The Mundane After the World Has Ended

A Pomegranate Hive Recommended Read: Ling Ma’s “Severance”

Full Disclosure: this is a novel about the end of the world after a pandemic has ravaged our species across the globe. It’s a feverish disease that came from China and swiftly traveled the wold over after the failure of the multi-nations to: 1) take seriously, 2) take immediate action, and 3) take joint responsibility for the survival of mankind. Struck upon the nailhead much? Ling Ma had this published in 2018, so make what you will about that. I read this in early 2021.

Note: if you’ve lost someone within the pandemic, then perhaps this is a read too soon. We’ve lost eighteen people in our life thus far to covid19, and somehow this was a surreal (and much unintended, but much appreciated) escape from our own grief. This said, we all process and heal differently (years ago, I lost a family member to suicide and someone had recommended me a comedic book on a woman coming to terms with her sister’s suicide, and I had had a viscerally fury-fueled rejection of the novel. I’m now of the opinion that it is really a case by case situation dictated by emotional state and circumstance, so tread in a way most supportive of you!).

Candace Chen: The Mediocre Asian

The novel’s protagonist is Candace Chen. In a sentence, she is millennial, migrant, multi-tongued and forgetting, orphaned yet ghost company, seemingly detached in nature, and arguably stagnant. She lives in New York, works in publishing, and produces speciality bibles for a living. She commentates upon the “it” girl appeal of the art book department, yet she doesn’t make too much of an effort for transfer. In her past, she expressed herself through photography — a practice that came with a general waywardness she could afford because of the inheritance left behind by her parents. The bible production job came about from the brother of a much older man she was only casually fucking. Overall, there is a veneer of detachment and complacency permeating through her “mediocre” life.

This begs a dialogue upon the expectations set upon migrant children to achieve some sort of greatness. Despite her parents’ relentless drive toward the American Dream (whatever that means…spoken from another migrant child), her overt disregard for upward mobility begins to resemble an act of resistance. Her family had sacrificed community, culture, family, and familiarity along a plethora of other much-needed-yet-often-missing components for a happy and healthy life to bring her to the U.S. Yet, Candace settles for mediocrity. Ultimately, this is something we’re taught to be ashamed of, yet there is something incredibly sweet in this. Immigrant children are under an immense amount of pressure to achieve the American Dream, but with the prevalence of white mediocrity, wouldn’t the act of being able to be mediocre mean such a dream has been unlocked? That we’ve entered a state in which we’re allowed the same allowances to be something less than everything?

I’m Sorry, Did You Not Say This Was an “End of the World” Novel?

Yes! It is! We ramble.

The pandemic of the novel is called Shen Fever. When it strikes, the change is swift — the consciousness of host bodies corrode, moving them toward what we might call a “brain” death. People who have contracted the disease repeat, mechanically and without thought, the mundane daily tasks that they already performed when alive. The caveat is that, while motor function continues, their consciousness does not. In this way, they rot toward death. But…does death ever really arrive? They simply continue on, rotted, stinking, limbs falling apart, checking their phones, brushing their teeth, trudging toward work, drinking phantom cocktails, into the ether — the very end when their bodies can no longer.

There are, of course, survivors. Those who prove immune to the disease. Candace is one of them and, after the villain of lae stage capitalism has left most of us dead, the new villain, of course, is man. In this case, a delusional, spirited man who fancies himself the messiah of the future. Ripe with judeo-christian overtones and, therefore, critique, this single group of survivors, as we all could well imagine, falls apart. As folks are picked off, Candace is left with the crucial decision — will she stay or will she go?

On Detachment & Stagnation — Another Look at Candace

Earlier, I said that Candace “seemed” detached in nature and that she was “arguably” stagnant.Those are surface level judgments because, in truth, I think she is a complex character. She is invested in her life, and she is proactive in her circumstances. I believe it just reads differently as she tends toward a introverted exterior. We get most of her through her stream of conscious, then we have these outward actions that deny passivity. We have these internal engagements with the family she no longer has and these ruminations that speak of an intimate connection to culture that remains unpracticed in a world where, if we were honest, there is little space to engage those connections. Like many migrant children, I think those conversations are constantly happen, actively and also subconsciously, all the time, in our heads as we grapple with how we stand and operate as hyphenated citizens split between two worlds.

In Ending: Zombies Well Done

I didn’t mean to read about a pandemic amidst a pandemic. It just sort of happened. I had heard of the strength of Ling Ma’s prose, I had been in conversation about cover design and how the simplicity and near innocent nature of the pastel pink of hers performed wonders of counteracting a story both wild and critical. More, after a slew of afrofuturist novels, I was ready to enter into a different kind of universe.

There is always such a joyful satisfaction when engaging with an absurd novel that says so much about our world. When you hear zombies, and this is indeed a novel of zombies — the most believable kind; in fact, the kind that already, for better or worse, walk among us — you don’t think literary value or cultural critique. And yet, here we wonderfully are. The first chapter is a literal masterpiece — the prose, the pacing, the switch between the before and the now is beautifully controlled. It makes us imagine hours of labor, line by line, if she is in any way like us. Otherwise, if she came up with her prose at the snap of her fingers and minimal drafts, I’ll just go cry alone and ruminate on why-oh-why I am such a slow writer.

Pick up the book, support an indie bookstore, or keep your local library alive. Happy reading, hive minds, and beautiful day.

Mabuhay, I’m EA Garcia, and I’m a thriving eater of story. I reflect on all my reads across genres, forms, and categories. Since I only read BIPOC work and prioritize small, indie, and micro press work, you might find a new read! I also write on academia, publishing, & decolonization, ftw.

Feel free to recommend things in the comments below! I LOVE recs: particularly books, dramas, manga, & webtoons! Try to keep it BIPOC and marginalized ❤

Read about WHY I only read BIPOC folk, get a taste for my stance on decolonizing bookshelves, or look at some funky reviews of storywork!