Love and Vertigo

by Hsu-Ming Teo

For the first time in my life, I saw my mother in relation to her family, and I didn't recognise her any more . . . These Singaporean roots of hers, this side of her—and possibly of me too—were unacceptable. I was determined not to belong, not to fit in, because I was Australian, and Mum ought to be Australian too. The tug of her roots, the blurring of her role from wife and mother to sister and aunt, angered me.

On the eve of her mother's wake, Grace Tay flies to Singapore to join her father and brother and her mother's family. Here she explores her family history, looking for the answers to her mother's death. This beautiful and moving novel steps between Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia, evoking the life, traditions, and tastes of a forceful Chinese family as well as the hardship, cruelty, and pain. Written in a fresh, contemporary voice tinged with biting humor, this is a story about resilience and a story about migration, but in many ways it is a story about parents' expectations for their children.

Genres: Fiction, Australia

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Malaysian-born Australian novelist.

Hsu-Ming Teo moved to Castle Hill, Sydney at the age of seven. Upon leaving school she began studying Medicine but changed to Arts in her second year of university. She has tutored at both Macquarie University and the University of Sydney, where she was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1998 on the subject of British women's travel writing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Reviews

[Mique Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was under the impression that this was going to be a romance book. Boy, was I wrong. This is honestly more similar to Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door in how we bear witness to a lifetime of pain and suffering of someone from the point of view of an outside observer. In this case, it’s a mother and a daughter. The story is narrated mostly in the third person, but the cumulative effect comes from Grace’s (the daughter) interpretation of events pieced together from stories she had acquired after her mother’s suicide. Through these glimpses of her life, we see a vast tapestry of trauma passed down from generation to generation; multi-cultural conflict, marital incompatibility, familial tension, pride, guilt, romantic (and sexual) frustration and the feeling of displacement (physical and emotional; within the broader context of where you live, and in a house with the people you grow up with). In addition to the fact that misery loves company, (and that I generally tend to be partial to stories that are bleak and drenched in depression and exasperation at the exhaustion of living), I found myself relating to much of what Grace went through, and the conclusions she arrived at by the end.

[Ape · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn't a happy tale, neither in the individual lives of the characters (and I can't help but think that so much of that misery was so unncessary) and also the accepted treatment of women. Both by society, and encouraged by the women themselves. It was like a vicious circle. And all boiling down to that girls aren't loved, and girls aren't worthy of chosing their life, doing anything for themselves. They are to be wives and mothers. It's a cycle. See Pandora's mother, who didn't want to be married, scurrying about the bedroom like a wild animal as she doesn't want her husband near her. She doesn't want to be pregnant, doesn't want the babies, and when Pandora is born, she wants nothing to do with the little baby girl. For the first few years Pandora is brought up by her Aunt, before being sent back to her mother's house where she runs about doing chores, desperate to get love that she never recieves. Then she grows up, marries a man who adores her, doesn't know her as a person and wants her to idolise him and do everything for him. She marries whilst still in uni, has to drop out as she falls pregnant and that's the end of her. She's a frustrated housewife, trapped in a loveless (from her side) marriage, suffering from severe depression, a worsening eye condition that leaves her virtually blind at the end. But every woman is brought up being told they're worthless, every woman torments her daughter in law, every women neglects to love her daughter - the same thing happens again with Pandora's daughter, Grace. I just found this attitude and treatment of little girls utterly depressing. Even though I already knew they were undervalued. This book starts off pre second world war, so Pandora's mother even suffered foot binding. Just... ugh.

It is interesting though, in working through these family sagas and seeing the cultures and history. It starts off in Singapore, and works through the second world war and the Japanese occupation. Pandora marries Jonah Tay, Chinese-Malaysian, and ends up going back to Malaysia with him, before in the end, with young children they emmigrate to Australia. So there's also a bit about immigrants trying to fit into their new country, the children being more Australian than the parents would want, but then when the parents go back to the homeland, finding everything's moved on without them and they don't really belong there either. These are the curses of living abroad. You'll belong nowhere. And of course, there is the biggie - the death of the parent. Grace's mother, ie Pandora commits suicide on a visit back to Singapore, and it's at the funeral that the book starts, and this look back over her life that takes us through the family history. And do we ever really know or understand our parents?

[Mircalla · Rating 4 out of 5]

è una storia di donne, soprattutto

"L'amore è la risposta, ma è la mia domanda a essere sbagliata. Se mi amavi davvero, perchè non mi sono mai sentita amata?"

donne cinesi, trapiantate in Malesia e poi ancora in Australia, per sfuggire a un destino, a una suocera invadente, a un dolore antico...
Pandora è una donna rifiutata, maledetta alla nascita e morta suicida, le donne della sua famiglia sono inutili, lei più di tutte, suo marito la ama di un amore debole e egoista, un amore condizionato alla sua obbedienza di donna inutile...emigrare può essere un modo di staccarsi dal passato, ma spesso questo torna sotto forma di spirito affamato e finisce per fagocitare il presente e distruggere la possibilità di un futuro...


"Ci sono ancora domande senza risposta; non sarà mai possibile riconciliarsi con chi abbiamo perduto. Ma forse è questo tutto ciò che posso fare, forse è questo tutto ciò che potremo mai fare: assolvere con i vivi i debiti che abbiamo con i morti"

[Suzy Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love & Vertigo - Hsu-Mings first novel surely did not disappoint.

After reading Behind the Moon first and falling hook, line and sinker for Hsu-Mings writing, I went out and found myself Love & Vertigo.

Brilliance, sheer brilliance. What a fantastic read.

The Lim's and Tay's - so fractured in their endeavours to adhere to centuries old tradition.

Set in my beloved Singapore and Malaysia, followed by Sydney it was a revelation- particularly 1950's+ Singapore & Malaysia.

A book of broken people barely holding on, the damage done to them for honour, for cultural traditions - its heartbreaking and so very real.

Love & Vertigo will hold a piece of my heart, for many and varied reasons. I thoroughly enjoyed every page.

[Charlie Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yea pretty moving stuff. Always a fiend for the exploration of hopelessness and ugly love, this one hit like it was meant to. Theming was great, chronologically interesting, and morphing intertwined complex characterisations of different environments, defined by the people in them. The characters have a gravity; the power of the relationships presented is so compelling, the gravity of how detrimentally some of these relationships are presented feels pretty powerful. Shifting understandings of all four main characters, intergenerational storytelling, strong cultural and religious motifs, and various coming of age stories which seem to converge into the story of Grace.

Easily the most compelling book I’ve ever read.

[Susan Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story following the lives of three generations of Chinese women, set in Singapore and Sydney, but find it unsettling how cruel parents in some cultures can be.

“As a family, we were doomed to the humiliation of begging pathetically for love and attention from the one member who refused it to us. Mum wanted Sonny’s, Sonny wanted the patriarch’s, the patriarch wanted his wife’s, and I wanted my mother’s. All my life we rode that merry-go-round, chasing love in front of us and never catching up, never looking behind to see who might be offering it until it was too late.”

[Riss · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an enriching and entertaining read. I learned so much about Australian-Singaporean culture. Hsu-Ming Teo paints wonderfully grotesque characters, with the more flawed ones stirring the most sympathy.

It's a sweeping saga and a good story, with one engrossing vignette after another. Hsu-Ming Teo provides a birds eye view, while also keeping you connected to the gritty, sensory details.

A visceral and educational read that should be on year 12 compulsory reading list.

[Happy · Rating 4 out of 5]

How shocking the family were to each other, the way they talked and treated each other but so true from what I can gather in the culture environment. This way of illustrating love and contempt within the extended family made me feel uncomfortable while reading so overall was a good read, more than good because I still shudder when I recall how they treated each other. Love, how complex.

[feux d'artifice · Rating 4 out of 5]

what a brutal read.

things I liked:
Teo gets the setting really well, I particularly liked the infamous race riot depiction in Malaysian, it felt really real.

yeah and that's it. reading this was DEPRESSING. there was no kindness spared.

but it's a really good book? it reads like a series of interwoven short stories, and well crafted.

cant imagine myself rereading this any time soon though

[Sandy Grant]

Read this Vogel Prize winner because I have got know the author.

A wonderful but often sad insight into the experience of Malaysian Chinese migrant life in the last half of the twentieth century including Singapore and eventually to Australia. Humour in the observations amidst the sadness and angst and frustrated love.

[Tansy · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I wasn’t so stubborn I would have given up on this books.

I can see what it’s trying to do but really you end up with a series of too short snapshots thrown together in a way that just doesn’t work.

[Lisa]

I don't rate books I don't finish.

[Angelica Payne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this book up at a book fair several years ago before I got round to reading it.
Thought it was surprisingly good! An insight into the past life of Australian immigrant families.

[Stacy Pete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well written but dark and depressing as all hell.

[Fadhilatul · Rating 3 out of 5]

""In Pandora's neediness, love, like vertigo, pulled at her and she was at once terrified and tempted by the void below." (pp. 99)"
Pandora Lim terlahir sebagai anak yang tidak diinginkan oleh Mei Ling, sang ibu. Mei Ling sangat kecewa ketika ia kembali melahirkan anak perempuan untuk kesekian kali. Pandora pun dihibahkan kepada adik perempuan Mei Ling. Gadis cilik itu hidup bahagia dan mamur hingga ibu angkatnya melahirkan seorang anak perempuan. Ketika itu terjadi Pandora harus kembali ke rumah asalnya, kepada ibu aslinya. Sejak saat itu Pandora mengerti bahwa tidak ada yang menginginkan dirinya, tidak siapapun.

Akhirnya ia tumbuh besar dengan rasa kecewa yang memenuhi benaknya. Sebagian besar memori yang ia punya hanyalah hukuman-hukuman dan kerja keras yang harus ia lakukan demi mendapatkan perhatian semua orang yang ada di rumah, terutama ayah dan ibunya. Ia berpikir ia akan berubah nasib dan menjadi lebih bahagia ketika berkeluarga. Ternyata salah. Ia memiliki ibu mertua yang selalu berlaku sinis dan kejam terhadapnya, mengingat suaminya adalah anak pertama. Seolah-olah ada kompetisi tak terlihat antara ibu mertua dan dirinya.

Rasa kecewa dalam diri Pandora berkembang semakin besar hingga ia tidak mengenal siapa dirinya sendiri. Ia sudah tidak tahu mana sebenarnya cinta dan seperti apa cinta. Baginya cinta dan vertigo tidak lagi ada bedanya.

***
Membaca novel ini saya seperti membaca buku novel romantis yang berbumbu sejarah. Karena Teo tidak hanya bercerita mengenai pelik kehidupan cinta Pandora, namun juga situasi politik, sosial, ekonomi dan budaya yang terjadi kala itu. Yang menjadi setting novel ini adalah Singapura dan Malaysia pada tahun 1940 - 1969 dan 1990an, kemudian Australia pada tahun 1969an - 1990an. Penggambaran budaya Cina cukup jelas disini, karena novel ini memang tentang perempuan Cina dan pengarangnya pun berasal dari kultur yang sama.

Lain itu, topik asimilasi dan imitasi dan khususnya tentang gender memang terasa sangat kental. Sesekali pembaca juga disuguhkan tentang sejarah yang berkait dengan SARA, yang tentunya berasal dari sudut pandang si penulis. Jadi, bisa jadi akan ada pendapat-pendapat yang mungkin negatif dari para pembaca dari golongan agama tertentu.

Lewat novel ini kita dapat mengetahui bahwa kaum Cina zaman dulu menganggap anak perempuan sangatlah tidak berguna dan tidak mampu berbuat apapun. Maka mereka lebih menyenangi anak laki-laki sebagai penerus keluarga. Saya rasa pendapat ini tidak hanya pemikiran kuno yang dimiliki oleh bangsa Cina kuno saja, namun juga bangsa lainnya di zaman dahulu kala.

Lewat novel ini juga kita mengetahui soal mengenai asimilasi khususnya yang terjadi pada para imigran. Seperti yang terjadi pada Grace dan Sonny, dua anak Pandora, yang merasa tidak diterima ketika mereka tinggal di Australia dan merasa bukan menjadi bagian dari bangsa Cina khususnya ketika mereka berada di Singapura. Sehingga mereka malah berada pada posisi tengah-tengah, bukan bagian dari barat ataupun dari timur. Menyadari hal ini, mereka malah ingin sepenuhnya menjadi seorang barat dan lebih ekstrim lagi membenci dilahirkan sebagai Cina.

Akhir kata, novel ini merupakan salah satu karya yang sangat menarik. Tidak heran jika diganjar dengan penghargaan Australian / Vogel Literary Award 1999.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's how dumb I am.

I read this book and I thought it was an OK collection of anecdotes about someone living in Malaysia and their experiences.

It was only after I finished it and read the back cover I realized it was an odyssey about a woman searching for meaning through the harrowing life of her mother.

Not paying attention? Perhaps. I liked Behind The Moon a LOT more.

[Smita · Rating 5 out of 5]

My ex-uni professor lent me this book as the author was a student of hers and I absolutely love it. Being Singaporean, I find it hard to find books that speak to me with such a localized universality. I love her plot, her candid, unpretentious style and her engaging characters so much that I have re-visited this book many times. In my top 5 for sure.

[Carla Sorter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just depressing :(

[Black Swan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lycia 7.35