unexpected, wonderful read. I liked all of the characters, and the story was different from anything Ive read, it was a refreshing change, I do have to say it left me wanting MORE about the characters, maybe just a little more depth, but obviously not so much that I gave it less than a five.
And after one of the best discussions we have had, the notion of “flow” and “movement” stands out in a much more defined way.
Really cool how those elements connect throughout the story cw: death, violence, ableism
Linda Rui Feng's debut novel, SWIMMING BACK TO TROUT RIVER, weaves together tendrils of its characters' lives to create a beautiful, complex but interconnected web of life, death, and 造化the human and nonhuman transformations of things.
Momo crosses the sea postCultural Revolution to seek the American Dream and establish a home for his wife and daughter back in China, However, unbidden memories and traumas hold on tightly to these survivors and immigrants past missed chances with people and things deemed "bourgeois" by the Red Guard surface tantalizingly close in a way that makes you catch your breath.
These characters in the book, so devastatingly human and whole and broken, navigate emotional and physical loss and yet find ways to reorient themselves towards healing and sometimes forgetting.
SWIMMING BACK TO TROUT RIVER is about leaving your roots, but also the ways that 缘分 fate, destiny brings you right back to them.
Reading this book during this period of my life, lockeddown in my childhood home after flying back to be with my mother in her last moments, feels oddly like 缘分, connected in Momo's unfinished aria of grief.
Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review, out May,, Swimming Back to Trout River is a lyrical debut with so much heart, I love this family saga, as each character tells their vivid story of life in China during the Cultural Revolution and sweeps through to the summer of, with the theme of survival in the face of adversity.
many thanks to the publisher for the gifted copy,
Hello Book Friends! SWIMMING BACK TO TROUT RIVER by Linda Rui Feng was such an enjoyable read, I love how the author started the story in Communist China and moved it to the United States, The impact of this transition on the characters felt real and organic, This story is told from many points of view, and is about family, finding love, losing love, grief, and making the decision to move on.
Beautiful book.
bookstadog poodles poodlestagram poodlesofinstagram furbabies dogsofinstagram bookstagram dogsandbooks bookishlife bookishlove bookstagrammer books booklover bookish bookaholic reading readersofinstagram instaread ilovebooks bookishcanadians canadianbookstagram bookreviewer bookcommunity bibliophile swimmingbacktotroutriver lindaruifeng simonschusterca bookreview A really beautiful book that brought me comfort during these past few weeks when antiAsian sentiment is high.
This is a wonderful novel that evokes compassion for immigrants and their experiences, and families and their struggles, It makes readers question, "what is home" and follows the characters through their understandings of this question,
The novel and chapters are written from the perspectives of four characters: Momo, Cassia, Dawn, and Junie, Momo and Cassia are a young married couple in China who later emigrate to the U, S. Dawn is the university friend of Momo who ignited his love for classical music, While they never stayed in touch, Dawn also moves to the U, S. and becomes a famous music composer, Junie is Momo and Cassia's daughter who is left in China to be cared for by her grandparents until her parents are able to bring her to the U.
S.
There were a lot of elements of this book that I loved as they were introduced but I think fell short in some ways.
For the relatively short length of the book, I think it told a number of stories about each character that hovered near each other but never quite touched.
The plot felt more centered on the adults than Junie so I felt that her perspective was lacking where I wanted more, Junie is a disabled young girl who is left to be raised her grandparents at a young age and promised to be reunited with her parents in America by the age of.
The emotions of her parents surrounding her disability are mentioned, but her feelings are rarely talked about aside from her hesitation to move to America.
I really loved Feng's writing style and I thought her descriptions of music were beautiful, especially the explanations of Chinese words that cannot be translated in English.
I also think she captured the culture of harbouring feelings that is common in Chinese and Asian cultures and families really well, Such a beautifully written story about the Chinese Cultural Revolution, family, music, and the unexplainable connections between people, The writing in this book is so poetic and there were so, so many moments that were deeply moving, Loved it! sitelinkblog sitelinkthestorygraph sitelinkletterboxd sitelink tumblr sitelinkkofi
½
“After all, wasn't it true that to love someone is to figure out how to tell yourself their story”
With understated lyricism, Feng charts the experiences of a family divided by physical and emotional borders that are nevertheless united in their pursuit of a more 'promising' future, for themselves and each other.
The narrative intertwines the trajectories of various characters: Momo and Cassia, a married couple whose relocation to America results in their estrangement, their daughter Junie, born with a congenital amputation, who is in China and being raised in a small village in the countryside by her beloved grandparents, and Dawn, a talented violinist who knew Momo in their college days.
Moving from thes to thes, from Communist China to San Francisco, Feng spins a tale of grief and resilience, Throughout their adulthood Momo, Cassia, and Dawn experience loss, heartbreak, and time and again are forced to reconcile their own personal desires with the ones of others.
“The incandescent cocoon of music was pure rapture, and it said to him Stay, It was a powerful beckoning, to be held in thrall, to be consumed, annihilated even, ”
Classical music plays a crucial role in Dawn and Momo's narratives and Feng beautifully articulates their relationship to it, When writing about music Feng's writing acquires an almost luminous quality, one thatif you excuse my unintentional punis assured to strike a chord with her readers.
I particularly liked the discussions surrounding the way other countries tend to stereotype musicians from East Asian countries conflating attributes they associate with those countries'conformity', 'rigidity'with the music they produce.
“We learn so much more about things when they are broken or unmade, he thought, ”
There is a particular episode early on in the narrative when something happens to a violin and well, I was almost in tears.
In spite of these moments of tension and of Feng's candid portrayal of the Red Guards, the narrative retains a quiet atmosphere, one that is pervaded by a sense of longing.
“He was impatient for time to pass, so that in his life, there would be less yearning and more having, less becoming and more being.
”
While Feng's writing is indisputably beautiful I have dozens of highlights that will attest as much I did find myself at a remove from her characters.
That is not to say that I failed to sympathise with them, Their interactionsespecially the ones between Junie and her grandadcould certainly be affecting, However, there was a veil between me and the characters that I was unable to penetrate, While this 'distance' did bring to mind the work Jhumpa Lahiri a favourite of mine, here the slightness of the novel just overpages meant that years of their lives would be condensed in a few pages, giving me little time to adapt to their new environments and circumstances.
At times their personalities were too inscrutable so that I found myself confusing characters especially the secondary ones that prop up in the America section of the novel.
I also wanted more of Junie, She is very much sidelined for much of the narrative and I would have loved to read more about her childhood,
“In order for Junie to exist, two people had to come together during the Cultural Revolution under circumstances that one of them would later describe as inevitable, and the other, as coincidental.
”
Feng's exquisite prose and her meditation on art, culture, love, grief, exceptionalism, and dislocation result in a poignant and thoughtprovoking read, If you are a fan of authors such as Lahiri you should definitely not pass this up, Swimming Back to Trout River is a fascinating book interesting story shifting among several characters, considering China's Cultural Revolution, cultural differences, and the immigrant perspective.
Linda Rui Feng's description of relatively privileged immigrants to the US i, e. , graduate school, conductor and composer, nanny was an interesting one, They often felt confused by US customs, language, and choices, "The immigrant must be like an improviser of music, He must take a template alien to him and, while bound by rules, turn it into something of his own" p,. Even those people who were open to them, were only partially open, wanting to add unneeded soy sauce to dishes, for example,
Rui Feng's Chinese characters saw the world through their cultural frames of the world e, g. , yuanfen, acknowledging the "unknowability in the workings of the universe, the invisible mesh that loosely bound people and circumstances" p,. US characters saw them through an individualistic lens: "She had been given creditby the press, by her peersfor having seized her destiny, when it had been an accumulation of favorable accidents" p.
.
Although I think I am a good reader, I felt like I missed the deeper metaphors in Rui Feng's story, Sometimes, she gathered up her story's images to note that they had not been just random choices: "You know that I washed up on these shores like a BEACHED WHALE, and all of you”she gestured with her arms "helped me grow my FIRST PAIR OF FEET, and then helped me learn to stand on them" p.
. "We learn so much more about things when they are BROKEN or UNMADE, he thought, " p., capitalizations added to identify images, In the first case, the speaker had not experienced the events she included as metaphors,
Is Rui Feng, then, simply talking about working through personal and cultural traumas or, as I sometimes thought, was Junie a metaphor for China during and after the Cultural Revolution or her parents' growth or the tension between coming to the US or staying there The last of the these three fits best with the Swimming Back to Trout River's title and focus on migration and moving.
Junie is a cheerful and engaging presence, so I'm glad that she was a touchstone throughout this book,
In an interview, Rui Feng said:
I had been thinking intermittently about this idea of roots and wanting to stay put in the
place that we grew up or feel most at home.
I started thinking about the tension between that pursuit of motion, what I would call an escaped velocity, versus that equally powerful urge to stay put.
Of course, its complicated, the “roots versus rainbow” conundrumthe thing over the rainbow, the many things that draw you away from where you are from, versus what brings you back or allows you to dig in your heels and fight for the place that you are most familiar with.
Braitman, sitelink, par,
I read this with my mother's book club, I am often frustrated by their book choices this is a book that makes me want to continue reading and attending their meetings, Told from multiple points of view, Swimming Back to Trout River is a poignant novel set in both China and later in the US that tells of the lives of Junie, Momo, Cassia, and Dawn.
It is a very emotional, touching story that portrays family and how different family members deal with the challenges that life presents, From longing and secrets to loss and grief, Swimming Back to Trout River describes Momo and Cassias different responses to loss and grief and their ability/inability to move onward in the aftermath of loss.
Dawns story is tangentially related and she plays a significant part in the end, Junies story is surprisingly one of joy and delight, made possible by her loving grandparents, She is the ray of light in counterpoint to the sadness and tragedy of much of this story, This is not an uplifting story, but it is one that is deeply moving and will leave you thinking of these characters and imagining more about lives.
I did not expect the story to end the way it did, Nevertheless, it is a remarkable debut novel, I would definitely seek out future books by Ms, Feng.
As an aside, after reading this novel, take a look at the tangram on the cover, It is an ingenious pictoral encapsulation of the key elements of the story,
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon amp Schuster for an advance ARC in exchange for an honest review, .