Cyril Wong

This book is a collection of stories that explore the subjective. That's what I thought 3 stories in and what has been affirmed after I finished reading it.

A salient feature I noticed is the realization that we don't ever know a person completely. It's most obvious in stories where there are two close companions or even lovers, like in "Pneumonia", "Nobody Loves You Right Now", "Susan's Certainty" amongst others, & the protagonist realizes that they do not know the other at all. Not truly, at least. The other side of this realization is of course, loneliness. For if even in the closest of intimacy the other remains far, then what hope is there? Yet there isn't that sort of despair entirely either.. I think this is best exemplified in "Cinema".

In "Cinema" I have a certain fondness for the blue-collar worker Keng Kiat, the sort of character the young idealist will hold up as an example of what NOT to be. Content with the basics, what some would call "unaware", living a dronish existence, the blank-faced commuter. Yet this was a story that ended by telling us how Keng Kiat was a completely contented, happy man. His brief encounter with the beautiful, well-off lady had only affirmed how right his mode of existence was for him. And I loved that their meeting, so unlikely, was written as both banal but also magical.

In these stories of two people who don't truly know each other, there is a brief gap where they get a glimpse of the other, of how deep the waters truly run. In the end, their knowing is little, and while one can think of this as a despairing truth of modern existence, one can also look at it with a certain wonder, the way "Cinema" and, more endearingly between mother and son, the story "The Mistake", does. How wonderful it is, that in all our loneliness, we sometimes connect with someone, however brief. And how wonderful it is to be surprised by each other's depth when a gap opens opens for us to peek in.… (meer)