Book Review: Little Gods by Meng Jin

 

For a time I don´t remember starting, I am very interested in Chinese narratives and identity writing, before and after the Cultural Revolution, but particularly after Tienanmen revolt. Thanks to the works in translation and to the many strong voices of the contemporary Chinese literature, particularly the immigrant writers, Chinese-American especially, there is an impressive pool of creativity which challenges the identity narrative in Asia and abroad.

I had Little Gods by Meng Jin on my TBR for a couple of months already but I was lacking the proper mood and emotional availability to listen. It is true that lately I am very much busy with immigration/language/cultural dislocation stories and at the end of each and every one of them I felt terribly drained because this is how it feel when a plant is having delicate roots spread all over the Earth.

The fact that I listened to the book in audio format, read by three different voices made the experience very interesting because otherwise I suspect that just reading the words on the paper would may not have been such a clear experience of the multitude of voices raised in this book. The voices of the Little Gods are the main characters in the story, people belonging to the family of the successful Chinese physicist Su Lan who migrated to the US shortly after Tienanmen events. 17 years after her death, her daughter is moving to China to discover her mother, to reconnect to a line her mother had cut willingly. 

The past is not for living it and it is actually a plural word, as people part of our past may have a different version of it, maybe more than one version in fact. We can live in the present without acknowledging too much of it, but often we refuse to see our future without a clear vision of a past. One of the many possible visions. Thus, without always acknowledging it, we allow the past, including other people past, to bring more trauma and secrets of dislocation, a challenge for a DNA already under the generational pressure. 

The intertwined stories are poetic and individual and can be read as individual testimonies as well. Su Lan´s daughter is one of the voices and she is about to build up a different past from the one she was told she had by her mother. It started from her place of birth and to her own identity history that started in China. The meticulous personal research is requested with the emergency of a psychological introspection meeting hypnosis. There is something back, in that past, that do not let her live her future and the search for her father is part of it.

Little Gods is very powerful for its actuality but also for the strength of the wording. The Shanghai-born author is creating an authentic story also through the linguistic game of words, explained in their different contexts and use. In the game of memory, language is one of the most important tool of creating and rebuilding - but also of destroying - an identity. Through the choice of words and its subsequent explanation, the daughter is setting the tone of the story, reveals as the one for whom but also by whom this story was written.

This debut novel is inspiring for all those looking for finding their own voice to tell their identity saga. It adds literary diversity and content to all those stories published lately about roots or rather the lack thereof.

Rating: 4.5 stars