Joan Is Okay: A Novel by Weike Wang (2022)
Joan Is Okay: A Novel by Weike Wang (2022)
I read somewhere that empathy is repeating the last three words of a sentence and nodding your head (3).
THERE IS NO REAL fight against death because death will always win. But death can be handled well or poorly (55).
He said I drove a hard bargain, which was a compliment, but he could definitely get me more money. I want the number to shock you, he said. I want to hear a good curse word out of you. Like fuck. An interesting fact, most English swears rely heavily on continuant-stop sound patterns. The f sound in fuck, you can hold for a very long time, but the k sound you can’t, and this is what gives most swear words that punch. Phonaesthetics, you know what they are?
I didn’t.
It’s the sound-feel behind a word. How syllables are arranged to evoke an emotion or paint a picture. Hummingbird, for instance, has a great mouth quality to it, sounds like the bird itself flitting around and, for so many linguistic reasons, could never be a swear.
I said, Okay, sir. But honestly, I was lost (66).
To have a home is a luxury, but I now understand why people attach great value to it and are loyal to defend it. Home is where you fit in and take up space (132).
But Fang could draw a direct line from my having spent only two days in China not grieving to my situation now. I was alone, thus lonely. I had no partner or children to help me get through. Yet the thought of family scared me, which was why I avoided it. I had to check those feelings from now on, he said, and get over them. A family is safe harbor, so it was crucial to establish yourself within this harbor, and to establish that harbor within a place.
Did we wish to be seen as immigrants forever, he asked, or did we want to become settlers of a place? Settlers created settlements and the ten-mile-radius target in Greenwich was meant to be that.
My turn to say that it was late and to unlock the guesthouse door and go inside.
You’ve always been like this, he said, everything on your own terms, no regard for the big picture (159).
Our nomadic family of four had spent only six summers together before Fang was off to college. There could never have been a childhood home, but after I went to college, there was no physical home at all.
Could one of your worries be that your family may have failed? a counselor once asked me.
Failed at what?
At being together, at placing a higher value on success than on keeping your unit together.
An odd question, I thought then, but an insular and shortsighted one, I think now. Some bonds are so forged in fire, some experiences are so permeated with feeling, that it is impossible to not see them with love (187).
My epiphany. Mark was just like Reese-well-meaning in some ways, clueless in others. Neither could imagine having wasted another person’s time or consuming every square inch of air in a room. Because Room People were full of themselves. They believed their own perspectives reigned supreme. And whereas I was taught to not stick out or aggravate your surroundings, to not cause any trouble and to be a good guest, someone like Mark was brought up with different rules-yes, push back, provoke, assert yourself, some trouble is good, since the rest of us will always go easy on you and, if anything, reward you for just being you. Not all of this was on him though. I shouldn’t have opened my door to him and accepted his gifts. The spare key was a mistake, and my fault for not having spoken up sooner. That I’d believed everything he had to offer was valuable. My fault. A hundred percent accurate that I had no knowledge of the books he liked, baseball, television shows, charcuterie, and home decor. My uncouth assumption that when the French spoke about eating bread and pain, they were speaking to something that I knew very well. But not being steeped in the same culture as he was did not make me someone who needed his help, and that he’d acted like it was his job to improve me was both presumptuous and wrong. Why did he never consider the vice versa? For all his worldly and conscientious thoughts, wasn’t I at least a person of two languages and two cultures? And to get to where I was today, didn’t I know a few things he didn’t?
I chose to not text him back or do what I wanted to do, which was call and lay into him until he could finally see where I was coming from. Expending more energy on him wasn’t the answer. Why try to explain yourself to someone who had no capacity to listen (189)?
I read somewhere that empathy is repeating the last three words of a sentence and nodding your head (3).
THERE IS NO REAL fight against death because death will always win. But death can be handled well or poorly (55).
He said I drove a hard bargain, which was a compliment, but he could definitely get me more money. I want the number to shock you, he said. I want to hear a good curse word out of you. Like fuck. An interesting fact, most English swears rely heavily on continuant-stop sound patterns. The f sound in fuck, you can hold for a very long time, but the k sound you can’t, and this is what gives most swear words that punch. Phonaesthetics, you know what they are?
I didn’t.
It’s the sound-feel behind a word. How syllables are arranged to evoke an emotion or paint a picture. Hummingbird, for instance, has a great mouth quality to it, sounds like the bird itself flitting around and, for so many linguistic reasons, could never be a swear.
I said, Okay, sir. But honestly, I was lost (66).
To have a home is a luxury, but I now understand why people attach great value to it and are loyal to defend it. Home is where you fit in and take up space (132).
But Fang could draw a direct line from my having spent only two days in China not grieving to my situation now. I was alone, thus lonely. I had no partner or children to help me get through. Yet the thought of family scared me, which was why I avoided it. I had to check those feelings from now on, he said, and get over them. A family is safe harbor, so it was crucial to establish yourself within this harbor, and to establish that harbor within a place.
Did we wish to be seen as immigrants forever, he asked, or did we want to become settlers of a place? Settlers created settlements and the ten-mile-radius target in Greenwich was meant to be that.
My turn to say that it was late and to unlock the guesthouse door and go inside.
You’ve always been like this, he said, everything on your own terms, no regard for the big picture (159).
Our nomadic family of four had spent only six summers together before Fang was off to college. There could never have been a childhood home, but after I went to college, there was no physical home at all.
Could one of your worries be that your family may have failed? a counselor once asked me.
Failed at what?
At being together, at placing a higher value on success than on keeping your unit together.
An odd question, I thought then, but an insular and shortsighted one, I think now. Some bonds are so forged in fire, some experiences are so permeated with feeling, that it is impossible to not see them with love (187).
My epiphany. Mark was just like Reese-well-meaning in some ways, clueless in others. Neither could imagine having wasted another person’s time or consuming every square inch of air in a room. Because Room People were full of themselves. They believed their own perspectives reigned supreme. And whereas I was taught to not stick out or aggravate your surroundings, to not cause any trouble and to be a good guest, someone like Mark was brought up with different rules-yes, push back, provoke, assert yourself, some trouble is good, since the rest of us will always go easy on you and, if anything, reward you for just being you. Not all of this was on him though. I shouldn’t have opened my door to him and accepted his gifts. The spare key was a mistake, and my fault for not having spoken up sooner. That I’d believed everything he had to offer was valuable. My fault. A hundred percent accurate that I had no knowledge of the books he liked, baseball, television shows, charcuterie, and home decor. My uncouth assumption that when the French spoke about eating bread and pain, they were speaking to something that I knew very well. But not being steeped in the same culture as he was did not make me someone who needed his help, and that he’d acted like it was his job to improve me was both presumptuous and wrong. Why did he never consider the vice versa? For all his worldly and conscientious thoughts, wasn’t I at least a person of two languages and two cultures? And to get to where I was today, didn’t I know a few things he didn’t?
I chose to not text him back or do what I wanted to do, which was call and lay into him until he could finally see where I was coming from. Expending more energy on him wasn’t the answer. Why try to explain yourself to someone who had no capacity to listen (189)?