There was no plan. Life is not that organized. The world is round. Things sometimes just happen.Stranger by David Bergen is a deceptively simple kind of novel – if you read the book flap or the Goodreads synopsis, you'll learn the whole plot – but despite not finding many surprises (except for sudden acts of violence or kindness) as I was reading, it was the overall tone that I thought was this book's strength (and in a way, also what makes me hesitant in my judgment in hindsight). What's for certain is that this book is lingering in my mind, and that's always a good thing.
Beginning in the Guatemalan highlands, Stranger is told from the perspective of a young woman, Íso, who works as a “helper” at a fertility clinic while studying English Literature and saving to go to med school; you would be wrong to underestimate Íso. Right away there's a class distinction drawn between those wealthy white American women who come to “take the waters” and the local brown girls who excel at becoming invisible attendants; too insignificant for the clients to even consider modesty around as they allow the helpers to undress, bathe, and full-body massage them. In addition to the clients, the clinic is staffed by foreign doctors who look down on the locals while acting as great white saviours (but remember this is a for-profit clinic of questionable alternative medicine; hardly Doctors Without Borders). When the handsome Dr. Mann steals Íso's heart (despite warnings from her friends and family, Íso believes herself too smart and aware to be treated as a trifle), events are set in motion that will see Íso embark on a dangerous journey: crossing illegally into first Mexico and then the US, Íso navigates an altered America in which the rich have barricaded themselves further against the riffraff (hey, if you can't build an impenetrable wall at the southern border, why not build those walls around your individual neighbourhoods?) while the poor majority riots in the streets.
That's pretty much the plot, but as I began with, it's the tone that worked the best for me – and for the most curious of reasons. Now, I'm not someone who would ever warn another to “check your privilege” or gang up on an “ally” of (insert identity group) for misguidedly “white-knighting” during a conversation in which members of (the identity group) could very well speak for themselves (however I am fascinated by these confrontations and will read incredibly long comment threads to see how they play out), but I have long felt uncomfortable reading books written from the perspective of one gender when the author is of the opposite (and for the purpose of my generalised complaint I'm going full binary on gender; and note that I don't tend to buy women writing as men any more than I tend to believe men writing as women). When you add on the fact that Bergen is an older white man from Canada writing from the perspective of a young Guatemalan woman, something about this doesn't feel like his story to tell; there's an ironic overtone to the well-intentioned white man writing about the well-intentioned white man who went to Guatemala and messed everything up. And yet...I bought into Íso and her perspective. Using abrupt, clipped sentences (as in my opening quote), Bergen somehow keeps the narrative gender-neutral and matter-of-fact and this propels the plot without hitting any false notes.
As for the clipped sentences: some review (that I can't now find) said that a mark of Bergen's genius is that you'll find nary an adverb in his writing (and I'll need to think further on the truth of that). Maclean's refers to the spare writing in Stranger as “gorgeous lyricism” and The Globe and Mail says of Bergen, “He’s known for his clean prose and wonderful, startling observations, and this book has perfect pitch”, and I won't argue with that. There are a few passages that did approach the lyrical, and while the following long chunk (which, be warned, contains my only real spoiler) might have annoyed me in principle (as the experience of giving birth is not a man's story to tell), it was real enough to make me nod and think, “Yeah, there's truth in that”.
Íso closed her eyes. She breathed quickly and then slowly, depending on her state. She saw herself as floating on water, and then she became the water and the water became her. She went under, and she rose to the surface, and again she went under. And each time she went under, she went a little deeper, so that when she looked up at the surface of the water she made out vague shapes, and dim lights, and she heard as if from a great distance her mother's voice singing. She was no longer afraid. She was quite peaceful. The final time she went under she went very deep, and as she rose she saw the surface shimmering above her, but it was quite a distance, and she was losing oxygen, and just as she felt that her lungs were finished, she broke through the surface and gasped for air and the baby was born. She did not see the baby being born, of course, but she knew, because as she sucked for air she felt an extreme euphoria, and she heard Francisca say the word bueno, and she heard the women's voices rise and fall in happiness, and in that moment she believed she had done something that no one else had ever done before, and she was amazed at herself.It is eventually revealed that Íso's full name is “Paraiso Perdido”, which translates as “Paradise Lost” (in an interview with the CBC, Bergen says, “whose paradise lost I guess is the question”), and in tandem with the American doctor's surname being Mann (and everyone is always warning Íso that men can't be trusted), I assume these names signal that the story was meant to be read as allegorical. If it's a geopolitical allegory, then maybe that Maclean's review is correct in thinking it's simply a rebuke of the US and how, “American interference has ravaged Guatemalan society while hostile U.S. immigration policies have hindered Guatemalan people from finding refuge there.” (But that seems a little too on-the-nose and smugly progressive-Canadian.) And it could be read as an allegory of the widening gulf between the rich and poor in America (but I found it to be a little over-the-top that the rich are greedily hoarding what they have – with razorwire-topped walls and paying their undocumented help so little that they must sleep under bridges and in squats – while the poor are eager at every turn to help Íso and share what little they have). Or it could just be an allegory of the continuing power differential between men and women, and especially as it concerns fertility and reproduction. It's probably some combination of all of these ideas; the fact that this book makes me think on all these ideas argues for its importance.
So after being startled by the clipped, spare prose, and having this ironic discomfort of being aware of the white foreigner commenting on meddlesome white foreigners – further complicated for me personally by the gender switch and the second half of the book serving as a commentary on American social wars as written by a Canadian; was this really Bergen's story to tell? – I liked Stranger more than I would have expected. I have no idea how it will stack up against the other titles on the Giller Prize longlist (I won't have read many of them before it's reduced to a shortlist next week), and it feels like a rounding-up to give four stars.
The 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlist:
Mona Awad : 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
Gary Barwin : Yiddish for Pirates
Andrew Battershill : Pillow
David Bergen : Stranger
Emma Donoghue : The Wonder
Catherine Leroux : The Party Wall
Kathy Page : The Two of Us
Susan Perly : Death Valley
Kerry Lee Powell : Willem De Kooning's Paintbrush
Steven Price : By Gaslight
Madeleine Thien : Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Zoe Whittall : The Best Kind of People
*Won by Madeleine Thien for Do Not Say We Have Nothing. Not really a surprise, but this is how I ranked the shortlist, entirely according to my own enjoyment level with the reading experience:
Gary Barwin : Yiddish for Pirates
Catherine Leroux : The Party Wall
Madeleine Thien : Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Mona Awad : 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
Emma Donoghue : The Wonder
Zoe Whittall : The Best Kind of People