| A Story of
China and Silent Cal By Dale Singer
John Derbyshire's literate, thoughtful first novel brings
together two most unlikely subjects-- China and Calvin Coolidge. Chai, a former
member of the Red Guards who is now a bank vice president in New York, has a hobby of
studying great men, in part to improve his English. His first choice was Samuel
Johnson; his second was Coolidge.
Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream cuts back and
forth between Chai's early days in China and Hong Kong and his American life as a husband
and father on Long Island. Like many men his age, he has a strong, sentimental
feeling for his past, as well as a memory troubled by youthful deeds committed in the heat
of political passion and conformity.
The plot is relatively slight. Instead, the novel is carried along by its language, and
by its attention to language as a theme. Chai and his young wife, Ding, play
Scrabble regularly; he gallantly spots her 50 points to make up for her inexperience in
English. His hero may be Silent Cal, but Chai himself doesn't shy away from words.
Because he himself has perfected his new language by rnemorizing David
Copperfield, the story is told in a slightly stilted style, with plenty of
explanations along the way for Asian terms.
After referring to an old colleague who drinks yuk-bing-sue until he falls asleep
in front of the TV at night, Chai explains: "yuk-bing-sue is Cantonese
vodka. You can also use it to strip the rust off bolts."
Derbyshire also uses such deadpan asides to compare Chai's lives in China and in the
United States. How could Chai ever have learned an entire Dickens novel by heart?
"Americans are astounded bv this because their lives are so full. There is so much to
do with their spare time, they cannot conceive of setting aside three or four thousand
hours to memorize a book. But in China in the late sixties there was nothing else to do.
The boredom of life in a village in northeast China during the Great Cultural Revolution
cannot be described. Especially in winter. The winter up there is five months long. I mean
the ground is frozen like iron for five months. The peasants have nothing to do. Thev sit
around playing cards. When that palls, thev occupy themselves with drinking and
fornicating. The peasant women, who for the most part did not play cards, were alwavs
looking for someone to fornicate with. Northeastern peasant women are the most promiscuous
I have seen anywhere-- and I have lived in New York City."
Readers who are looking for a lot of action and a lively plot may grow weary of such
observations, and the novel's ending is a bit of a letdown. But anyone who enjoys good
wordplay and the measured, reflective musings of a man caught between two continents and
two ages will find Derbyshire's first novel worthwhile. |