Chemistry by Weike Wang
Chemistry may be the title of this book, but it is quite clear that our unnamed narrator is not experiencing the chemistry we come to associate with love. That intangible, unseeable connection that two people have, the chemistry we like to talk about when two people we know seem destined to be together.
The narrator of Weike Wang’s debut novel is struggling to make a decision. She has a devoted boyfriend, Eric, who wants to marry. This is not an easy question to answer.
But that’s not the only chemistry she is dealing with. Wang’s narrator is a Ph.D. student in chemistry, along with her maybe soon to be fiancé Eric. He has sailed through life and his work, poised to be hired as soon as his degree is complete. She, on the other hand, has a failed research project, her advisor is not impressed and her immigrant Chinese parents expect nothing but perfection. She is less and less interested in her studies and a beaker smashing breakdown in the lab leads to a leave which is followed by termination in the program. This is a fact she cannot share with her parents. She also decides she cannot follow Eric to his new job in Ohio.
Her breakdown forces her to do some soul searching about who she is, where she came from and what she wants in life. “The breaking of bonds requires energy. This is a fundamental law of thermodynamics” and her energy is now focused on managing her life after these bonds in her life have been severed.
It’s hard to describe this novel. It is short and pointed and ricochets between the observations of her current life and her reflection on her upbringing as a Chinese immigrant, served with a regular dollop of scientific fact. “Diamond is no longer the hardest mineral known to man. New Scientist reports that lonsdaleite is. Lonsdaleite is 58 percent harder than diamond and forms only when meteorites smash themselves into earth. “
Her parents came to America when she was a small child, following a typical immigrant story. Her father pursues his studies and becomes a huge success “He is the first in his family to go high school and college and graduate school in America. He is the first to become an engineer…But such progress he’s made in one generation that to progress beyond him, I feel as if I must leave America and colonize the moon.” Such is the pressure she feels to succeed. Her beautiful mother, a pharmacist in China has to relearn to re-qualify in her adopted home.
To say that her parents have a tumultuous relationship is an understatement. The narrator recalls the violence in her home, the screaming, the shouting, the throwing of stuff around the house, the unexpected disappearance of her mother for some time. It is no surprise that she can’t give Eric an answer. Her mother clearly has suffered by moving for her husband, all the way across the world, how would she suffer if she moves to Ohio?
Slowly, time away from Eric and from her chemistry life, allows her to focus on herself to sort out her own messy outlook on life. With the help of the students she tutors, a best friend who has a baby, and a shrink to work with she works on trying to sort out who she is and how she can come back from the brink.
And it is not the years of effort she has already put into her academic pursuits that she grapples with most during this enforced leave, it is the story of her parents, the challenge of immigration the stress of being the “other” that she ruminates on.
On her language skills “It is a strange sensation to not be entirely at home in either language. I am more comfortable in English, but Eric says that he can still tell I am not a native speaker---Your idioms are always a little off and you say close for everything. Close the lights, the TV the oven. You say close when you really mean turn off.”
Her mother’s struggles are chronicled and soon enough it is clear that our narrator needs to examine that immigrant experience in order to understand herself somewhat. “One, she cuts all the phone cords in the house. She is tired of calling places like Bit Lots and Marshall's and asking if they can offer her a job. Over the phone, they can hear her accent and say that the job was recently filled. But after she cuts them, she regrets it. How can she call China now?”
It is a long haul to dragging herself back from the brink but again, science can explain that too. “It was once believed that heart cells could not regenerate, that once they died they could not be replaced. Now it is known that the hear can renew itself. But the process is very slow. In an average person, the rate is 1 percent each year.”
This is a book that is vibrant and quirky and challenging and you can’t help but stay with it, as she tries to figure out how to see her life more clearly. Wang herself has a degree in Chemistry, a doctorate in global health and an MFA too, so it’s no wonder that this book is written with such an authority and authenticity. This debut novel introduces us to a lively new voice and I, for one, will be watching out for more of Weike Wang’s work.
BEFORE YOU READ
Length: 211 pages
Genre: Fiction
Themes: Love, Immigration, Marriage, Chemistry, Science
Commitment: a good thing in a small package
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