The Incarnations
Susan Barker, 2014
Touchstone
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501106781
Summary
A Beijing taxi driver's past incarnations over one thousand years haunt him through searing letters sent by his mysterious soulmate.
"Who are you? you must be wondering. I am your soulmate, your old friend, and I have come back to this city of sixteen million in search of you."
So begins the first letter that falls into Wang’s lap as he flips down the visor in his taxi.
The letters that follow are filled with the stories of Wang’s previous lives—from escaping a marriage to a spirit bride, to being a slave on the run from Genghis Khan, to living as a fisherman during the Opium Wars, and being a teenager on the Red Guard during the cultural revolution—bound to his mysterious "soulmate," spanning one thousand years of betrayal and intrigue.
As the letters continue to appear seemingly out of thin air, Wang becomes convinced that someone is watching him—someone who claims to have known him for over one thousand years. And with each letter, Wang feels the watcher growing closer and closer…
Seamlessly weaving Chinese folklore, history, and literary classics, The Incarnations is a taut and gripping novel that sheds light on the cyclical nature of history as it hints that the past is never truly settled. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1978
• Raised—London, England, U.K.
• Education—B.A., Leeds University; Manchester University
• Currently—lives in the U.K.
Susan Barker is a British novelist, the daughter of an English father and Chinese-Malaysian mother. She grew up in East London, studied at Leeds University, and undertook the graduate writing program at Manchester University. She writes primarily about Asia, and spent several years living in Beijing while working on The Incarnations (2014). She now lives in the U.K.
Novels
♦ 2005 - Sayonara Bar, which Time called "a cocktail of astringent cultural observations, genres stirred and shaken, subplots served with a twist;
♦ 2008 - The Orientalist and the Ghost, longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize;
♦ 2014 - The Incarnations, a tale of a modern Beijing taxi driver who is pursued by his soulmate across a thousand years of Chinese history.
(Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/3/2016.)
Book Reviews
wildly ambitious…[Barker's] dazzling use of language and natural storytelling gifts shine from every paragraph. As with David Mitchell, whose books can similarly hopscotch through times and places, each episode stands alone as a terrific tale in itself. You can become so immersed in one story that you have to almost physically drag yourself away to commit to the next…Embedded in the large themes is an irresistible mystery…The truth is a satisfying surprise, and it makes us think differently about everything that has come before. There's a bonus, too—the answer to a different puzzle we didn't know existed. It brings the story full circle, in a way, and adds urgency to the notion that in order to live properly, you must understand where you come from.
Sarah Lyall - New York Times
[A]stonishing, amazing…. The book's clever central contrivance involves a series of mysterious letters that are left in Wang's taxicab…it's the small sagas of Chinese history contained in the letters, together with Barker's vivid descriptions of today's China, that set this book apart as a work of considerable, if unnerving, importance. Were I a teacher of Chinese history, I would argue that Barker's novel brilliantly illuminates some of the defining episodes in the nation's long, long story at least as vividly as any of the textbooks available in our school…The letters offer up five such episodes, running from the Tang dynasty to the modern era. Each is a tightly wound, intensely wrought, fantastically exciting novella, detailing the minutiae of imagined lives in the richly perfumed gardens of China's near endless past.
Simon Winchester - New York Times Book Review
[Barker] has smartly structured this intricate tale, and its mystery pulls us forward.... The novel gains in power and polish as it progresses.... Close to the end, I found myself stalling—prolonging suspense.
Boston Globe
Barker makes Wang and his city as vividly real—and disturbing—as any of the other versions of China. . . . One of the novel’s many structural pleasures is watching Barker slowly reveal the connections between Wang’s seemingly simple life and the other lives the letter writer reveals.
Columbus Dispatch
A dazzling tapestry of epic scope.... [An] ambitious, enthralling tale, a deft melding of past and present, myth and reality, longing and torment.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Highly successful as art and craft… The Incarnations uses its unique premise to combine a series of short stories based in history with a realistic account of a difficult modern life, for much more than the sum of the parts.
Albany Times Union
(Starred review.) [A] page-turning reincarnation fantasy. In modern-day Beijing, Driver Wang receives anonymous letters from a source claiming to have known him in five previous lifetimes.... Driving the narrative is the suspense over the identity of Wang’s stalker and whether the stories are indeed true. A very memorable read.
Publishers Weekly
[E]ngrossing.... Barker's writing is fluid, and the plotlines and characterizations found in her historical tales, while dark and sinister, are nonetheless intriguing. Misunderstandings abound throughout the novel to unravel the past that collides intensely with the present, ultimately leading to a disquieting finale. —Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA
Library Journal
Daring.... The novel’s shifts from the distant past to the present are seamless, and the bittersweet twist at the book’s finale will have readers searching back through the novel for clues to the ending.... Skillfully combines history, the supernatural and the everyday in a novel that suggests that the past is never really past, while providing a cracking good read.
BookPage
(Starred review.) Moving between Wang's many pasts...Barker's historical tour de force is simultaneously sweeping and precise. It would be easy for the novel to teeter into overwrought melodrama; instead, Barker's psychologically nuanced characters and sharp wit turn the bleakness and the gore into something seriously moving.... A deeply human masterpiece.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Consider Wang’s relationship with Yida. How have social and cultural constraints affected their union? For example, early on we learn that Yida, like many Chinese parents, had wanted a boy but Wang "had shamed her into keeping the baby" (their daughter, Echo; page 13). Are there other examples of how social norms or constraints have affected their relationship dynamic?
2. The chapters telling the stories of Wang’s past incarnations are written in the first person ("I") and the second person ("you"). How did this style affect your experience reading the story? Why do you think the author chose to frame these sections from this narrative perspective?
3. Wang initially views the histories as "folktales" (page 75). Do you think he eventually comes to believe that these stories are true representations of his past lives? Why or why not? Find moments in the text that support your answer.
4. Betrayal is a recurring theme throughout the novel. Is there any significance to who betrays whom as the two characters’ lives proceed together over hundreds of years? Do you think that their actions in one life affect the next life? Or does each life stand apart? Refer to passages in the text to support your answers.
5. Consider the notion of madness in the novel. Which characters are seen as mad, and why? How does this classification affect those characters in Chinese society—both in the present and in the past?
6. In the fourth letter, the writer declares, "We must rebel against fate. . . . Fate must be outwitted. It must no longer stand in our way" (page 117). What role does fate play in the story? Do you think the characters succeed in rebelling against fate in the last incarnation? Why or why not?
7. In the fifth letter, the writer notes that this "third biography has been more punishing than the others" (page 179). And after reading it, Wang is convinced he read the story at some point in his schooling since "the story had resonated so strongly in his memory" (page 215). All of the histories are graphic and brutal stories; why do you think this one (Ming Dynasty, 1542) is the most difficult for the writer to relive? Which of the five histories do you see as the darkest or most agonizing?
8. Towards the end of the novel, we learn that Shuxiang is the letter writer. How does this change your understanding of Wang and Shuxiang’s relationship as mother and son? Do you see her differently as a mother? Refer back to Wang’s memories of his mother, and compare them to Shuxiang’s own recollections.
9. In each of their incarnations, the two characters have complex and intense relationships with each other. After so much conflict and passion between them throughout the past thousand years, consider the significance of ending the novel with a mother and son relationship. Why do you think the author chose to end the novel on this note?
10. Consider Echo’s role throughout the novel, and at the end; the author brings the novel full circle, placing Echo into the same histories her father and grandmother lived. Despite her conviction that "The Watcher is mentally ill" (page 367), Echo begins to read the letters and stories of her past lives. As such a young child, how will Echo interpret these stories? Do you think Shuxiang was right to pass on her insight of previous incarnations to her granddaughter? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)