Essays in Love

Alain de Botton, Essays in Love

Alain de Botton is a Swiss English writer whose philosophical thinking has been appearing in several different genres, ranges from Essays to fiction and non-fiction; his work also appear regularly in several English newspaper columns like The Independent on Sunday. In Essays in Love, his first fictional work that published in 1993, de Botton tries to analyze people’s behaviors in a love relationship. The word Love then is restricted to a narrower sense, indicates solely the ones that belong to couples. In his attempt to demystify “Love” and those who are in love, de Botton uses the relationship between a man and a woman as the target sample, from which much of his philosophical thinking derives.

While the book discusses the relationship between two individuals, the author only allows readers perspective of the protagonist, who, despite his occasional attempts in speaking from the other’s point of view, inevitably falls into prejudiced and sometimes stereotypical assumptions. Readers are likely to find fault in the book’s lack of another perspective and second account. Moreover, as de Botton endeavors to reveal his philosophical insights in each single step the couple takes, he unexpectedly turns his protagonist into a paranoid skeptic who tends to overanalyze everything. His sentimentality, while pushes the theories further, only becomes tedious and annoying in the end.

The format that de Botton chooses to take in constructing the book may be the one reason that distinguishes Essays in Love from all the other works that share the same idea, yet at the same time it is also this very same frame that at moments dissuades readers from pursuing the plot line. The articles, with its witty phrases or theories as titles, bring about ideas in a proper sequence with much clarity, but as the readers are introduced to one title after another, we could not help but gradually find the body of work preachy and self-proclaiming.

De Botton may be a well-informed writer as he incorporates ideas from many great thinkers throughout the work and, at the same time, manages to present sensible ideas in most of the essays; however, his efforts fail to meet the readers’ expectations from a title that promises so much. As readers, we expect the author to put down some philosophical truth that can be universally acknowledged, solutions that clear our shared doubts, but unfortunately, de Botton manages only to disappoint the reader by restricting everything under a one-sided, biased tale with an irritating protagonist who cannot arouse in readers compassion nor interests. Eventually, Essays in Love fails to educate the readers, who have been expecting ever so eagerly, and hoping still, for some wise man to teach them the wisdom within so great a mystery we call love.

The Woman Warrior

Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior

On the English literary scene there comes, once in a while, a distinctive voice that catches the public’s attention. However, such cases are rare for writers who come from minority groups. A decade before the success of The Joy Luck Club from Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston published a nonfiction work called The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts that won her the National Book Critics Circle Award, and has since been known as one of the greatest Asian writers. However, despite Kingston’s careful design in storytelling, readers today may consider Kingston’s documentation dour, her effort in incorporating the Chinese mythic element mottled.

Composed of five sections and each focus on a different stage of life, The Woman Warrior is a close examination over the early Asian women immigrants and their survival in America. The first part, No Name Woman, opens with her mother’s incomplete revelation over an aunt who killed herself, a family secret that cannot be told nor mentioned. Kinston then begins an imagined retelling of the story that fills the blanks left out by her mother. To this aunt whose name is erased from the family history, Kinston devotes her words, in a way to appease the cursed soul and absolve it from the blames. Kingston’s tactic works fine up to this point, and yet her imagination may well be the only light on this otherwise too gloomy novel.

Thematically, the book is so ill-proportioned that it weakens the impact it could have over such an ambitious title. As it turns out, the book is not merely a simple memoir. Kingston pours in fictional elements that turn the book into semi-autobiography. Consequently, the blurry line between the true events and the make-believes confuses the reader. Kingston gets all tangled up in her attempt to allude to Chinese folklore in the second part, White Tigers, where she imagines herself to be a heroine that protects the family from harm. For readers, especially Chinese, who knows the references by heart, Kingston’s effort seems awkward and contrived. While reading along, we find the misadventure ludicrous and absurd.

As a humble contemporary reader, I cannot overthrow the work’s value simply because it lost its impact that it may originally created when first published. There are two types of literary work, or so I believe, one that transcends the time and the other gets caught in its own age. For the readers nowadays, The Woman Warrior evokes things that are too familiar, themes that we too repeatedly encounter, that it may arouse only little interest and scarce compassion. Like the women in the novel, who find themselves caught between their Chinese tradition and the American culture, the book, after over three decades, sadly finds itself stuck in its own time frame and becomes an old time cliché.

The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street

As one of the most prominent writers in Chicano (i.e. Mexican American) literature, Sandra Cisneros’ The House on the Mango Street is the one book that puts her on the literary scene ever since its 1984 publication. From a girl named Esperanza, we are introduced to a world that does not belong; we are told, in a somewhat nostalgic tone, of her dreams and hopes in a place where things always fall short. The House, compiled from a series of short writings that resemble both poetry and prose in style, is a true to life observation of a young girl’s living and her coming-of-age experience, in a place she finds difficult to identify with.

“Shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down.”(The House, 91), so says Esperanza’s mother. Surely, much effort is spent as Esperanza struggles to outgrow the things that shame her. Her weird-sounding name, that disgraceful place she has to call home, and together with all the other worries, are the things that confuse her, the obstacles that refrain her from growing into a mature self. Her thinking, mostly innocent yet at moments deep and philosophical, reminds the readers of our own troubled youth, and we cannot help but take side with her.

And yet, The House does not merely focus itself on the little girl’s bildungsroman, it also grants the reader admissions to different aspects of life that surround the Mango Street. Esperanza’s matter-of-fact tone amplifies the seriousness of the social issues that are mentioned. These references not only reflect serious issues down in the lower society, but for Esperanza, these are the things she desperately wants to break away from. From domestic violence to social segregation; from repressed women to immigrant issues, Cisneros, using her fictional characters, puts focus on the actual problems that need to be addressed to.

The House is a novel that reveals a lot despite its rather short length, an honest confession of a little girl and those around her. Cisneros superbly constructs the voice of Esperanza, whose truthful revelations comes up real without any pretence. Readers will be more than glad to see the timid little girl from the beginning grows into a more mature selfhood. For even though in the end she finds a way to leave the Mango Street, she has the thought bear in mind to always come back, for those who are left behind, and this time she stays willingly, without any regret.