1. Cha is intentionally ambiguous in a number of ways, including her use of pronouns, images without description, and the omission of a direct indication of time in many of her stories. Why do you think Cha prefers ambiguous implications over clear description?

2. What does it mean to consider this collection of different women’s stories an autobiography of Cha? What does her account of Yu Guan Soon, Demeter and Persephone, her mother and the other “shes” and “yous” from various nations and times tell us about Cha?

3. Why does Cha choose to incorporate French rather than, say, Korean, Japanese or Chinese?

 

(And the obvious question, would you consider any of this novel oversharing? If anything, I found this novel to be an undershare, in which Cha interrogates traditional notions of identity by distancing her autobiography from her individual self.)

— Zoe


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Adam Watson on March 24, 2015 3:35 pm

    Interesting questions!

    In response to the first question, I think Cha chooses ambiguous implications over clear description because in some way she is trying to capture the essence of the moment–or moments–which she has chosen to describe. The essence would be placeless, timeless, and largely separate of any one person’s experience, so this could be one explanation as to why she chose the ambiguous structure for these writings.

  2. Adam Watson on March 24, 2015 3:39 pm

    With regards to the Oversharing question, I agree that the novel seemed more of an under share than an overshare. The lack of definitive first person clarity with which the situations and experiences take place seem to remove the aspects of Oversharing that would otherwise correspond.

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