{"id":2272,"date":"2017-09-26T18:57:49","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T18:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridareview.cah.ucf.edu\/?post_type=article&p=2272"},"modified":"2017-09-26T18:57:49","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T18:57:49","slug":"the-most-beautiful-dialect","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-most-beautiful-dialect\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Beautiful Dialect"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chemistry<\/em> by Weike Wang
\nKnopf, 2017
\n211 pages, paper, $24.95<\/strong>
\n <\/p>\n

 \"\"<\/p>\n

Early in Chemistry<\/em>, the unnamed protagonist describes how an atom is mostly empty space: \u201cIf you remove the empty space from every atom, the entire world\u2019s human population could fit inside a sugar cube.\u201d In a way, this brief comment on empty spaces applies to the brilliance of Weike Wang\u2019s debut novel itself. The novel\u2019s narrative suggests more than is stated plainly on the page. It is a book as much about what goes unsaid as it is about what is said. In this way, Weike Wang tells a story full of ambition, loneliness, humor, heart, and naivet\u00e9.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I hesitate to describe the plot because of its familiarity. A twenty-something-year-old struggles to complete her PhD, commit to her long-term boyfriend, and withstand the great deal of pressure on her academic success placed on her by her immigrant parents. The protagonist procrastinates, meets with her shrink regularly, and drinks a lot of wine\u2014bottles and bottles of wine. However, the surprise of Chemistry<\/em> is not in a riveting plot that charts new territory; it is in everything else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There is something about the protagonist of Chemistry <\/em>that makes her aimlessness charming. Perhaps it is her subtle intelligence. The novel is written in vignettes, none longer than a handful of pages, most under a page in length. These scenes rarely linger, and a gesture in Chemistry<\/em> does all the work that another novel might have needed pages of interiority to explain. The precise language at times more closely resembles prose poetry or a braided lyric essay than it does conventional fiction prose. The closest example on the sentence level that comes to mind is Jenny Offill\u2019s Dept. of Speculation<\/em>, although at times I felt like I could deduce influences from Amy Hempel and Annie Dillard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Interspersed between scenes, the protagonist ruminates on the visible light spectrum, refraction, the scientific method, the history of scientific breakthroughs, and plenty of other scientific observations. These passages are always approachable and never felt overwhelmingly technical. Sometimes these facts are interspersed while in the midst of a scene, which shows the character\u2019s wandering mind and helps the reader better understand the rationale behind her actions. For example, after the protagonist reveals that her mother knows the Shanghai dialect, which the protagonist doesn\u2019t understand yet also considers the most beautiful dialect, Wang writes:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

When I am born she does not speak (the dialect) with me.<\/p>\n

Studies have shown that the brain feels exclusion not like a broken heart but like a broken bone. It is physical pain that the brain feels. (55)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

This braiding of scientific data with narrative allows access to the particular way that the protagonist sees the world and interprets her own thoughts. The intelligence and external pressure put on the character to succeed make her refusal to complete her PhD and accept her boyfriend\u2019s proposal acts of defiance. In a way, the protagonist is rebelling in the only way she knows how\u2014via stagnation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Stable relationships are few and far between in Chemistry<\/em>. Yet these strained relationships don\u2019t erupt into emotional outbursts. The conflict is impossible to separate from the protagonist\u2019s identity as a first-generation immigrant who moved from China to America as a child. Her boyfriend needs more than she can give. She can\u2019t even appreciate him fully because \u201cit is the Chinese way to not explain any of that, to keep your deepest feelings inside and then build a wall that can be seen from the moon\u201d (192). If her romantic relationship is strained from her Chinese qualities, her familial relationships are strained because she has become too Americanized. Unlike her parents, the protagonist has forgotten most of her birth language and doesn\u2019t have much of a relationship with her relatives back in China. At times she is embarrassed by her mother\u2019s accent and pronunciation, a common thread in immigrant literature. In an interesting reversal, however, both narratives also encourage the protagonist along both continuums. Her boyfriend begins learning Chinese in order to better relate. Meanwhile the protagonist has tremendous pressure to be successful in a conventional sense\u2014a prestigious degree and job\u2014placed upon her by her parents. In this way, the parents are pushing the protagonist further into the American dream narrative. This clash in both sets of relationships traps the protagonist between two worlds, making it impossible for her to fully inhabit one or the other.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chemistry<\/em> manages to capture a sense of knowing in the unknown. Scientific facts are approachable in a way that makes you consider whether you always knew the processes of meiosis and that lonsdaleite is a mineral that is \u201c58% harder than diamond.\u201d The whole book feels familiar in the same way, like running into a friendly acquaintance that you can\u2019t quite remember where you met. After saying goodbye, you may find yourself hoping that you stumble across paths again soon, that the atomic empty space isn\u2019t quite so vast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weike Wang’s debut novel comments on the fullness of empty spaces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2275,"template":"","categories":[9,139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2272","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-book-review"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Most Beautiful Dialect - The Florida Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-most-beautiful-dialect\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Most Beautiful Dialect - The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Weike Wang's debut novel comments on the fullness of empty spaces.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-most-beautiful-dialect\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2017\/09\/chemistry-wang-cover-2-crop-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"316\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"221\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cah.ucf.edu\\\/floridareview\\\/article\\\/the-most-beautiful-dialect\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/cah.ucf.edu\\\/floridareview\\\/article\\\/the-most-beautiful-dialect\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Most Beautiful Dialect - 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