Barzak, Christopher: The Love We Share Without Knowing
The Love We Share Without Knowing (2008)
Written by: Christopher Barzak
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 285
After reading Barzak's One For Sorrow, I immediately pounced on the internet to see what else he was doing, and discovered that his second novel would be released late 2008. I was thrilled and stuck it on my Christmas list, and was even more thrilled when I got it. I really enjoyed Barzak's writing and couldn't wait to read more.
The premise: this series of interconnected stories follows both Americans and the Japanese as they struggle to make sense of themselves in the world. These stories revolve around love and death, around magic and miracles, and around loneliness and identity. The author's own experiences in Japan (which are obviously not discussed in the actual book), give each story a heavier weight in realism and meaning, and the title is as poignant a title that I've ever come across. Okay, so that's not much of a premise, but what else am I going to say it's like the television show Lost without the island, the plane crash, and all the crazy conspiracy/science fiction theories? It's a tale of individuals whose lives are connected in ways they don't know and don't always discover. That's what this book is about.
Spoilers ahead.
I've gotten really bad about NOT reading backcover/dust jacket blurbs for books, because they inevitably spoil SOMETHING, and even if that something is early in the book, I'd rather just not know. Really. It's like watching previews and movie trailers: you see too much and you start expecting certain images, certain scenes, and sometimes, the product doesn't deliver.
At any rate, that tiny rant is just there to tell you that I didn't realize this book was a series of interconnected stories, so I was really surprised when I moved from the first story into something completely new. "Oh, it's a book of short stories," I thought, and then as I read and recognized the connection in this story from the previous one, I went, "Oh, okay, I get it. Each story is going to relate to one previously told. Cool."
That's not to say I caught every connection, or that I didn't feel at times confused and left wanting. Wanting--that's a good description of how I felt when I finished this book. Some stories, and I hate calling them stories because that implies a rigid plot, so let me just say . . . vignette. That works for me, even though I don't think I'm using the word properly. Anyway, some vignettes had a satisfactory resolution, often on an emotional level. Even if that emotion wasn't happy, you got a sense of closure, of resolution, of a character moving on from what had been dogging him/her throughout the story. But other stories didn't give me that same sense. Hannah's in "What They Don't Tell You" left me wanting more than any of them. Yes, she achieved some resolution, but the story created an expectation that we would read Koichi's story next. We never got it, and that left me sad. Maybe Koichi was simply meant to be a trigger for Hannah's healing, but I felt like he was truly a chance for her to be happy, and I worried SO MUCH that she called him the wrong name while they made love, and that's why he left early and why he didn't show up at school the next day. We never get a resolution there, and that makes me sad.
I was also very, very perplexed by the apparent connection between Tadashi's love of foreigners and his ex-American boyfriend and Danny's story, whose boyfriend often refers to foreigners, Danny who also complains about the heat, who wants his boyfriend to come home with him to American, but whose name is Kenji. How do these stories sound SO RELATED but have no connecting facts aside from circumstance? It drove me batty. IT STILL DRIVES ME BATTY. I kept thinking I should recognize Kenji's name from another part of the book, but I was so fixated on Tadashi that I couldn't think of any other possible connection. MADDENING, I tell you. Completely and totally MADDENING. Dear Author, if you ever read this review, will you pretty please set me straight? Explain the connection or lack thereof? And if it's a lack thereof, why deliberately make the stories seem so similar? Or maybe I'm reading too much into it, but still...
Aside from those two feelings of irresolution, I found myself very pleased and happy with this novel. I've never been to Japan, but I've been around many Japanese and I've heard of the displacement that overcomes Americans when they visit there, and how the unfailing politeness of the Japanese merely disguises the fact that many are unhappy (who isn't, in any other place) and are struggling against social expectations. I'd never heard of group suicides though, but felt as familiar as it did new, which is cool. And I loved how each story somehow related to the ones that came before, because it gave me a little more to do than simply enjoy the prose, and that was to, of course, look for those connections. "In Between Dreams" and "Where I Come From" are two of my favorite pieces, but there is so much that's GOOD in these pages. The magic is more magical realism, and not always straight forward either. The truest form of magic, I believe, are the ghosts that haunt the pages and the characters in ways that aren't meant to oppress and to frighten, but to guide and uplift, more like spirits, I guess. I liked how the reader is never sure if something magical is truly happening or if it's only in the character's head, which makes Midori's story all the more powerful, especially since the reader had met her in the beginning and understood her to be something, well, different and special. To learn that she was't, well, was powerful.
I love the title. Love, love, LOVE the title. It really hits home reading these stories as well as the specific story that spawns it in "If You Can Read This You're Too Close." It's beautiful, and that's all there is to it.
My Rating
Must Have: I had far fewer issues with this book than I did Barzak's debut, One For Sorrow, and while the writing had little trouble charming me, I think what did it was something about the setting, all in Japan, and the culture that leaks through the pages allowed me to suspend disbelief more than I would have normally. The voice also sparkles with magical realism, as do some of the stories. It's just a beautiful book to read, and Barzak has earned a spot on my personal must-read list. Whatever he publishes, I'll be happy to get my hands on. His writing is quiet and beautiful, and this is a book that begs to be read more than once, over and over. Trust me, you'll want to. I wanted to as soon as I was done, and that's saying something.
Cover Commentary: There's not a lot to say about this one, although now that I've read the book, I can see a kind of symbolism in the design itself, in how the couple is ghosted over the cityscape, and that is, well, so perfect. Barzak is 2 for 2 when it comes to ghost stories, as far as his novels go, but this book doesn't strike you as a ghost story, not right away and once it occurs to you, it's so far from a traditional ghost story (even further from his tale in One For Sorrow) that it's still hard to recognize it as such.
Next up:
Kitty Raises Hell by Carrie Vaughn
AND
Drood by Dan Simmons