Aaron Kunin
synopsis of The
Mandarin
The narrator, who is usually called Willy, writes boring novels that
put everyone to sleep; his sister Natasha reads one of the novels and falls
asleep, and her friends Mercy and Hallamore try to awaken
her without success.
The character called “the biology teacher” is never represented
directly, and sometimes acts as a mother or father for the other
characters. However, this character is
more precisely equivalent to the idea of “ka” in Egyptian mythology: a more
powerful version of yourself that you project in order to confuse your enemies.
The novel takes place primarily in places that no longer exist in
The novel is written almost entirely in dialogue. As a result, actions and events tend to occur
within a nimbus of uncertainty. However,
the novel does at least pretend to be an ordinary novel, which means that the
characters could always stop talking and start doing something. They don’t, of course, but this option is
always available to them.
Seeing you through this
window is like falling through a window
"Perhaps I am
mistaken," said Mercy. "I
really believe that if you want something, you can have it. But it isn't a question of wanting it, how
much you want it, or how often you think about it. Also, it isn't a question of personal
qualifications, credentials, merits; whether or not you deserve it--no. Nor is it a question of strategy. It's only a question of ASKING FOR IT."
"When I saw you," I
said, "you were standing where I'm standing now, by this window, bleeding
from the top of your head to your chin, shaking bits of glass and leaves out of
your hair, and you had on a green dress which I've never seen you wear since
then."
"Remember that dress,"
said Hallamore.
"She used to wear it all the time.
It must have gotten ripped up going out the window."
"I tore my dress," said
Mercy, "coming back through the same window. A mistake I could easily have avoided by
walking around the house and entering by the door."
"Some of us were wondering
how he could be so cruel," I said.
"Some of us were wondering what she had done to make him do that to
her. Hallamore
is gentleness itself, I heard someone say, why would he want to push his sister
through a second-floor window?"
"I thought it would be
amusing," said Hallamore. "I didn't mean to push her so hard. It was a mistake."
"I wanted her to look at
me," I said, "the way she looked at him when she emerged from the
window. And I could also see that this
was what she might look like when she got older."
"I felt as though I had just
returned to a place that I had known well as a child," said Mercy. "How often had I fallen out of that same
window? None of this was unfamiliar, and
yet none of it had lost its ability to surprise. Already I was on my feet again; already I was
extricating myself from the tree into which I had fallen too quickly to
determine which branches were unsafe and which were sturdy enough to support my
weight; already my hand was starting to swell--some of the fingers had gotten a
little mangled from being dragged over the windowsill in an effort to stop my
fall with no suede glove to protect them, because I had removed the glove, I
think, to check my watch."
"I didn't see it
happen," I said. "Suddenly she
was in the room, a woman with leaves in her hair, standing ragged and torn in
front of the broken window, apparently furious, looking as though the window
itself had stepped out of its frame and was slowly shattering in our
midst. I now believe that she was
standing absolutely still, but she seemed to be quivering because so much
detritus was falling away from her, pieces of glass and wood and paint from the
window--and blood was pouring down the magnificent stem of her neck."
"I stepped over the
sill," said Mercy, "shredding my favorite dress and knocking the rest
of the glass out of the frame, and it spilled over me, creating another
unbelievably awful cut in the side of my head, and I congratulated myself on my
self-possession. Too
soon!"
"They were married, and I
was bewildered," I said. "He
would not have treated his wife like that.
I didn't know him well enough to know that he had no wife; sometimes you
have to see the biology teacher to divine the actual relation between a brother
and sister, because nothing else connects them.
Now I ask myself how I could tell that they were connected at all, what
they shared that caused me to postulate, wrongly, that they were married. Is it possible that I entered into this
relation desiring to share in their existence?--No. Even then I knew it was closed to me."
"As I re-entered the room,
spitting glass," said Mercy, "I had a premonition of a mistake. I saw it coming but could not rouse myself to
avert it; I could see what shape it would have but did not know what it would
look like; I still do not know. I trusted
my brother to look after me, and he pushed me through a window, but that might
not have been a mistake;
that might have prevented the real mistake if only I hadn't returned. Is it possible that I
entered this room desiring to share in this existence?"
"She
approaches with one arm outstretched," I said, "not in a threatening
manner, but with a friendly look on her face, even turning her head up to show
off her smiling mouth which is a little like a slotted spoon, apparently intending
to shake his hand, but instead battering the side of his head with an umbrella
that has suddenly materialized in front of her, an umbrella that just a moment
ago didn't even appear to be anywhere near her, and as long as she's done it
once, she may as well do it repeatedly, until someone drags her away and pries
it out of her hands. I wanted to be one
of those people who held onto her arms and pulled her away, but felt that that
was not possible, it would not be right for me to take advantage of the
situation like that, although I was already taking advantage of it by enjoying
it from where I was standing; and I also knew that I was not strong enough,
that if I had put my hand on her shoulder she would have knocked me down, still
smiling faintly, as though brushing a stray hair from her jacket --which, to be
honest, I would not have minded especially and might even have enjoyed."
"My friends," said
Mercy. "I depended on them to
protect me, to help me to avoid mistakes and keep me from looking bad. They failed me every time. After a while the mistakes would be obvious
to me but by then it would be much too late to do anything to prevent them. My teachers were supposed to save me from
mistakes; instead they led me into mistakes.
Only Natasha kept me from mistakes."
"Her friends led her down
the back stairs and into the kitchen," I said. "I looked over at Hallamore
and thought that he was a glum-looking fellow.
That was the phrase that came to me; I imagined myself saying it to
someone, describing this scene, shaping it.
And then I imagined someone else using the same words to describe
me."
"What a mess, what a
disaster, what a failure!" said Mercy.
"What good was there in walking on two legs if it was going to come
to this? Down the stairs, legs! (How often I had fallen on these stairs! How little I understood about this
house! And how was I supposed to
understand all the things that went on in a house when I knew so little about
what went on in my own body? Everything
it did was a response to something in my mind--and what did I know about
that?) Onward, legs; down the stairs,
two at a time!"
"The most difficult thing
about going into a kitchen," said Hallamore, "is learning the system. No one else can explain it to you because
they are probably not aware of it; they developed it so that they would be able
to cook and eat in this environment without noticing one another (or the
environment)."
"No mistakes are possible
here," said Mercy. "When I look
back on it, I see that I did nothing wrong.
It's obvious to me now that my fall from the window was not a real fall;
it was only a confusion fall. The
confusion was not a mistake; its purpose was to keep me from being mistaken,
but unfortunately it prevented me from recognizing the mistake when it
happened. The mistake was you. Everyone else was looking after me;
everything else conspired to force me out.
You were my mistake, and you didn't mean anything to me; you were only a
piece of furniture to me, and you turned out to be radioactive."
"Everyone has a
system," said Hallamore. "Every house: a system. Anything is a system if you say it is."