‘Ga je dood?’ is de reactie die Tan vaak krijgt wanneer ze mensen vertelt dat ze haar memoires aan het schrijven is. Voor Tan is het echter een manier om haar verleden beter te leren begrijpen. In haar boek reflecteert ze op haar jeugd, die ze na de scheiding van haar ouders grotendeels in eenzaamheid doorbracht. Eerst in het huis waar ze als gezin hadden gewoond, en waar haar ouders na hun scheiding om de beurt overnachtten - ze kwamen vaak pas aan als ze al naar bed was en waren weer weg als ze opstond - en vervolgens op de kostschool waar ze haar na twee jaar naartoe stuurden. Als gevolg hiervan is Tan introspectief, iemand die graag observeert, met een scherp oog voor de details die het leven kleur geven, of juist niet.
Tan richt zich vooral op de nauwkeurigheid van haar geheugen en besluit daarom de mensen over wie ze schrijft stukken van haar werk te laten lezen om te controleren of wat ze geschreven heeft klopt. Hierdoor komt ze opnieuw in contact met belangrijke mensen uit haar verleden, zoals oud-klasgenoten en haar ouders, die haar confronteren met de kwetsbaarheid van haar geheugen.
讀完最後一頁把書闔上,外頭壓著積重的雲層,沒想到眼眶先下起雨來,一邊慶幸已經從咖啡廳、健身房,轉移到無人的超商二樓用餐區的一角。 若要說高中前影響我最深的一本書,應該是André Aciman 的 Call Me By Your Name;每年夏天我讀了又讀,彷彿要把17歲的情懷跟從沒經歷過的北義風情移植到台灣,導致往後不論是寫散文、臉書記事、乃至學測英文作文都難脫繾綣之氣,那樣綿延的連綴像是要把當時跟現在的自己連接起來的一種嘗試。 而這次讀完李佳穎的《進烤箱的好日子》,於24歲的自己彷彿又有同等的重量與震撼。 從翻開有機化學考古題本到抬起頭已是落日餘暉的日子,已經是上週的事,一切都成定局但仍未為我所知的成績放榜是未來,懷著忐忑跟焦慮的等待是現在,但每個下一秒又像書頁翻成過去,有時竟也難以辨析它們之間的關係——它們彼此互為因果,目的地可以是因也可以是當初決定出發而終究抵達的果。 「對自己說我」似乎是紀錄的原初真相,也是一個很好的手段。當你對自己充滿困惑或對過往感到傷痛,可以做的第一步可能是了解自己從何而來,你便有了找出從何而去的立足點。
I thought this was a wonderful meditation on memory, family, divorce, writing, documentation, truth, estrangement, friendship, and coming of age. Throughout the novel, the main character Tan questions the roots of her memories, among other metatextual autobiographical conundrums, as she struggles to construct her own memoir. Potentially too aware of the pitfalls of the genre/process, she calls upon the people in her life to engage with her memoir, whether for factual verification or perhaps something else less tangible and more emotional/psychic/philosophical.
Lee Chia-Ying does a great job of balancing the fiction she’s actively writing with the memoir of Tan and her writing process. It’s not easy to pull off a book-in-progress from within a book, and I will say it has its moments of imbalance, but it works overall.
This story spoke to me more than I anticipated. I was caught off guard by how raw/realistic some of the dialogue and situations were, especially regarding the loss of childhood innocence both at home and at school. I hadn’t previously considered similar moments in my own life as “literature-worthy,” so I was struck by what it felt like to read something that could have been pulled from a page in my own diary but which was written by another hand, in another country, and in another language. Such personal identification in readers satisfies the validation that I assume both Tan and Lee Chia-Ying seek through their respective storytelling. My reading experience being in translation only amplifies this effect of recognition through distillation.
——
“The most terrible part of documentation is that the words turn around and devour the moments they are supposed to depict. They eclipse those pasts and, in the end, replace them completely.”
En bra dag att stoppa huvudet i ugnen — glädejeläsning!
Huvudpersonen Adan är författare med rådande skrivkramp. I romanskrivandet skalar hon bort orden tills poesin försvunnit och enbart redogörelsen finns kvar.
Skrivkramp blir till nyfikenhet inför memoaren — varför inte istället skriva det självbiografiska och sanna när fiktionen sätter käppar i hjulet? Boken behandlar just det, fiktionen väljs bort till fördel för memoaren men hur skriver man sant och utan fiktion när minnet sviker? Det som skiljer memoaren från fiktionen är förtroendet mellan läsaren och texten att inget är fabricerat, men i minnet finns luckor och hur fyller man dem utan att lura läsaren med osanning? Adans lösning blir att söka upp personerna som figurerar i texten, delar de samma bild av verkligheten de gemensamt levt?
Texten är en uppväxtskildring som går i dialog med sig själv, växelvis följer vi narrativet som broderar ut unga lågstadieår, föräldrarnas skilsmässa, upptäckten av litteratur och skrivandet till gymnasieåldern och bokbål. Små nedslag i uppväxten: avvisandet som förkroppsligas i internatskola, en första hemlig kärlek och en kroppslig upptäckt: mens sexualitet skärsår. Växelvis följer vi Adan som i vuxen ålder går in i minnena, vrider och vänder på berättelsen och texten, reflektionerna som uppstår i mötet med de gamla klasskamraterna som uppmanas läsa.
Boken är ett kärleksbrev till skrivandet men också en idé om hur livet ska hanteras och göras greppbart.
Lee Chia-ying skriver med humor så att man fnissar, och undersöker hur ett liv kan förstås. Vad betyder minnena för den lilla människan, hur formar de ett liv och vad blir kvar? Vilka minnen blir berättelsen och vilka berättelser är inte längre minnen utan just det?
Jag liksom, vad jag måste anta, fler läsare funderar över mitt eget liv, mina egna minnen. Vilka ger jag kraften att definiera vem jag är?
Thank you to the publisher for this ARC of ‘A Perfect Day to Put Your Head in the Oven’ I enjoyed this, it was very interesting and quite a unique story structure. Though sometimes lining up the authors personal memories with those around her got repetitive, I understand the point of it was to show that how we remember / perceive things are often not as they were intended. I think it was a bit hard for me to connect to this story, but I really enjoyed the story telling parts. The inner dialogue sometimes got a bit confusing.
NetGalley eARC — A completely witty meta-novel, one that is also incredibly philosophical and thought-provoking. The title comes from the known death of Sylvia Plath, and our protagonist, Tan, figuratively relates to this type of suffocation during her adolescence. Tan is a writer, but finds herself seeping personal details into her fictional novel. So instead, she decides to write a fully fledged memoir. But… how does one even write a memoir? Or more than that, what makes a memoir good and true and moral? In this story structure, Tan is writing her memoir in real time. The chapters bounce between her writing drafts, and then her examinations of her writing and thought processes. She continually asks herself how much of our memories are based on objective truth, or on interpretation and biased memories? How does one ethnically and literally write about others’ words and motivations? Tan writes about her childhood, her parents’ divorce, attending boarding school, and the friendships and relationships along the way. The incredible parts of the story are in her self reflections, and current conversations with childhood friends who might remember circumstances differently and challenge Tan’s way of thinking or redefining her memories. It is such a highly nuanced, brilliant book. In a way that isn’t necessarily breathtaking or exorbitant, but one that draws the reader in by treasuring small and seemingly mundane moments and a captivating story structure. I’m still slowly contemplating and digesting this book; still wowed by the journey it’s taken me on. I truly love the intention, the writing and translation was wonderfully done, and I loved a peek into the life of a preteen girl living in Taiwan.
This, is an absolute banger. Now I totally understand the hype. And I have to say, this is probably the best thing I’ve ever read in Chinese.
The idea is so unique: the process of a writer writing a memoir, interwoven with the memoir itself, surrounding the idea of writing as a way to remember, to record the moments. It deals with growing up, family, human relationships, and is just so beautifully written. The dialogues and the scenes are so lively, and I think the whole novel is just so sincere and believable. It feels like you’re sitting down with the protagonist, reading her drafts and listening to her talking. The thinking process of the protagonist is so interesting, and watching her debating with her self is such a joy. Also there are so many mysteries left. I want to know her whole life now.
By both show and tell, the author creates a world where fiction and documentary are shared in one place. This is such a beautiful work, filled with emotions, literary references, and most importantly, sincere human interactions.
This will be a modern classic of Taiwanese literature. Love it, love it, love it.
Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced digital arc.
Writing a fiction novel is hard. What better way to get around it than to write a memoir? At least, this is what Tan thinks when she begins to write the story of her life after a writing slump. But writing a memoir is more difficult than she realizes when she wants to not only stick to the truth as much as possible without letting memory cloud over things but also show those who appear in her memoir the work, to gauge their own memories and confirm they’re okay appearing in a possibly future published work. To finish the work, she’ll have to confront the horrors of growing up.
I wanted to love this book. The meta take on watching a character piece together on how to write her own memoir. The humorous unpacking of the way children see the world. True to its introspective nature, the pacing meanders and the timeline jumps here and there so much that it’s almost too difficult to keep track. It never seemed to really go anywhere, and as charming and funny and witty as people made it out to be, I couldn’t find the humor in it, but maybe this book just wasn’t for me.
*Received an Advanced Reader’s Copy from Riverhead via NetGalley for my honest review*
A Perfect Day to Put Your Head in the Oven by Lee Chia-Ying, translated by Lin King, is a story about a writer named Tan who is in the process of writing a fiction novel. However, Tan is having difficulties writing fiction because she cannot help inserting her real life experiences into her protagonist's fictional story. Therefore, she has decided to write a memoir instead. The novel follows Tan as she attempts to write her memoir, recounting her memories from when she was younger.
Lee's writing is very compelling. The novel is not written in a linear structure, and instead is written in a stream of consciousness narrative style. This style works in this novel wonderfully because we are transported in the character Tan's mind as she navigates through her memories. The novel talks a lot about memories being altered and how memoir writing can veer towards fiction. The difficulties of writing fiction and a memoir is a main point in the novel.
Overall, reading A Perfect Day to Put Your Head in the Oven is a delight. Lee has written a novel that is fascinating and enjoyable.