Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng: A review

(Note to readers: Celebrating the holidays has put me behind in reviewing the books I've read recently, so until I catch up, my reviews may be a bit more truncated than usual.)

Celeste Ng's latest is a cautionary tale for our times. She describes a time in America when the government has passed and signed into law the Preserving American Culture and Traditions (PACT) Act. The act allegedly is meant to "protect" American values from the influence of foreign entities, especially China. But what it really does is provide a framework and an excuse for institutionalized racism and violence against minorities. Many books are banned and internet searches for cultural and historical subjects are blocked. Children are being taken away from parents who are deemed "bad influences" and people who dare to question anything about the act are being arrested.

The protagonist through whose eyes we see and experience all of these events is a twelve-year-old boy named Bird. Bird lives in a dorm at Harvard with his father, a former professor turned librarian at the university. His mother, a Chinese-American poet, had abandoned the family three years earlier because her poetry was considered subversive and her vocal opposition to the government put them in danger. Bird dreams of finding her.

Bird finds a clue that leads him to believe that his mother is in New York City and he heads out, on his own, to try to locate her. In NYC, he encounters a rich heiress who had known his mother when they were both penniless and we learn of a secret society of librarians whose goal is to help reconnect children with their birth parents after they have been forced apart.

Ng's description of this dystopian America is certainly enough to give anyone pause, but in the end, the whole thing felt a bit one-dimensional to me. The characters never really "grabbed" me and I wasn't able to identify with them and feel involved in their story. In short, Our Missing Hearts, while certainly not a bad book, seemed to me to be missing a bit of heart.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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