A Review of Wendy Law-Yone's Coffin Tree and Irrawaddy Tango

[stephenhongsohn.livejournal.com]

 

Although Susan Koshy effectively critiqued the additive impulse accorded to the definition of the field in “The Fiction of Asian American Literature,” I approach my review for Wendy Law-Yone’s work precisely through the “additive impulse.”  Her two novels, The Coffin Tree and Irrawaddy Tango, have both been reprinted in wonderful editions by Northwestern University Press, a testament to their importance in academic circles for their pioneering representations of Burma/Myanmar in the fictional realm.  Although it has been some time since Law-Yone published both novels, she still stands as one of the few Burmese American authors to have gained a measure of recognition.  On this level, her presence is one of incredible responsibility as her work can become the window, especially for literary critics, into a culturally specific and representational model for Burmese politics and culture.

 

Law-Yone’s first novel, The Coffin Tree, explores the challenges accorded to two siblings when they are sent to the United States after being sent into exile due to a military coup in their home country, Burma.  The novel is narrated from the perspective of a young woman, where her brother Shan takes a largely, but nevertheless significant role.  The immigration to the United States is never easy, never full of as much promise as might be expected and to a certain extent in these book traumatic.  For the characters in The Coffin Tree (apparently the title refers to a kind of wood that is produced in Burma, the coffinwood), Burma is a land of chaos, but richness.  Coups, political strife, lush tropical jungles and hot weather abound, but when the father is involved in potentially incriminating political activity, the kids must be sent packing to the United States in 1969.  They are sent with $500 and a letter of introduction to a diplomat.  Once there, they discover that the diplomat is not as nice as he was supposed to be and that they would rather not call their father for help, who assumes that they will successfully be independent and who looms large as a figure for terror in their lives.  Thus, they begin an unsuccessful attempt at living the American Dream.  They live in ratty motels, eat days old rice, and generally fill their days with longing, desire, and the hope of one day living a better life.  Such dreams though are dashed because of Shan begins to succumb to a debilitating mental sickness.  The first portion of the book ends with Shan having a medical emergency, leaving us with the question:  will Shan survive?  Any cultural capital the young woman and her brother might have wielded is savagely stripped as they discover that one contact after another cannot help house them or provide them with significant or stable monetary subsistence.  Instead, the brother and sister work odd jobs, earning little, and starving. 

One climax point occurs when Shan dies, which catalyzes the sister’s nervous breakdown and movement into a mental institution.  The second portion of the novel explores the sister’s rehabilitation in a mental ward, providing a unique window into the complications arising from psychological treatment methods, which often seem ineffectual and in some cases even abusive.  The link made between the mental institution and the early experience in the United States as both characters struggled to find jobs is that both spaces are ultimately “forms of imprisonment.”  In this respect, the novel’s ultimate message is quite a sobering one in which the “Asian American” subject is structured not only as “stateless” in exile, but also “homeless” as well.  What is perhaps most chilling about The Coffin Tree is that the supposed healing undergone by the narrator does not really serve to evoke much more than a certain form of treatment sanctioned by certain proscribed psychological techniques.  One is immediately suspicious of whether or not the narrator has the capability to finally “move beyond,” the various traumas she has endured.  The Coffin Tree has already been the subject of critical inquiries by Rachel C. Lee (The Americas of Asian American Literature) and David Cowart (Trailing Clouds). 

 

Law-Yone’s second novel, Irrawaddy Tango, possesses an entirely different tonality and trajectory.  Whereas The Coffin Tree focused on its dramatic and tragic elements, the second novel is more picaresque in quality, even though the subject matter is clearly as grave, transnational, and cognizant of the complications of transnational mobilities.  The story follows the titular character as she grows up as a young child in the fictional Republic of Daya (a double for Burma), in what seems to be a relatively provincial and remote location.  Her love for art in its various forms leads her to take on tango dancing and provides her access to other locations throughout Daya, including its more cosmopolitan urban centers.  It is this pursuit that leads her into the arms of Daya’s future military dictator, the Supremo.  However, she will later be kidnapped by a rebel faction, and later even integrated into its movement after the Supremo fails to negotiate any terms for her release.  Due to her support for the rebel movement, she is later captured, and tortured (in an excruciatingly graphic chapter revealing various torture techniques).  Later rescued by an old acquaintance and taken to the United States in “exile,” the novel quickly becomes more episodic as Tango takes on a number of odd jobs, until the plot’s climax takes her back to Daya to be reunited with the Supremo.  The conclusion sees her enact a form of “revenge,” but chillingly, the novel leaves us with the sense that retribution offers little to address pain and trauma.  There is no answer and much like The Coffin Tree remains highly skeptical of the possibilities for “home” for the Burmese/American figure.  Like The Coffin Tree, Irrawaddy Tango has received critical interest, including enterprising articles by Leslie Bow and Cheng Lok Chua. 

 

What is the impulse to include a book within the Asian American literary tradition, Susan Koshy ultimately asked in “The Fiction of Asian American literature.”  In reading Law-Yone’s work, it certainly offers much to consider how representation and history are often inextricably recombined and emerge anew in fictional form.  What is interesting in both texts is how Burmese “transnational” is “racialized” in the United States context, where labor power becomes a site to exploit.  Both texts also offer much in a meditation of agency and resistance, two thematics that have mobilized numerous critiques of Asian American literature.  In both novels, there is a sense of the agency cannot be so easily acquired and that resistance is often met with violent opposition.  If such are the “realities” represented in fiction, then what possibilities does one have?  In this respect, both novels do not ever offer answers, only more questions. 

Buy the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Wendy+Law-Yone&x=0&y=0