After China ... finally!

At last, I've finished my re-reading of Brian Castro's novel.  God, it's hard work (which the author intended it should be, apparently).  I mean it's hard work in a less praiseworthy or meritorious way than I imagine BC would have hoped for.  Although I've revised upwards my initial (lack of) regard for After China I'm afraid I remain mostly underwhelmed.

I get that it's metafiction.  I understand the use of metaphor and (maybe) allegory.  I see the Cartesian dualism, the structural antagonisms of Yin and Yang, the dichotomous tensions between the male and female, the Freudian self-reflection and self-deception.  I get the collapse of the building as the collapse of self (as clunky as that metaphor sadly is).  I see Ovid in the text.  I can't avoid the much too frequent, progressively more tedious invocation of Kafka.  I am prepared to go with the 'jump cut' sophistication (which is not a compliment) of fragmentation of time, place and narrative arc.  I'm bouncing along with the multiplicity of narrative voices - who is I, who is you, who is he or who is she? - which may ultimately be the same voice.  I recognise the references to Scheherazade and the storytelling / life-prolonging intention / technique of The One Thousand and One Nights and, of course we know that when the architect has run out of tales to tell the writer must die and drift away on an Chinese wedding cabinet floating in the flooded bowels of the disintegrating hotel.  I was even prepared to follow the novel's anti-hero down into the depths of the plumbing and sewage system, wade through shite with him then witness his release / re-birth as the sewage outlet washed him out to sea.

It's cleverly constructed.  I'll concede it's better written than I first asserted; in parts it's rather beautifully written and lyrical.  Ultimately though, it's simply not rewarding enough; not worth the effort.  It lacks heart and soul and more than once teeters on the edge of narcissistic cliche before collapsing into preposterous and self-serving introspection.  By that, I mean it truly is wanky in places.

Not my favourite read ever.  But I am pleased I've read it twice now.  I know more than I did at the outset and that can't be bad.

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