Certainty

I loved the writing in this book. It conveyed such vivid images, but was never heavy-handed. Excellent!

As the story opens, Gail Lim has recently died unexpectedly and the book explores how her family deals with their loss. The story also follows Gail's search for her family's history, and to learn the secret she is sure they are keeping. We learn the story of Gail's father (Matthew) during the Japanese occupation of Borneo. This is a story of secrets kept and discovered and mostly, about the power of families to help us through life's storms.

On the back of this book is a quote from Alice Munro about Madeleine Thien's book of short stories. "A splendid writer. I am astonished by the clarity and ease of the writing, and a kind of emotional purity." High praise from the Nobel Prize winning author of many wonderful short stories. And yet, until this past year when I read Thien's book "Do Not Say We Have Nothing" I had not heard of this Canadian writer. My loss and one I intend to repair in the future.

This book was on the CBC's 100 Novels that Make you Proud to Be Canadian list and I was lucky enough to find a copy at a library book sale. I'm sure it was discarded because the first page is loose and not because it was not popular. There are still 5 copies in the WPL system.

show more Somewhat like Thien's latest book this is the story of a family who immigrated to Canada from Asia. Matthew Lim grew up in North Borneo where his father (originally from China) was the owner of a rubber plantation before WWII. When the Japanese invaded many families fled into the forest but Matthew's family stayed on the plantation and collaborated with the Japanese. Matthew's friend, Ani, was not so fortunate; her parents died during the Japanese occupation and Ani fended for herself. At the end of the war Matthew's father was killed by the Japanese just as the Australians were landing. Matthew and his mother left to stay with relatives in another part of the Indonesian archipelago. Ani found some relatives to live with and stayed. When Matthew was 18 he returned and found Ani. He had been accepted at Melbourne University but he was prepared to stay with Ani. She, pregnant with his child, left Borneo and went to Jakarta so that he would continue his education. In Melbourne Matthew met Clara, a Chinese student from Hong Kong, and they married. They emigrated to Vancouver and raised their daughter Gail. Matthew had heard that Ani had a son but he did not know he was the father. He was torn between the life he had made with Clara and the life he could have had with Ani. Many years later Gail, a radio producer, learned the truth about Ani and her step-brother. Gail died suddenly in Prince George while on an assignment leaving her lover, Ansel, and her parents grieving her loss. At the end of the book Matthew thinks the following:
So many things...that we carry all our lives, in the hope that what we know will finally redeem us, that we will find something that abides, even now, in the indefinite, the uncertain, hereafter. The book seems to ask "Is there certainty in life?"

Perhaps these lines from Siegfried Sassoon's poem Memory that are quoted in the book answer that question:
O starshine on the fields of long-ago.
Bring me the darkness and the nightingale;
Dim wealds of vanished summer, peace of home,
And silence, and the faces of my friends. show less

CERTAINTY is a tale of grief, grieving, missed connections and searches for meaning. How the Pacific War played out in North Borneo is played against how a contemporary Vancouver family continues to exist after the death of a daughter and lover. Gail dies suddenly in her late thirties, leaving Ansel, her decade-long partner, and her parents, Clara and Matthew. Each of these characters, including Gail, are given voice in this novel, each telling parts of a story that adds to the whole, though the telling sometimes feels disconnecting. Matthew’s story of young love between himself and Ani as children brings us back to wartime, with each child having witnessed the murder of their father. They manage each to survive the war, but Matthew show more is broken by it, and by their eventual separation. Into the present, a secret continues to separate this essential yet elusive love of Matthew’s, and he is tortured by the past. Almost all the men are depicted as seemingly always missing the mark, either obsessed by the past or just missing what’s happening in the present. There are several major thematic elements that are put to good use in the writing: Gail’s job in producing radio programming and her attention to audio; science/physics/mathematics as a way to understand the world, emotions, the unspeakable and the unsaid; war and a past of violent tragedy and loss; and a secret code book that might give answers to a daughter’s understanding of the mystery of her father. Thien weaves these thematic elements together with the alternating voices of the characters in past and present scenes, a mix that uses spare language and fragmented imagery to add up to an impressionistic, associative whole. The book feels sometimes as if it’s all over the map, yet the sensitivity of the characters and the impassioned and intense emotion expressed through the clean writing reveal a journey of learning what cannot be fixed, how choices are made, what one’s past really means, the meaning of time and how one lives with grief and loss. Stunning, elegiac writing, and ultimately a moving story about change that delivers an odd kind of hope. show less

After all the discussion about this book on the CBC Goodreads page, as well as other sites I finally got a chance to read it! The novel is beautifully written, tells a compelling story about the war in North Borneo, as well as side side stories about immigration, radio documentaries, and a few love stories. My issue was that I felt very removed from all of the characters because the narrative voice kept changing voices. Despite the love stories I was somewhat unmoved, and that bothered me. I found the story of the conditions under Japanese control compelling, but the details did not feel complete. A story of a coded diary, another of another character of Dutch descent all made things more scattered and took away from the main story.

Heard about from Avis at She Reads and Reads 10/16/2008