Chemistry

CHEMISTRY

by Weike Wang

 

Award: PEN/Hemingway Winner 2018


Nomination: Aspen Words Longlist 2018

 

Date Read: August 12, 2022

 

Whereas the last novel I read seemed overly verbose (The Mercy Seat), Chemistry is sparse, witty and dry. Wang has a talent for looking at life from a completely different perspective and translating those perceptions into prose. I adored this novel.

 

Facing an uncertain future, our unnamed narrator is going through an ambivalence crisis. Her chosen career, chemistry, is not progressing as it should and her PhD advisor is threatening to fire her. Her live-in boyfriend, Eric, wants their relationship to move forward and proposes but she’s not sure that’s what she wants either. Under the pressure of being mentally stuck, she breaks down one day, cuts of her hair and goes to her lab and breaks all her beakers.

 

Part chemistry facts, part analysis of what a Chinese daughter of immigrants owes her hard-working parents, part insight to American culture, Chemistry is a subtle and thought-provoking journey through the mind of someone that just can’t put the pieces together. 

 

I very much liked the main character and found myself wishing her to make the choices I wanted her to make and was crossing my fingers for a happy ending, however, this brief novel ended as it should, I suppose.

 

I am left wondering if her aversion to Eric was because of his insensitivity to her cultural background and his lack of attempt to truly understand. Although he tried to learn Chinese, he was adamant that she didn’t owe her parents anything but that is oversimplifying a complex bond that doesn’t reflect the same connection as American parents/children. Could she have been more patient and explained to him this difference? I don’t know. But her reaching out to spend time together as friends is a beautiful start and a beautiful end. 

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