The Ingenue

Narrator: Sarah is the Chinese American assistant film producer and unofficial ghost writer for Xander, a movie director.

Jason is a well-known actor.

I was also the person who knew the script backwards and forwards, when each character was needed in each scene, how each narrative twist led to the next one. So I sat there quietly, soaking in this vicarious praise.

“Amazing script, can’t wait to get started,” Jason shouted. He turned to me in a lowered voice. “Hey, can you get me a glass of sparkling water before we start?”

— Complicit, p. 214

Young Woman, Hungry, Working for Less Than She Deserves

Self is headed back to the Bay Area today. She spent four nights in Seattle, during two of which she slept. Last night she continued reading Wendy M. Li’s Complicit, which is told in a deceptively simple voice — its pleasures are cumulative.

It’s about a young (Chinese American) woman in an entry-level job in a film production company, who takes on more and more responsibility in order to prove how indispensable she is to the production company. Her boss is named Sylvia:

“Well,” Sylvia continued. “Stick around. I think you could really go far. And in a few years’ time, I could see you as head of development here.”

That simple statement, proferred out like a thin, dry Communion wafer, was enough to sustain me through the next few years of harried multitasking and inadequate income.

I didn’t think to ask for more. Nor did I ask for any kind of official credit for my work on Xander’s script. At the time, I just was grateful to be part of the team.

— Complicit, by Wendy M. Li

COMPLICIT, by Wendy M. Li

Finished Ben Macintyre’s The Spy and the Traitor in the wee hours (Took self 5 days!) and began the next book on her reading list: Wendy M. Li’s Complicit. Very much taken with this novel’s snappy beginning.

MC is teaching film class and the students don’t seem all that mature.

Sample dialogue, pp. 5 – 6:

“Who are some film characters that you really remember? Come on, name a few.”

“James Bond,” someone shouts out.

“Luke Skywalker,” another guy says.

“Thor.”

“Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver,” some kid says, and I know he thinks he’s showing off his film knowledge, because he just referenced a movie made before 1980.

“Hannibal Lecter.”

— Complicit, by Wendy M. Li

Act of Oblivion, p. 422

Have been hugely enjoying this book, which is about, variously: 1) a chase; 2) the fledgling colonies of North America; 3) how to survive winter in the wilderness; 4) loyalty

Self finds the villain almost as compelling as his quarry: the last two known living regicides, who are passed on from one religious community to another in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and are able to elude the King’s men for twenty years.

She is relieved when the chief pursuer, Nayler, receives an appointment as the secretary to the Lord Chancellor Edward Hyde and suspends the chase, because he deserves better. At some point, Hyde falls out with Charles II’s mistress, Lady Castlemaine, and the King offers him a choice: exile or imprisonment in the Tower.

As Hyde is carried out of the meeting (he was an invalid; also, extremely corpulent):

The King’s chief mistress had laughed and pointed: “He cannot rule. He cannot even walk!”

“O madam, is it you?” responded Hyde. “Pray remember that if you live, you will also grow old.”

— Act of Oblivion, p. 422

Self loves the scene immediately following:

A coach had been arranged to take Hyde along the Thames to Erith, where a ship was waiting. When Nayler came to see him off from Clarendon House, his master had looked so forlorn that on impulse at the last minute he had jumped into the seat opposite. Hyde had looked at him, nodded, and looked away, as if he had expected it.

“I am grateful, Mr. Nayler, but be warned — I cannot pay you.”

This is her third Robert Harris read, and by far her favorite.

Stay tuned.

Reading Robert Harris: Good Stuff!

Began Act of Oblivion a few days ago. It’s her third Robert Harris.

His books are fun, combining history and cat-and-mouse suspense.

At first she found the title a tad melodramatic, but on reading further, she finds it was the name of an actual edict passed by the British Parliament in 1660. She also didn’t know that England sent out ‘hit squads’ to hunt down and punish the 59 men who signed the execution order of Charles I. There is one man who has made it his personal mission to bring two men, in particular, to justice. He assembles his *team*.

• The usual four men attended: his secretary, Mr. Samuel Nokes, a diligent young lawyer trained at Lincoln’s Inn; Dr. John Wallis, the Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford University, the greatest cryptanalyst in England and a supporter of Parliament in the Civil War, who had broken the cipher of the King’s correspondence captured at Naseby and who now, after some persuasion, was making his skills available to the new regime; Colonel Henry Bishop, the Postmaster General, who assumed the committee had prompt access to every letter that passed through the London trading office; and Mr. William Prynne, the MP for Bath, the most fanatical of the anti-regicides in Parliament, who always wore a black leather cowl to conceal the fact that his ears had been cut off in the pillory twenty years before.

Interesting, right?

A Satisfying Conclusion

Really crushing the reading. Blazed through 600 pages of Lady Joker, volume two in two days. What can self say? Detective Yoichiro Goda and his lonely quest to catch the Lady Joker just got under her skin. Even though she was sick as a dog yesterday (Don’t worry, it’s not fun, but at least it’s not covid), she just had to see how it ended. Since he’s been such a lonely, reticent soul, and seemed to be sinking deeper into the well of despond with every encounter with his superiors, she feared he was about to go all Mishima. In fact, at one point, he does start putting his affairs in order, giving away things — like from his long-dead marriage — Oh no!

But, suffice it to say, self was thrilled, THRILLED by that epilogue. Five stars to Lady Joker, volume two!

Next: Ling Ma, BLISS MONTAGE: STORIES

The Detective Washes his Feet? Never Mind — This is a Crucial Moment

This scene takes place in the washroom of the police station in Setagaya. Yuichiro Goda has just been publicly humiliated by a superior, after the latest police attempt to apprehend the Lady Joker gang has turned out to be nothing but a wild goose chase.

Goda knew that from this day on there was nothing but the relentless search for evidence. There would be no time to sleep; no longer blessed with the stamina he’d had in his twenties, he found his joints were wincing in pain. Goda washed his face at the sink and, seeing his face reflected in the mirror, he immediately averted his eyes from the unwelcome sight. A voice inside of him whispered — You are an aberration, a perversion beyond a normal loss of self. In order to shush the voice away, he took off his socks and, raising one foot at a time to the sink, he washed them thoroughly. Outsid the small window facing Sangyo Road, he heard the scurrying footsteps of the media corps — Kota Sasaki must have been released — cascading over the burst of camera shutters, the lively scene seeming to belong to another world.

— Lady Joker, volume two, p. 236

Self tries to compare Lady Joker to those bleak Scandinavian novels she used to love, decades ago, the ones she read after Smilla’s Sense of Snow. There is the same sense of spiritual anomie, and in this story it does seem to rain quite a bit. Interesting, both Goda and the President of the Hinode Beer corporation are Christian. At least, they attend mass. But everything else about them is very Japanese.

Stay tuned.

Like the Shootout at the OK Corral

The cat-and-mouse between the President of the Hinode Beer Corporation and the dogged bodyguard Yuichiro Goda has been going on now for six weeks. In that time, Goda has worn out two pairs of shoes and ridden xx number of bullet trains in an effort to stay just three steps behind Shiroyama, at all times. Finally, the moment of truth is at hand. It’s been such an exciting game, but Goda’s boss wants results: Is the President of the Hinode Beer Corporation about to strike a deal with the extortionists (against the instructions of the police)? Goda is about to find out. He feels ambivalent about what he has to do, for in the weeks the men have spent together, a grudging respect has sprung up between them.

Shiroyama’s face still hadn’t moved a muscle, but an array of reactions glinted in his eyes. There was a vacancy, as if his thoughts were focused elsewhere. A matter-of-fact consideration, devoid of any deep emotion. Slight confusion at being confronted by this outsider showing his true colors. It was possible to glimpse a certain confidence in that look of confusion, and that confidence then turned to fury, dismay, superiority, and mercilessness, before shifting back to confidence, and Goda experienced each of these as if they were reflected in his own eyes. Shiroyama was not alone in being furious, dismayed, and merciless.

— Lady Joker, Volume Two, p. 177

The Clairvoyant Interloper

Following the sections from the Yuichiro Goda point of view are sections from the Kyosuke Shiroyama point of view, which is fortunate because the next most interesting character in Lady Joker (after Yuichiro Goda) is Shiroyama, the President of the Hinode Beer Company.

Shiroyama opened the door to show Kurata out of his office. In the anteroom, Goda stood in his usual spot, and bowed as he opened the door for Kurata. Once he was gone and Goda had closed the door, Shiroyama said, “I’m staying the night, so you should go on home. Tomorrow, please come here at the usual time.”

Shiroyama had attempted to maintain a normal tone and expression, but Goda’s eyes quickly took in Shiroyama’s entire mien and he blurted out, “You look white as a sheet.”

Over the last seventeen days, the straightforward quality of Goda’s gaze was unerringly the same. You spy, Shiroyama thought — and yet even now Shiroyama gave in and assented to this clairvoyant interloper.

— Lady Joker, Volume Two, p. 91

Yuichiro Goda, MPD, First Investigative Divsion

What a character! The whole Lady Joker crime caper can go to hell. There is only one person whose point of view self is interested in reading about, and it’s Goda, the detective chosen to be the body man to the president of the Hinode beer company.

She wishes the narrative had focused on just him, instead of splintering into so many viewpoints: the president, the reporter(s), the criminal(s) etc. Because if you read this (hefty) tome by skipping over the sections not his, then what you have is a very enthralling character study.

Goda lives alone (of course). He doesn’t own a car. He stops at a grocery on his way home (he sleeps?) and buys bananas and milk. His supervisor doesn’t trust him and sometimes drops by unexpectedly. This is how the supervisor knows that Goda’s brother-in-law (or, rather, his EX-brother-in-law, since Goda’s 18-year-marriage has failed) sometimes drops by Goda’s apartment to vacuum, do his laundry, and iron his shirts. Goda’s brother-in-law reminds him to take better care of himself, then serves him delicious meals (“silken tofu from Kyoto, vibrantly green blanched spinach, grilled eggplant garnished with ginger and the finest silver dried herring measuring almost six centimeters in length”)

The reason for his brother-in-law’s most recent visit is that Goda’s picture has appeared in a tabloid: “When I saw you in that tabloid photo, it felt like something was insane. Besides, even though you’ve got a suit on like the rest of them, your shoes look different from a true corporate man. Your demeanor’s not the same. It takes a stiff brush to get the grime off the seams of your shoes.”

Do you see what self means? Isn’t Yuichiro Goda a fascinating character? Self wishes there were more novels written from the point of view of “body men.”

In this novel, his is only one of twenty viewpoints (sigh) which means: this will be a fast read. But, let her assure you, since she has taken the trouble to read ahead (just by a few pages), let her assure you: the best is yet to come.

Stay tuned.