Memory as Narrative

Interesting how Forget Sorrow skips around in time to tell the history of the Yang family. The story is delicately predicated on the idea that Rotten Egg (Belle’s stalker) will come after her if she leaves the house, so she must occupy herself living at her parents’ house. Thus she begins cataloguing the stories of her father’s life and his forebears in comic form. Quite an undertaking, with such a dire predicament.

I found it puzzling how the narrative jumps from subject to subject. Just when I think I’m starting to get to know a character and understand their motivations, the narrative switches to another member of the family, often leaving behind threads that are unresolved. One place this was particularly hard to follow was the discussion of Belle’s father’s uncles. Third uncle is devising a plan to hoard all the family resources in the country to himself, working on convincing the Grandfather of the superiority of his plan, and (eldest) First uncle tries to talk Grandfather out of this, noting that the family who has been stewarding the rural industry has been successful at it for a generation, and they always have enough to eat. Further he casts aspersions into Third uncle’s character and intentions, thereby confusing Grandfather and convincing him it’s best to wait to decide what to do. Before we find out what becomes of this situation, the narrative switches to Fourth uncle and later to Second uncle. It’s hard to follow individual threads with this much jumping around. However, I find that the disjointed storyline perfectly mimics the pathway of memory. Belle’s father is attributing significance to individual moments in his memory, and through time his perceptions of these events has unraveled to crystallize only certain points of reference. He can recall certain aspects of these moments but not necessarily the bookend events that led to them or happened afterwards. Consequently a lot of significance is placed on the memories he does share, whether they ultimately had a large role in the unfolding of other events or not. Much of the tragic story of the family's loss of land and animals cannot be attributed to Third uncle's mishaps, but the progression of the Communist uprising. No matter who was tending the land, the resources would have been appropriated by the revolutionaries.

Naturally, if I am patient, a thread will unwind and be picked back up in the larger narrative. A long sweeping saga is dealt in short breaths, and the inhalation parts are when we are back with Belle and her father, poring over some small aspect of the larger legend of the family history. The family fight isn’t about who looks after the farmland, it’s about the wills of the brothers who are battling out their egos. Third uncle is pugnacious and overbearing, while the eldest uncle (Belle’s grandfather) lets his anger get out of control and strikes out against Grandfather, ultimately needing to apologize to move forward. It is always disrespectful to disagree with an elder, so no matter what he felt, he should have gone along with Grandfather’s vision. The end result is that the family relations are strained. Sadly this disruption is never fully mediated, leaving Grandfather estranged from the rest of the uncles, ultimately leading to him being cast out of their homes when he is in need of shelter and care. How sad that his selfish life led him to be wandering alone looking for a sympathetic family member to care for him in his final days. It didn't surprised me that eldest son was the one to take him in, and allow him a dignified ending.

Baba (Belle’s father) had such incredible hardship making his way once Xinmin was too besieged to stay in. It’s a wonder he survived at all—sleeping tied to bamboo in the river so that he wouldn’t drown. Being homeless in several different situations, but still managing to find work and make his way to America. It's sad that he had to leave the family behind to survive and ultimately lead a new life. Belle would not be able to tell this story without Baba's survival, so it is as it had to be. I was also happy to know that Rotten Egg moves on and Belle is released from his stalking. So that she can finally be free.