Review: The Porcelain Moon , by Janie Chang
Morrow, 2023. 334 pp. $30
As the author says in her afterword, nearly 150,000 Chinese signed contracts to work in France during the First World War, performing the menial, often deadly tasks white workers hated. They loaded supplies, chopped wood, dug new trenches, cleared old ones of corpses and wreckage, and, once armies moved on from a given area, cleared rubble.
This moving, important story has gone largely unnoticed in histories by Western authors, and The Porcelain Moon is the first novel I know of to deal with it. I’m glad to learn more about this chapter of history, which, to me, is far more compelling than the two predictable, superficial romances that dominate the narrative. But I don’t blame Chang for emphasizing those; that she had to, or felt she did, only saddens me.
However, I don’t like it when reviewers talk about the book I should have written, so, with apologies for my digression, I’ll address the one Chang actually wrote.
Ernest Brooks’s photo of Chinese Labour Corps workers loading oats at Boulogne, August 1917 (courtesy Imperial War Museum via Wikimedia Commons; public domain)
As the Great War winds down in autumn 1918, Pauline Deng, a Chinese woman who lives in Paris and works for an antiquary, hopes to stay there rather than be sent back to Shanghai and an arranged marriage. Since she’s an orphan and illegitimate, she has no leverage. But Pauline believes that her cousin, Theo, destined to inherit the antique shop from her uncle, will argue on her behalf and convince him to disregard familial duty, as tradition would call it.
The odds on this are akin to filling an inside straight in five-card stud. But for some reason, Pauline bets all her chips on this hand, even though Theo’s working for the British Army as an interpreter in their dealings with Chinese laborers and is therefore hard to reach.
Meanwhile, Camille Roussel, who lives in a town near the encampment where Theo works, suffers from an abusive husband, Jean-Paul, from whom she’s plotting to escape. She’s also having an affair he doesn’t know about—yet.
You can guess that the two women will cross paths, and, if you follow the trail of breadcrumbs like Hansel and Gretel, you’ll figure out a lot more before it happens. There are secrets, but they hide in plain sight, and just when you think the author has risked punishing her characters, she winds up rescuing them after all.
Chang does have a vivid pen, though, and in the main, I like her portrayal of wartime France. (The sole exception, on which a plot point hinges, is the emphasis on air raids, which played only a small, intermittent role in the countryside.) But overall, Chang re-creates Paris credibly and with vividness, as she does the labor encampment:
A team of laborers unloaded a railcar filled with petrol, tossing the heavy metal cans from one man to another, a human chain from railcar to truck. They chanted in rhythm, never missing a toss. . . . Despite the chill November air, some of the men had doffed jackets and tunic shirts. Bare chests and muscled shoulders gleamed with sweat, and the motion of bodies ceased only when a ganger pounded against the side of the truck to signal the driver that it was full.
I also like the substance of Theo’s letters to Pauline, most of which deal with what he sees of the war. The tone, which sometimes slides into essay, is another matter; I gather that Chang wants to set the record straight, and earnestness takes its toll. Like many novelists, she’s a more persuasive writer when she does less. She knows how to set a scene, which enacts what she needs to say—but instead of moving on, Chang explains what just happened, sometimes twice, as if she’s afraid we won’t get it. Nevertheless, I wish I could have seen Theo’s descriptions unfold in real time; what powerful stuff.
By contrast, Camille’s narrative leaves me cold, and so does Pauline’s, except when the story revolves around familial traditions and taboos, which fall beyond the everyday, tried-and-not-so-true clichés common to many novels. Here, though, it’s not just what happens (or doesn’t) but how thin the characterizations feel.
Camille, for one, is supposed to be innocent to the point of masochism, which would explain Jean-Paul’s grip on her, yet she’s somehow capable of plotting her escape with cool attention to detail and without a twinge of guilt. Doesn’t add up for me.
Speaking of Jean-Paul, not one man in this novel has more than a single, dominant trait, and you know who’s good and who’s not right away. Jean-Paul is not only thoroughly despicable, you don’t see him struggle with anything, don’t know what his impulses are. His irrational, mercurial moods scare the daylights out of Camille, which causes tension. But there’d be more if he were even the slightest bit complex, and his pure villainy wouldn’t feel like a device after a while.
What, then, are these flat characters doing propped up against a compelling background? I’m guessing that author and publisher suppose that relatively few readers–as in not enough to make a bestseller–would pick up a painful, tragic story of racism, exploitation, and heroism in an ugly, death-ridden landscape unless there’s something to sugarcoat it. That pains me, not least because I suspect that author and publisher are correct to assume that.
Disclaimer : I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.
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