Determining destiny pondered on ice

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This article was published 02/04/2022 (1329 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Chinese-Canadian writer Xue Yiwei was born in 1964, just before the chaotic 10 years of the Cultural Revolution. The China he left in the 1990s was well on the road to capitalism, with those hoping for democracy silenced by the Tianamen Square massacre in 1989.

Not surprising, then, that the characters in his novels and stories are often loners trying to make sense of the world, sometimes through encounters with strangers or important works of literature. (Xue has a PhD in linguistics and an MA in English literature.)

In one of his recent novels, Dr. Bethune’s Children, a Chinese scholar visits Montreal to do research for a biography of Norman Bethune, who was an idol of his generation in China. He ends up writing a series of letters to Bethune, explaining that things didn’t quite go as planned. Meanwhile, one of his Montreal neighbours, whose parents were communists, still idolizes Bethune and everything Chinese.

Here we meet I, the central character, a Chinese immigrant to Montreal, shortly after the death of his wife. In a few stark paragraphs, we learn he has already sold his house and the convenience store that occupied all his waking hours. Now he and his daughter live in separate apartments and she doesn’t return his calls.

These essential facts are conveyed with little emotion. Who is this man, readers wonder. Why is he not grief-stricken? Doesn’t he know the folly of making such significant changes in the wake of a spouse’s death? Is he naive or what?

But before we have the answers to these questions, I’s life takes an unexpected turn. A young Korean woman asks him directions to Mount Royal’s belvedere. Together they climb the mountain and end up skating on a rink near Beaver Lake. This experience brings him such joy that he decides he will skate every morning.

So begins I’s transition to a life with more energy and a renewed interest in the world. He marvels at sunrises, the sound of a woodpecker, the pleasure of skating to music he loves. But it is his curiosity about two other solitary figures who also come to the rink daily that keeps him coming.

With Celia, he shares an interest in Shakespeare as well as skating. Together they explore the nature of love in Shakespeare’s sonnets. With the much younger Misoka, who sits by the rink in her wheelchair with a notebook and pen, he shares an interest in writing. We learn that in China he enjoyed being an investigative journalist until his career was stalled by censorship.

Soon he realizes both women have a connection to China that they are reluctant to reveal. But Celia and Misoka are minor characters here, basically triggers for I’s reflections on his past relationships and his mistake in proposing to his wife at the moment he had intended to end their relationship.

I’s reflections are more puzzling than convincing. Would a man still be trying to sort out the meaning of life and love at 48? Would he turn to Shakespeare’s sonnets for inspiration? Even more surprising is how I’s sad story eventually takes a sudden leap to a happy ending, all threads wrapped up.

Chinese-American writer Ha Jin has praised Xue as “a maverick in Chinese literature… For him to write is to make a pilgrimage to his masters: Joyce, Borges, Calvino, and Proust.” Indeed, Xue’s style and content are unorthodox in contemporary English literature, too (translated here by Stephen Nashef). Nevertheless, his new book is thought-provoking. Do random events or small trip-ups sometimes determine our destiny, or do they become minor glitches in the stream of our lives?

Faith Johnston wrote a biography of a Canadian woman who lived in Beijing from 1957 until her death in 1980.