A Memoir of Misfortune by Su Xiaokang
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Jolie_Ijaz
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A Memoir of Misfortune by Su Xiaokang
A Memoir of Misfortune by Siao Xiaokang
My first year in college, I took a writing course called “Memoir and Memory”. The course involved more reading than actual writing but that wasn’t a problem. I enjoy memoirs.
A key concept that I was able to extract from the course was the role of memoirs as reflections for the memoirists.
The bulk of a memoir consists of the thoughts and feelings of the memoirist. Whereas an autobiography describes what happened, memoirs focus on the why.
This is highly prevalent in Siao Xiaokang’s A Memoir of Misfortune.
So a synopsis: The memoir revolves around the thoughts of Xiaokang after a fatal car accident leaves his wife disabled in 1993.
Chinese democrat Xiaokang is the writer of River Elegy which played a role in the Communist resistance in the late 1980s. Caught up in his fame, he only realizes the danger of the situation when he makes it to the government’s list of most wanted. In response, he flees to New Jersey where he is accompanied by his wife , Fu Li, and their only son a couple of years later.
Based on the book, Fu Li is a woman of immeasurable strength and confidence. She disapproves of her husband’s carelessness but nonetheless follows him to exile. After staying in America for little more than a year or so, Fu Li suffers through a terrible car accident which leaves her disabled. The roles are now reversed. Whereas once, Fu Li managed all affairs, she is now incapable of performing even the simplest tasks.
The rest of the memoir is about Xiaokang’s regrets and guilt. He believes that Fu Li’s condition is a punishment for his stupidity. That had he paid more attention to actual matters such as his family instead of fame in politics, he would not have to suffer such a great loss.
The book is very raw. It is almost literally just a collection of thoughts. Now there is nothing wrong with that. As Xiaokang mentions in the afterward, the memoir evolved out of a series of diary entries and quick thoughts jotted down over the years. Xiaokang is very generous with his honesty.
I’m glad the book is out there and I hope that by having his troubles laid out together with his reasoning, Xiaokang was able to make sense of a very difficult situation.
The memoir is filled with universal feelings. Though thank God I have never been in such a situation, Xiaokang’s accounts of his son coping with his mother’s hypothetical loss reminded me of my relationship with my own mother. That relationship exists in almost everyone. It was through Xiaokang’s loss that made me think back to my own mother and express gratitude for her existence.
Once the main event of the accident is over however (which is takes place in the beginning), the rest of the book is tedious. It’s a repetition of Xiaokang’s regrets. There is a whole lot of Xiaokang’s quest for religion which becomes dry after a while.
But the book was never written with an audience in mind. That is the one reason why I have respect and admiration for it. Who cares if I was bored throughout half the book? The book wasn’t written for me. It was written for the sanity of Xiaokang. And that’s what memoirs are supposed to do. They’re supposed to sort out the past events of the memoirist’s life for them.
My first year in college, I took a writing course called “Memoir and Memory”. The course involved more reading than actual writing but that wasn’t a problem. I enjoy memoirs.
A key concept that I was able to extract from the course was the role of memoirs as reflections for the memoirists.
The bulk of a memoir consists of the thoughts and feelings of the memoirist. Whereas an autobiography describes what happened, memoirs focus on the why.
This is highly prevalent in Siao Xiaokang’s A Memoir of Misfortune.
So a synopsis: The memoir revolves around the thoughts of Xiaokang after a fatal car accident leaves his wife disabled in 1993.
Chinese democrat Xiaokang is the writer of River Elegy which played a role in the Communist resistance in the late 1980s. Caught up in his fame, he only realizes the danger of the situation when he makes it to the government’s list of most wanted. In response, he flees to New Jersey where he is accompanied by his wife , Fu Li, and their only son a couple of years later.
Based on the book, Fu Li is a woman of immeasurable strength and confidence. She disapproves of her husband’s carelessness but nonetheless follows him to exile. After staying in America for little more than a year or so, Fu Li suffers through a terrible car accident which leaves her disabled. The roles are now reversed. Whereas once, Fu Li managed all affairs, she is now incapable of performing even the simplest tasks.
The rest of the memoir is about Xiaokang’s regrets and guilt. He believes that Fu Li’s condition is a punishment for his stupidity. That had he paid more attention to actual matters such as his family instead of fame in politics, he would not have to suffer such a great loss.
The book is very raw. It is almost literally just a collection of thoughts. Now there is nothing wrong with that. As Xiaokang mentions in the afterward, the memoir evolved out of a series of diary entries and quick thoughts jotted down over the years. Xiaokang is very generous with his honesty.
I’m glad the book is out there and I hope that by having his troubles laid out together with his reasoning, Xiaokang was able to make sense of a very difficult situation.
The memoir is filled with universal feelings. Though thank God I have never been in such a situation, Xiaokang’s accounts of his son coping with his mother’s hypothetical loss reminded me of my relationship with my own mother. That relationship exists in almost everyone. It was through Xiaokang’s loss that made me think back to my own mother and express gratitude for her existence.
Once the main event of the accident is over however (which is takes place in the beginning), the rest of the book is tedious. It’s a repetition of Xiaokang’s regrets. There is a whole lot of Xiaokang’s quest for religion which becomes dry after a while.
But the book was never written with an audience in mind. That is the one reason why I have respect and admiration for it. Who cares if I was bored throughout half the book? The book wasn’t written for me. It was written for the sanity of Xiaokang. And that’s what memoirs are supposed to do. They’re supposed to sort out the past events of the memoirist’s life for them.
