls and the good old days; Oku, the poet
drop-out obsessing about the same girl since high school; and Quy,
the lost boy, remembering how he survived. I think my “suspension
of disbelief” is hindered by the unconvincing characterization. With the possible exception of philosophy majors, I don't think people think in such abstractions. Nor are most
20-somethings thatself-aware. I can accept that the omniscient narrator, the
poet/writer Bran, understands the emotional underpinnings of these
characters. But I have trouble believing the characters.
Is the
plot thick enough to support the growth, the transformation of each
character, as believable? They do grow, and that's a good thing.
I don't
have a problem with the coincidences or with the ending. One of the
themes is the role of chance in our lives. A novel is by definition a
contrivance. The structure of this novel is varied points of view
leading to a final crash which brings all the plot threads together,
like the movie.
The
reviews of this novel sound very snarky. Beautifully disappointing.
Political. Well-intentioned. Predictable sex scene. Soap-opera-ish.
Race-based alienation. These all sound reductive to me.
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