You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked. By Sheung-King
A review of You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked.
by Sheung-King
“Anyway, the boy wants to tell the girl how beautiful she is but is hesitant because he knows that the girl, beautiful as she is, has heard every single compliment possible. It’s about time for the girl to leave, so the boy, trying to seize the moment, blurts out, ‘I love your ears.’ The girl is confused. No one has ever said such a thing to her. She gives the boy a smile, thanks him, and heads home. The boy is embarrassed. Of all the things in the world he might have declared, he has told the girl that he loves her ears.”
You are eating an orange. You are naked by Sheung-King (2020). Published by Book*hug Press.
When I first saw this in the abyss that is my Goodreads, the very first thing that caught my eye was the title. That’s a really weird and eccentric title, and I freaking loved it. It matches the vibe of the book perfectly, in all of its eccentric storytelling.
Besides me being absolutely in love with the title of the novel, the cover looked gorgeous, and the premise seemed really interesting. A young couple, one of whom is a translator, telling folktales in between bar sessions, restaurants, and hotel rooms. That caught my eye, too, because of how folk tales are a trip within themselves, a glimpse into culture and how things are twisted to appear a certain way.
The dichotomy between the West and the East is also very apparent in this novel—I’ll get into that later in the review, since this is an important takeaway for me.
What a lush, experimental novel. Let’s dig right into it, shall we?
Blurb
A young translator living in Toronto frequently travels abroad—to Hong Kong, Macau, Prague, Tokyo—often with his unnamed lover. In restaurants and hotel rooms, the couple begin telling folk tales to each other, perhaps as a way to fill the undefined space between them. Theirs is a comic and enigmatic relationship in which emotions are often muted and sometimes masked by verbal play and philosophical questions, and further complicated by the woman’s frequent unexplained disappearances.
You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked. is an intimate novel of memory and longing that challenges Western tropes and Orientalism. Embracing the playful surrealism of Haruki Murakami and the atmospheric narratives of filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, Sheung-King’s debut is at once lyrical and punctuated, and wholly unique, and marks the arrival of a bold new voice in Asian-Canadian literature.
Content
If you know me in real life, you know I’m a sucker for Wong Kar-Wai and anything he did in the 90s. They’re completely and utterly masterpieces, that’s for sure. The very first chapter we go back and forth between the two characters and the narrative of Chungking Express, where Cop 223 faces his brutal, but fleeting love story in the midst of Hong Kong’s crowded districts. Immediately, we introduced to the dynamics between the only two characters of the novel, especially because this novel is told in second person (more on that later, in the writing section).
A lot of this novel is told through folk tales; this is a unique element. These stories are interwoven with the narrator’s own life, such as The Kitchen God being tied together with how their mother had them eat all the rice, because wasting food was a sin of sorts. The way that the novel starts is that the narrator is telling the girlfriend folktales, which she straight up says she thinks are shitty.
I thought it was obvious from the beginning, especially with the reference to Chungking Express, that this is about unrequited love. The main character is helplessly in love with the girlfriend, who seems to not care about the relationship as much as he does. As he makes a nice reservation in Macau, she takes a boat ride back to Hong Kong and with another man, leaving our poor narrator at the table waiting for her until the restaurant closes. I knew this would happen immediately because the very first section is about Chungking, which is also about unrequited love in Hong Kong. But this relationship keeps dragging on and on, creating intentional dominoes that keep falling.
Lots of art, film, and literature references throughout the novel. I appreciate that as a culture buff who understand them; someone who isn’t as well-read, however, might not understand them and will miss the subtle nuances that these create.
Characters
There’s literally only two characters in this book—the translator and the unnamed lover. It’s pretty obvious from the start that this relationship isn’t going to last, because of the way the lover treats him. She’s very offhand about the relationship, like she’s mentally checked out awhile ago. From the narrator’s perspective, however, we get these little intimate details, going deeper into the crevices of this doomed affair. Their dynamic is very interesting to observe.
The main character, however, was the interesting one for me. Because his part of the novel is in first-person, we get a really good glimpse of who he is, where he came from, and where he’s going. We see the struggle of being Asian in Canada, which is a white-dominated country, and the consequences of that. While the focus seems to be on the love story in a way, the fleshed out narrative of this character is what I’m more interested in as a reader and a scholar.
Writing
Throughout all of my writing courses, we were warned about the concept of second person. Many are divided on the use of this unique perspectives, although it adds a little power to the narrative, one where we force the reader to consider the character as if they are themselves. It’s a bit dangerous, but it works in this novel really well. I just was a bit confused at parts, because the you seems to be the girl at times or the guy, and I got a bit
I also loved how the author dropped in hanzi and kanji into the text and rarely translated it. As a Westerner reading this, as the child of an immigrant, I appreciate the boldness of not translating it. There’s a lot expected of a novel when written by a BIPOC person in the West, and translation is expected to be a given almost immediately because people are impatient. I despise it when a translation is given directly on the page, because it disrupts the flow of the sentences in an awkward manner, so kudos to the author for that.
You could also really see the inspiration of where the writing lies in this novel. It’s very Murakami, that’s for sure. If you’re someone who doesn’t like this brand of writing, and don’t find yourself to be a fan of Murakami, you’re going to find this novel more difficult to get through, that’s for sure.
I am indeed a Murakami fan (my only qualm with him is that after a certain point, a lot of his work comes across as way too similar and rehashing the same characters, concepts, and elements), so this book was right up my alley. Once I saw it was on sale via Kindle, I knew I had to take the opportunity to read it.
Something else I found interesting was that the author chose not to use dialogue tags, and instead just had bullet-style points with “Her” and “You.” Quite rebellious I see.
Overall Thoughts
I read this book very quickly, since it flows quite well. I recommend it be a weekend read, and if you want something to bring on a flight or long train ride, this is a good book for that. It’s not too long, and you might just devour it pretty quickly, so might be worth bringing another book on top of it. All in all, I recommend this for its unique style of storytelling and for the stylistic elements that it brings to the table.
