308. Little Fires Everywhere

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Little Fires Everywhere

By Celeste Ng Penguin Press 2017

This is our next book club book. Quite a change from The Magic Mountain. I’m only three chapters in but I’m enjoying the ordinariness of it. So far, (I'm putting notes over a period of weeks into one long post) there’s really nothing to think about, but it’s nice seeing what the author has chosen to show us. Just ordinary life, but two versions of ordinary life coming into contact. Nothing flashy. The prose is efficient but not magical. 

There was just an odd “mistake” about photography developing. I’m guessing the author hasn’t actually done this? She seems to think it’s the developer, instead of the fixer, that leaves the characteristic smell in a darkroom. Or maybe developer has a smell I never noticed? 

The juxtaposition of an Ur-suburban American family with an Ur-artist, and her stub of a family, seems ripe for complications. This is supposed to be set in the 1990s, but feels, so far, like it could be the ‘60s or ‘70s. Were teen boys still reading the "Beats" in the ‘90s? In that respect is seems more familiar than I was hoping for.

P89 We’ve finally met Izzy. The way Ng adds layers to her story is really inspired. Every time you think, this is the story we’ll be dealing with, she adds another unexpected and complicating layer. And they all seem to lead to obvious complications and problems. 

And is anything ever going to be said about the names of the Richardson children? These are not ordinary names -- perhaps they are all nicknames. [Yes. Izzy is actually Isabelle Marie] Izzy, Moody, Trip, and Lexie [Alexandra Grace]. Pearl is perhaps dated but at least a normal name. And Celeste gave the only East Asian girl the name Serena, which is pretty ordinary for an Asian American name. Has anyone studied how child naming changes generation by generation in the Asian American community. I would find this fascinating. 

And of course the title has more than one meaning as well. Yes, it’s the various fires started in the Richardson’s house, but Ng has started little fires throughout the ‘verse of her novel. The one at the home of the adopting parents. The one that Mrs Richardson is now trying to start in Mia’s home. I guess you could add the infant’s mother’s world to this, but she’s hardly even a character. So far.

P186 I’ve been sucked into the who-done-it and what-will-they-do-next aspect of these still layering stories, but now, suddenly, I’m hoping for something more... for the characters to learn and grow based on what they do and discover about each other. Not at all sure that’s where Ng is heading, but I do hope so.

P188 A whole other layer of story, and another set of characters. Young Mia and her brother Wren. I’m thinking of Martha Grimes, but all these characters are central to the story. Ng is good at characterization, but, so far, there are no accidental characters sneaking into the story.

The Brownie Starflex camera is a perfect starter camera for someone like Mia. The twin-lens aspect is great for composition. It would have been better if Ng had mentioned that she had not been impressed with other cameras. It reads like this was the first camera she ever noticed. Again, I’m wondering if Ng knows much about photography herself. (The second time she talks about the smell of developer it’s clear she’s talking about film developer, not print developer. I don’t recall that smell. The process I used was quite contained and you would only have smelled it at the start and end. Still, the smell I do remember was fixer.)

I’m still in the middle of the story of Mia in college, but I’m wondering how Ng is going to sort something out. The story we are getting is not the story Mrs R is getting. We’re getting Mia’s point of view. Mrs R is getting whatever Mia’s parents learned and remember. How will we know what this amounts to? (She does, briefly, cover this.)

P217 We are learning Mia’s story. We’ve had Mrs R’s story (and her mother’s and grandmother’s). We get Pearl and Lexie and Izzy. Then there was Mrs M and Bebe. We started with Moody, but that ended quickly and was a long time ago now. We did get Mia’s photographer neighbor for a bit, but that was just part of Mia’s story. The same is true for Mia’s parents.

At this point, I would say this novel is about the three mothers: Mrs M, Mrs R, and Mia.

We did, just at the end of that last chapter, get an incidental character (Grimes style). Martin the doorman has a wiener dog and is a Met’s fan living in Queens. Let’s see if Ng does anything with him. (No) And speaking of Grimes, have there been any animals? I recall something about a series of cat? names, but nothing really about the animals.

I’m starting to think that the description of Mia playing cat’s cradle on page 24 is the key to the composition of this novel.

What is so clever here is that the main conflict at this point has to do with custody of a baby. One woman is the birth mother who gave her up in a desperate moment, while the other is the woman who adopted her and has raised her so far. Mia’s position is curiously in between. She carried and gave birth to Pearl but I think she’s supposed to not be her “biological” parent in terms of genes. [I searched online and still can’t tell if Mia is supposed to be Pearl’s biological mother or not. No, I was wrong. The egg was Mia’s . This is why it was important that she resembled Mrs Ryan. SO, Mia is completely the biological mother. She only violated the terms of her agreement with the Ryans.]

P285 It’s a pity Vonnegut already used “Cat’s Cradle” as a title. Normally I’m not that fond of carefully planned out novels, but this is artfully done. It does mean you can’t stray from the plan. So, thinking about this aspect, the careful planning, so far this is like Mrs R, even though it was Mia with the actual cat’s cradle. Can you change this at the end, be more un-planned like Mia? Less deterministic. 

Finished book. Still processing ending. Will need to re-read the first and last chapters again. I suppose you have to have “growth” after the crisis to make a satisfying story. Otherwise it would be a complete tease. 

I may have to re-read more of Mia’s philosophical sayings now that I understand her status in the novel.

I’m also wondering about what Ng chose to tell about the future and what she didn’t tell. She went generations ahead at one point but doesn’t give us a hint about Izzy. Mia and Pearl seem to be fine. The other R. kids will be fine. Mrs R has shot herself in the foot (a ricochet?) but, like Lexie, she will be able to carry this burden. Izzy is the child off on her own now in an even worse position than before. It’s odd how little we saw of Izzy. You would think there would have been more scenes with her and Mia. 

So Mia “stole” Izzy from Mrs R to almost the same extent Bebe stole her daughter from Mrs M. It seems to be unspoken but that must have been the cruelest cut for Mrs R. Lucky for her she didn’t know how close Lexie and Mia had gotten.

Mia steals Pearl from the Ryans. Trip steals Pearl from Moody. Or better, Pearl chooses Trip over Moody. Izzy, and to a lesser extent Lexie, choose Mia over Mrs R. The men and even the boys are almost entirely passive. Moody befriends Pearl and starts the ball rolling, but that’s about it. We never get any of the male perspectives.

P55 “Rumplestiltskin” is pretty close to Mia’s story.

While reading this book I also started re-reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I think about Hedgehog frequently and have read it a number of times, but I hadn’t realized until just now that the reason I’m reading it now is due to the similarity between Izzy and Paloma. I’ve yet to come to the scene where Paloma is angry at Madam Michel because she is putting off M. Ozu. But it’s getting close now, and when I think of it I’m reminded of Izzy. And then there’s the idea of setting houses on fire. The relationship between Paloma and Madam Michel is really pretty close to that between Izzy and Mia. And the relationships with their mothers is also similar. 

Paloma is smarter and more grounded, oddly enough, but they are much alike. And this novel pulls off the plot crisis Hedgehog shows to us only to then deny us and replace with a nasty surprise. 

Mrs R interests Moody in Pearl - Moody interests Pearl in his family - The R family worries Mia - Mrs R drafts Mia into her household - Mia attracts Izzy to her household - Mia worries Mrs R - Pearl attracts Lexie to her household - Pearl notices the photo in the museum - Izzy interests Mrs R is researching it - Lexie lets Mia know about the found baby - Mia lets Bebe know where her baby is - This gets Mrs R investigating Mia - Pearl attracts Trip - Pearl hurts Moody - Mrs R slanders Pearl and drives away Mia, which drives away Izzy. We don’t really know how this affects Mrs R’s relationships with the other kids or her husband.

Why do we get the lunch with the two “mothers” who have lost their children but no future look at these relationships? And why just the imagination of a future meeting with Izzy and Mia? Why is Izzy’s future left so vague?

P90 Mia to Izzy, about her art, “ ‘I don’t have a plan, I’m afraid,’ she said, lifting the knife again. ‘But then, no one really does, no matter what they say.’ “

Izzy says her mother does, and I would say Ng has a very clear plan. Mia is right about her art, and maybe even Ng had to see what her plan produced and then reevaluate and adjust, but as a general rule of life this is at best only partly true. Mia herself seems to have a very detailed plan for her life. Her plan gets as diverted as Mrs R’s plan at the end of the novel.

P123 “Even then Mia had a sense of what she was starting; a hot smell pricked her nostrils, like the first wisp of smoke from a far-off blaze. She did not know if Bebe would get her baby back. All she knew was that the thought of someone else claiming her child was unbearable. How could these people, she thought, how could these people take a child from its mother? She told herself this all night and into the next morning... It wasn’t right. A mother should never have to give up her child.”

Not only do we get a fire here, but we get the same sense of right and wrong Mrs R and Izzy have. Everybody acts from the best of motives. And in the interest of maternal rights. 

I had missed, of course, the appropriateness of the caption of the photo in the museum, "Virgin and child." As far as we know, Mia is a virgin. Is there a Christian aspect to think about here? I hope not.

P162 Mrs R, Mia, and Izzy (and Bebe) are all driven by what they see as a desire for justice. And, except for Izzy, there’s also a shared, if conflicting, notion of maternal rights. But for Mrs R, Ng is clear this is only the “good” not the “real” reason. It’s really a personal aversion to Mia who she sees as not living by her rules -- and then taking her place with her kids, and it doesn’t help that that last is entirely Mrs R’s fault. Mia’s life is actually as carefully planned as Mrs R’s and her sense of justice is just as strong. 

And Mia’s mother loses her daughter just as determinedly as Mrs R does. 

Both Bebe and Izzy interpret Mia’s fairly generic words of wisdom in ways she never intended. And there wasn’t even the complication of translating from Aramaic.

Mia’s mother doesn’t understand her. Izzy’s mother doesn’t understand her. Likewise Paloma’s mother. Isn’t the surprising thing when parent and child are well suited? How often does that happen?

P302 Mia to Mrs R after she reveals she knows Mia’s story, “It terrifies you. That you missed out on something. That you gave up something you didn’t know you wanted... What was it? Was it a boy? Was it a vocation? Or was it a whole life?”

I really don’t see this. I admit it’s hard to argue with Mia since she seems to be the character Ng speaks through, but I think it is about the mother and daughter relationships more than anything else. I don’t see Mrs R really wanting any other life. She just doesn’t want her kids bonding with Mia.

And I think the final passage from Mrs R’s POV supports my interpretation. What she sees in her portrait is not quite what Mia hoped. Not her bursting out of her cage but her being the cage Izzy has burst out of. 

I’ve been thinking about Mrs M and her child and how likely that relationship is to be fraught. You can imagine them ending up like Mrs R and Izzy, only with cultural issues thrown in on top of everything else. The Nigerian girl raised by a not all that interested English couple (in a BBC feature I ran into) might actually have been better at giving the child her space. I can’t help imagining Mrs M as the world’s worst helicopter mom.

One of my online friends is driving her mother nuts by being trans male. It’s impossible to separate a person’s “true nature” from the family relationships that helped form their character, but one has to at least wonder if the desire to push buttons isn’t behind some “personal” decisions. Also, you have to wonder how different Izzy or Paloma would have been with a “Mia” as their mother. I certainly knew other parents I envied while growing up. But not enough to get a good sense of how their kids responded to them. Or at least I don't recall now. I believe they knew how fortunate they were, but I’m sure there would be exceptions.