Lin's work has always been autobiographical, to one degree or another, though most often it appears to be "strictly." This novel is about Li, a novelist in his early 30's, who goes to visit his parents in Taipei for longer stretches of time, in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017. These years are broken down into the four parts of the novel: Year of Mercury, Year of Pain, Year of Mountains, and Year of Unknown. The novel is a mixture of Li's visits with his parents, contrasted with his life in New York City in apartment 4K, which is somewhere around Chelsea, I think. His third novel has just been published and will soon be made into movie. He is separated from his wife and in the process of filing divorce papers. He stays with his parents for 10-12 weeks each year and "detoxifies." He practices celibacy for a prolonged period. He becomes a mediator between his parents, suggesting changes to their diet and medical regimens and attempting to bridge gaps in communication between them. He reads many books on fascinating subjects from esoteric sources. He pitches books, then later crafts and organizes them. He records a great deal of conversations with his parents, and transcribes them in this book. He wrestles with his relationship with his older brother and comes to understand him more deeply. He takes a good amount of LSD and ingests a good amount of cannabis and experiments with a variety of health foods and homeopathic cures. He spends time writing in Bobst Library. He tentatively, slowly enters a relationship, serving as a sort of climax for the novel. Finally it ends in Hawaii, on a rather mystical and perfect note, in accord with everything that came before it.
There is a lot to talk about in this novel but the starting point must necessarily be Li's parents (simply known as Li's Dad and Li's Mom). The relationship between the three of them is so beautifully rendered that I cannot help but feel this book should also be adapted into a film, albeit one that is more widely-seen. It would be like an edgier version of The Farewell, except about parents instead of a grandmother, and a small family that is more intimately portrayed. It would require an excellently-trained dog for the part of Dudu, who turns 10 near the novel's end. But perhaps it would be too simple and monotonous for film. Even though "Best Books" are supposedly perfect (and though Flying Houses "grades" are inconsistent, no books have gotten A+ for a reason: A+ is not given out, it is reserved for something truly extraordinary that has yet to come along), there are always weaknesses, and the only weaknesses in this book are the sections of dialogue that are nearly meaningless. Yet these may also refer back to his earlier work, serving as a type of homage, and so even what I discern as weakness may be a deeper device. For example, what I remember as the most tedious pages of the book are later referred to near the end of the book, in the process of revising that scene--"how do you know that I don't know the fish are happy?"
This is taken from Zuangzhi, which concerns a student of Laozi (whom I had known as Lao Tzu). There are several other Chinese proverbs and sayings, such as "it's easier to change a dynasty than a personality." (51) My traveling companion found that one amusing, as I read this book over the second half of a trip through Italy (context matters). Or later, in one of the several moments that made me laugh out loud:
"Putting down his phone, Li's dad said, 'Calm water flows deep,' quoting someone from Three Kingdoms. Loud, talkative people were shallow, like river rapids, he explained. Deep people were quiet and still.
'I've never met anyone who talks as much as you,' said Li's mom.
'I've never met anyone who talks as much as you,' said Li's mom.
'The saying doesn't apply to me,' said Li's dad.
Thin Uncle said a Chinese proverb--empty wheat stalks, those who 'don't know,' stand tall, while those heavy with knowledge bend in humility." (327)
There is humor, and a touching family story within it, but Leave Society is a novel of ideas, and that is ultimately what sets it apart from Lin's earlier books. Taipei certainly hinted at his growth as a novelist, showing that he could write more mainstream books if he wanted to, and though Leave Society is inherently suspicious of "the mainstream," it presents the material read by Li throughout the course of the book in an almost-professorial tone, imbuing those ideas with authority. Ultimately those are the most important sections of the book, in that they move Li out of malaise and general unhappiness into awe and appreciation for all of the mysterious elements of existence.
This is no longer an advance copy, and the promotional materials do not read DO NOT QUOTE (as they did for "Shoplifting from American Apparel") and this review could contain a multitude of excerpts (I've marked at least six that inspired awe), but we will need to cut those down to two. There should be a 3 excerpt limit on FH reviews (and 1 should no longer be a requirement). That said, they are allowed to be long, like say, the first two pages of "Thyroid":
"Four days later, twenty tabs of LSD arrived. On LSD at dinner, Li recorded himself telling his parents about the Younger Dryas, a period of time from 12,800 to 11,600 years ago that began and ended with global cataclysms, destroying, he'd read in books by Graham Hancock, at least one advanced civilization.
'People were as advanced as we were in the eighteenth century,' said Li, and smiled at his mom, holding eye contact with startling, slightly nervous confidence; on LSD, he could be garrulous and extroverted, sharing thoughts, looking at eyes.
He couldn't remember his mom's pre-surgery eyes. She'd looked perpetually surprised in Barcelona and Florida but had started to appear normal when he got to Taiwan for his current visit.
'The same as we were in like 1780,' he said, sounding somewhat accusatory, as, to his rhetorical detriment, he usually did when telling his parents paradigm-changing information.
'The same as we were in like 1780,' he said, sounding somewhat accusatory, as, to his rhetorical detriment, he usually did when telling his parents paradigm-changing information.
'Oh,' said Li's mom.
'They had ships and had mapped out the planet and were destroyed by pieces of a comet.'
'Whole world all destroyed,' said Li's mom.
'It hit mostly in North America, and there was almost no sunlight for a long time,' said Li, looking at his dad, who seemed preoccupied, eating and watching TV." (109-110)
Li later says his interests were [not diverse, but] "similar in terms of being examples of dominant models being wrong in ways that distorted and simplified and disenchanted reality," (111) and the concept of acceptance of the "dominator" model of society (as opposed to the partnership model) weaves its way throughout the course of the book. It is as if Li is attempting to remove all traces of "dominator" thinking from his psyche, and give rise to more feminine ways of thinking. There is fair mention of "Yahweh," a female deity (conceived and worshipped before before the masculine heavenly Father) that has mostly been lost to history (see When God Was a Woman). Li does not have perfect self-control but he consistently tries to broker peace between feuding parties and displace hierarchies.
Li also goes on a certain health kick with homeopathic cures and experiments with fermented foods. He reflects on their effects, which are sometimes beneficial (Thyro-Gold), sometimes counter-productive (i.e. cayenne pepper capsules for a headache); on the being & existence & ancient civilizations & spirituality front, he provides appropriate citation and support for his discoveries. For example, talking about MK Ultra has pretty much become code for anti-vaxxers at this point. (I do not want to reflect on whether Li would choose to be vaccinated or not). The government is corrupt and evil and is force-feeding us chemicals to keep us under control. Sometimes, we cannot even bear to hear a person talk about such matters. Our brain shuts off as a defense mechanism against its own washing. Yet when Li reports on Karen Wetmore's memoir Surviving Evil and her discovery "that the CIA seemed to have killed around 1,200 mental patients at Vermont State Hospital, mostly or all women, in three decades of terminal experiments," (155) it feels more believable. Situated in the appropriate context, and reported by the appropriate authority, incredible beliefs become acceptable.
Really, none of these "disagreements with the mainstream" are nefarious. It is simply a question of whether the Sphinx is 4,500 years old, or 12,000 years old. He does become rather derisive towards his dad for taking statins. These types of conjectures and beliefs are harmless, coming as they do from a person that clearly favors the partnership model, rather than the dominator. There is a huge emphasis on communing with nature. But before we get there, one other set of crazy facts:
"Tesla's funding from J.P. Morgan was cut off when, according to one source, Morgan learned that Tesla wanted to give free electricity to everyone. Tesla lived in hotels for the last four decades of his life. When he died in 1943, the FBI confiscated his papers and equipment.
Researching modern-day Teslas, Li found John Hutchison, a Canadian who began to experiment with electromagnetic radiation in 1951, when he was six. In 1979, on disability for agoraphobia, he discovered, while trying to replicate Tesla's work on wireless energy transmission, a set of phenomena that became known as the Hutchison Effect: using thirteen tons of equipment powered by a wall socket, he was able to levitate heavy objects, make metal rods wiggle and go transparent, heatlessly combust and melt metal, transmute elements, and create aurora-like clouds of light.
Hutchison gave around seven hundred demonstrations, including one for the U.S. Army in 1983. Videos of his effects--which seemed to be generated by electromagnetic interferometry, the interfering of beams and fields of photons, and which to Li seemed close to gravity control, time travel, and other potentially history-ending capabilities--were widespread online. In 1990, the Canadian government confiscated most of Hutchison's lab--millions of dollars' worth of electrostatic generators, Tesla coils, and other things he'd amassed from junkyards and military surplus stores.
Hundreds of people, Li read in the Hutchison biography Mindbending and other books, had worked on free energy, inventing Moray devices, Hendershot generators, N-machines, and other overunity systems, which, like mitochondria, generated more energy than they consumed, but none of the inventions had reached mass production. It seemed that four trillion dollars a year in gas, coal, oil, and nuclear power; a century of investments in pipelines, electric grids, and other leaky infrastructure; and the addiction of energy corporations to monthly payments had led to the suppression--or at least the significant slowing of the development and use--of free energy." (252-253)
This is one of the more unbelievable facts reported in Leave Society but it is not one I would dismiss outright without further investigation. The idea of Leaving Society could mean a lot of different things, but it seems to center around the idea of forgetting everything you think you know. It is a slight variation on the confrontational adage "everything you know is wrong;" it advises the reader/adherent to rethink their basic assumptions about the world, to journey inward and find one's own personal truth, along with a set of beliefs that allows one to be free, uninhibited, and attuned to the reverberations of the deeper reality beyond the bubble in which we while away our lives in the service of profit.
Society has constructed barriers between the individual and nature that have had the unfortunate effect of restricting our imaginations and compromising our bodies. And those barriers are, actually, physical--at the very least, Leave Society made me want to spend more time outdoors:
"At a waterfall at the bottom of Carp Mountain, Li learned of phytoncides (antimicrobial compounds given off by plants) and anions (molecules with extra electrons) from a dual-language sign calling them 'air vitamins crucial to mental and physical health.'
In his room that night, he read that forests, mountains, seashores, and waterfalls had tens of thousands of anions per cubic centimeter, countrysides had a thousand, city parks five hundred, city streets fifty, air-conditioned rooms zero to twenty-five, and that below a thousand impaired cognition and slowed physical recovery.
At dinner the next night, Li told his parents a Japanese study had found that cancer-killing lymphocytes and intracellular anticancer proteins showed increased activity for a week after trips to forests, or 'forest-bathing,' as it was called in Japan. The study was more evidence that the broken human-nature symbiosis caused cancer and other diseases.
'Then we should keep climbing mountains,' said Li's mom." (171-172)
There are other pleasures to be found in this book, such as a very sensitive and tentative romance in New York, and a climactic ending in Hawaii, but ultimately Leave Society is a book of ideas. It is, to be sure, a mechanistic method of autobiography: it is as though Li simply goes through his phone, checks the time-stamps on e-mails, and reconstructs his personal history over a period of roughly four years. The amount of material (given the details Li provides about the word counts in his rough drafts of each "Year") was staggering, and Lin has managed an impressive feat in whittling it down to the necessary elements: roughly, two parts intimate family story, one part history of ideas. The intimate family story is charming, sometimes tedious, and ultimately very moving--there is a sense of bittersweet sadness that comes with aging parents and the urge to create as many strong and lasting memories as we can, after moving beyond teenage angst and into adulthood, when we understand the sacrifices they made and the unconditional love they gave (if we are so lucky). It is the history of ideas, however, that will make me want to lend this book out to friends (never mind the fact that I have an unfortunate history of "friends" stealing books I lent them, including Eeeee Eee Eeee and "Shoplifting from American Apparel").
I recommend all of Tao Lin's books, with the caveat that everything before Taipei could be considered an "acquired taste." Taipei was excellent, and feels like a more traditional novel than Leave Society, but I would recommend this volume above them all. It encapsulates what makes Lin unique as a writer-- it pays homage to his earlier work, and builds upon that towards something greater and more universal. The book will provoke thought and discussion, and lead readers to discoveries never previously considered. It may make one rethink their cynicism towards alternative schools of thought. And it may open one up to observing this dazzling and magnificent world with awe, and living more gracefully within it.
Grade: A
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