The Incarnations by Susan Barker
My rating: 5/5 cats
this book is very david mitchell-y in structure and theme, but it is somewhat less intellectually demanding than mitchell, and as the ever-astute blair points out, there isn’t much of a difference between the voices of the discrete narratives. but that doesn’t mean it’s not an astonishingly good book on its own merits.
it’s a sad, frequently brutal story of the various incarnations of two souls spanning the course of hundreds of years, with detail-rich backdrops of ancient to modern china. the stories satellite around wang – a taxi driver in beijing in 2008 with a wife named yida, a daughter named echo, and some heavy emotional baggage in his rearview (chortle). and as he will soon learn, that emotional baggage is not just restricted to this life; he has had five previous lives in which he has engaged with another entity in various ways, many of them centered around erotic entanglements, and most of them ending in betrayal and gruesome death.
although he has no memory of these lives, he begins to receive mysterious letters from the person with whom he shared these experiences, detailing the nature of their relationships through time and vowing that their paths will cross again.
the five letters chronicling their lives are standalone chapters in the novel, and had they been five stories in a larger collection, i would have thought “what excellent stories these are!,” but i am so glad that barker chose to go the extra step and use them as bones to wrap a whole other story around – it is a wonderfully ambitious risk and i think it paid off. the only quibble i have is that i wish the story had been more evenly distributed. there’s a lot of wang (heh) in between the past-life stories, and while his own current-life is beautifully, tragically written, i would have loved more islands of past-lives breaking up his storyline.
but that’s just a minor complaint in what was a singularly enjoyable, discomfiting, immersive reading experience. if she writes a book of short stories, i will read it gladly. if she writes another novel, i will read it gladly. if she writes a poem on a bathroom wall, i will read it gladly. (edit – so i just learned she has TWO OTHER BOOKS! which i will read gladly)
i don’t want to say much more, but i urge you to get your hands on this, as long as you have the stomach for some of the graphic bits and pieces.
