Alice Pung

Karuna is a teenage girl, daughter of a controlling mother, whom she calls Grand Mar. Grand Mar comes from a village in the Philippines, and is like a fish out of water in urban Australia. When Karuna gets herself pregnant, Grand Mar's controlling behaviour goes into overdrive.

The narrative voice of the book is Karuna writing her story for her child to read in the future, and she recounts her frustrations at Grand Mar's insistence that all modern medicine and expected behaviour of mothers-to-be be ignored in favour of the way things were done in her village. It's a splendid account of a fraught mother-daughter relationship that also perfectly captures the experience of the first-generation children of migrants who never really left home in their minds.… (mais)

Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung

I may have dived too deeply into Alice Pung’s writing - this is my third in a few weeks.

Unlike Laurinda and 100 Days, both taking the form of first person letters with the attendant immediacy, this is written by an observer narrator, retelling family history.

I enjoyed this book after initial resistance. I think the use of first person for stages the narrator was not present for, having been already present earlier in the book, confused me a little.

I found it well written, interesting, complex and moving. That said, I doubt I’ll revisit Alice Pung for a while, after three in a brief time.

What follows contains spoilers so read on at your peril.

Certainly there is plenty of cultural interest. As I write this, I am hearing tales of a young girl called “Little Brother.” This cross-gender nomenclature is unrelated to gender dysphoria and entirely to a frustration by parents unable to give birth to a son. (Until they eventually do.)

There is a considerable section of the book dealing with Alice’s mother’s struggles with depression and trying to find a new way of being useful after she can no longer work making jewellery because she now lacks the fine motor skills for the work, and her frustrations with her inadequate English and computer skills.

She is also caught up within cultural constraints and keeping up appearances.

I found this very moving, and thought with greater admiration than perhaps ever before, of my mother’s similar struggles with mental health (PTSD - not that the term existed then) and language and role. And 35 years of widowed life.

Then, the author turns to herself and her own depression. Having backgrounded her life so well, it is not quite a shock when the book takes this turn. Raw. Sensitive. Honest. Her praise for a friend who stuck by her persistently through this time was also moving. I’ve had friends like this for me, and hope I have been like that for at least some of mine.

And then, after a highly successful Year 12, she returns to work in the family business, dealing among other tasks, with the desire of a Filipino woman seeking a mobile phone because her husband is violent and brings his friends around to “do her over,” but she does not qualify at the phone company for a connection. Telstra must love that product placement, I think, as I feel tears welling.

And the parade of sad and lonely people who frequent the store.

I’ve previously heard of “coconut” and “watermelon” as fruits to designate a type of person. Now came “banana children” - those born yellow who think they can grow up white. Interesting.

And to the final section - first date and developing relationship within the complexities of differing cultures and social and sexual inexperience on both sides. A lot of internalised conversation - talking to herself for both sides of the conversation, before articulating what is actually said. And then, it all ends.

Apart from the parable of the Easter chocolate goodies.… (mais)

Alice Pung’s One Hundred Days is a searing book exploring the tensions between a protective, guilt-tripping immigrant Asian mother whose “ghost” husband left two years earlier, and her wilful 16-y-o daughter seeking to stretch into some space not dominated by her mother. The subject matter of teenage pregnancy makes for some graphic content.

It’s very well written and, as an audiobook, very well read. The interchanges are highly credible to me.

Having recently read Pung’s Laurinda, I couldn’t help but notice the same use of the artifice of the chief character writing to someone absent.… (mais)