It is 1938. Taiwan has been annexed by Japan as part of their colonialist policies. A young, successful novelist named Aoyama Chizuko is brought to Taiwan to write about the island. She rejects the request to support the political aim, but decides to live with “islanders” to learn more about the place. She is assigned a young woman to be her interpreter and guide, a woman whose Japanese name shares a syllable with her own – Ō Chizuru.
This novel, which begins in a period-appropriate disguise of a rediscovered volume of a lost novel by the famous writer Aoyama Chizuko is so layered, so nuanced and yet so bluntly real, that it is quite possibly the very best book I have ever read.
I am fond of the “third-party, sending the second party a copy of a first-hand document” conceit that we see throughout turn-of-the-20th century British and American literature. It adds a sense of wonder as we read what is meant to be understood as the “real” narrative of an extraordinary occurrence.
In Taiwan Travelogue: A Novel, by Yáng Shuāngzǐ, this sense is added to the many layers of language, social and political framing to create what the author refers to, in her final note as ” a piece of amber, one that coagulates both the ‘real’ past and the ‘made-up’ ideals.”
The layers in this novel include the sociopolitical landscape of Taiwan in 1938, but is most deeply reflected in the languages that make up this novel. Meant to be understood as a English translation of a Chinese translation of a Japanese work about Taiwan, the complexities of Taiwanese Mandarin and Hokkien, subsumed by Japanese – and what those all represent to the characters – takes up a lot of real estate in the novel proper. The “translation notes” by Yáng who presents herself as the Chinese translator of this Japanese-language novel, a novel she in reality wrote originally in Chinese, and which has been masterfully translated into English by Lin King, whose translator notes sit astride the back of Yáng’s “notes,” but are the actual translator’s notes, adds a mind-blowing other layer into the fictional “history” of this novel.
Above all this, is a deep love of food. Food is even more the vehicle by which Aoyama and Chizuru travel the island than the actual transportation they ride. Food, hotels, houses, schools, all evoke a specific place and time and mood here. Seasonal food is a sign of the passing of time as it has been for centuries before refrigeration and overseas shipping changed how we eat.
Yáng herself is a popular contemporary Bǎihé author, and this is a story about the intense emotional relationship between two women. Is it a love story? I think that question could be asked and answered in several different ways. No..and yes…and no again. There is genuine affection, and a seething cauldron of other emotions to draw from. I’m being very circumspect here so as to not spoil anything because if you cannot yourself understand the emotions here, they will, eventually be explained.The setting also allows for a secondary, more typical girls’ school “S” type story as a subplot that ties into the larger plot in potentially surprising ways. Again, layers within layers.
There are strong echoes of Yoshiya Nobuko in Aoyama Chizuru. And although Aoyama, unlike Yoshiya, rejects becoming part of Japan’s imperial propaganda machine, Yáng is careful to note in her Introduction that we need to be mindful at all times that Aoyama is a representative of a colonizing force. Indeed, it was nearly impossible for this reader to not be mindful of this – certainly every Taiwanese reader would have been. This simple fact – and the awareness of this – is the black hole at the center of the story, putting out so much unseen energy, and sucking in all things into it’s gravitational pull.
With all these layers, if you take to heart Yáng’s caution in the Introduction, the rest of the book is not a puzzle to be solved, however. It is simply a beautifully written love story to food, a sad tale of two women, and a coldly furious polemic against colonization. In the end, this is truly one of the finest works I have ever read in my entire bibliomaniac life. I sincerely hope that every reader of Okazu gives this book a try.
Ratings:
Overall 10/10
It is an outstanding bit of writing by Yáng Shuāngzǐ and an extraordinary work of translation by Lin King. Absolutely deserving of the 2024 National Book Award for Translated Work.
Taiwan Travelogue is available now from Graywolf Press.
