scribbled thoughts and messy writing
February 10, 2024
Categories:
books
Whenever I listened to his friends speak about issues like prison reform, climate change, the opioid epidemic, in the simultaneously intelligent but utterly vacuous way of people who think it’s important simply to weigh in, to have an opinion, I would bristle. I would think, What is the point of all this talk? What problems do we solve by identifying problems, circling them? p. 72
Transcendent Kingdom covered a lot of “important” topics but in a fairly rudimentary and shallow way. I feel like I got more out of discussing the topics in this book with other people than what was contained in the actual book. It felt like the purpose of the book was to teach people a lesson about racism, class struggles, and drug addiction, and the characters and plot points picked out to be most effective in service of that purpose. (I have a similar complaint about Yellowface by R.F. Kuang but that book had fewer redeeming qualities.)
I feel kind of bad for dumping on this book — I read it in a book club and appreciated listening to others talk about what resonated with them and what they got out of the book. And I really do respect what Gyasi is trying to achieve — in some ways you could argue that the author is doing an ethical act, and if it works on people then isn’t that a net positive to society over a book that just serves as passing entertainment?
I think the parts of the book that talked about the model minority experience and familial trauma felt most genuine and real to the author. I’ve read some other reviews that criticized the author’s reliance on neat and tidy (bordering on stereotyping) characterization, but this feels true to growing up as a model minority — if you grow up being viewed with doubt instead of assumed to be baseline competent, and your mistakes interpreted as character flaws, it is sensible to aim for objective accomplishments (like grades) and avoid youthful experimentation that can be viewed uncharitably. Gifty and Nana were “faultless” in many ways to be likeable by society — Gifty excels in school and makes all the “right” choices, and Nana was a star athlete until he was prescribed Oxycontin for an injury and spiralled into drug addiction. It doesn’t feel great that oppressed people’s lives exist to teach others a lesson (I get that these are fictional characters), and if this was intended to be a moral parable, I would have liked the author to lean into that more and rip into the Sackler family. (They certainly deserve it — the staggering number of deaths and harm they’ve caused is upsetting and difficult to even wrap my mind around. I don’t know how they sleep at night).
Going back to the opening quote of this post, I suppose I feel that way about this book itself, and the book feels somewhat aware of this as well. After a lot of thought and exploration and going in circles, Gifty doesn’t come to many conclusions, but I guess that’s often how life works.