what's good : ghosts
Solid reasons for encouraging haunting
I’m starting with the saltiest of the references to ghosts here. The movie & poem I’ll be sharing are emotionally heavier [this is your Crying Warning] and I feel like it might be better to begin with humor, to build up your defenses. Scroll down if you’d rather tackle the sorrows first then come back here to shake off the anguish.
In books: I stumbled across R. F. Kuang’s Yellowface in our library a few weeks ago when its bright [yellow, of course] cover caught my attention on the Lucky Day shelf. It did indeed feel like my lucky day each morning when I sat down to read; I don’t think I’ve gladly gotten out of bed early since the last time we went to Disneyland. Kuang has crafted an immediately enticing story about two young authors - June Hayward & Athena Liu - former Harvard classmates and tenuous friends. Kuang uses the [white] less successful woman, June, as first-person narrator, instantly setting up a skewed and increasingly concerning point of view. Athena, a Chinese American ‘literary darling’, literally chokes to death in the first few pages, leaving June, who was present, aghast. In her shock, she wanders the other woman’s apartment and finds a nearly complete manuscript about the history of Chinese laborers in WWI. We know her thoughts as she looks over the work, touches Athena’s handwritten notes. We are not surprised as June slips it all into her bag to take home.
Of course we the good readers are horrified, even as June assures us she only wants to peruse the work, see if she can glean some of Athena’s process. We watch as she edits and revises, completes her own research to fill in blanks and expand information; we start to wonder if it really is plagiarism this way. (Spoiler: Definitely yes). Credit Kuang with making us doubt our sensibility - and morality - for a minute with this observant, droll, and sometimes sympathetic narrator.1 Then she finds a publisher who receives it with fawning praise, though they suggest she use a pseudonym. Maybe one that sounds less white? June agrees to use her full first name Juniper plus hippie parent-inspired middle name Song. The book immediately draws anticipation and immense fanfare across the literary world, and Kuang amplifies her already biting satire of not just the publishing industry but the unsettling tendency to exotify Asian cultures. We (the good readers) are conflicted by the implication that this could make people assume the author is Asian: Are we stereotyping based on a name? Is that the author or publishers’ fault, or ours? This is an underlying haunting element of another kind in the book. (If you’d like more details about the plot, check out this NPR review).
We watch June/Juniper’s life blossom then wither over the course of a couple years, punctuated by visions of Athena’s ghost that culminate in a particularly clever, if exceedingly grim, encounter at the end of the novel.
I’m a fan of horror movies and scary stories, though I want them to put a twist on fright, give me something to consider beyond What to do if a murderer is in my house and Being chased is inherently terrifying. Like, Did I do/not do something to attract/repel a ghost/killer/demon? Am I complicit in the terror? What if I stop running away? With Yellowface, Kuang addresses those questions - not just about Athena’s ghost but also the specter of racism in publishing + everyday life in America - but never quite answers them. And that is the scariest part.
In movies: The “If you only see one movie this year…!” type of recommendation always feels overblown to me, especially since even people on tight budgets hopefully have friends who will pay their way to a matinee or share a streaming password2 or at least invite them to their house more than one time in 3653 days to watch something. However, lonely writer Adam in All of Us Strangers might be one of those guys so I’ll say it, in case you happen to be like him: See this movie if you can only choose one in 2024.
Admittedly, I knew almost nothing about this film except that Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal were in it and that is all that mattered to me. BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD ACTORS.4 Anyway, the story is based on a novel by Taichi Yamada called Strangers, about a Japanese scriptwriter who concurrently begins a forlorn affair and discovers a couple who seem exactly like his parents, who died when he was a child. For his movie version, director Andrew Haigh recast the characters to reflect his experiences as a gay man growing up in 1980s England; in fact, he used his own childhood home as the set for Adam’s meetings with his dead parents. I’ve yet to read the novel (requested from my library) or see the other adaptation so can only speak to the effects of this interpretation. Which, briefly and simply, were beautifully devastating.
Essentially, the acting is so gorgeous I cannot do it justice by talking about it; when you watch, you’ll know. I fully believed everyone onscreen was a real person in the world, and I cared deeply about how they were getting along, in life + after. Claire Foy and Jamie Bell as Adam’s ghost parents from 1987 are perfection in the way they capture the adult nuances of the decade as well as how they interact with their now-adult - and out homosexual - son, even though they only knew him up to age 12. Nothing5 feels manipulative, though with this cast and the gentle, unhurried storytelling, I would have readily welcomed any pandering.
I can say no more about this movie other than you need to bring many tissues. I didn’t and had to keep myself from weeping as openly & profusely as I wanted to, thus inducing that kind of throbbing headache that comes from trying not to cry. So I’ll be watching again someday for full unleashed sobbing. In the meantime, I’ll be listening to this song6 in a completely different way [while crying].
In poetry: Continuing on the theme of stumbling upon great things, I discovered this poem when I decided on this week’s connecting topic. It is startlingly ideal for reflecting on ghosts, what they want/need/get. Dunn mentions “Those other ghosts, wronged” like Athena Liu in Yellowface, but really he wants to focus on the ones who are content with their state of intangibility, at ease with letting you live on in the corporeal world. Adam’s parents in All of Us Strangers are this way, inviting their grown boy in to chat about his life and provide comfort, without dwelling on the life they lost. There is a hint of the macabre - “their vaguely palpable bodies/touch you like a strange wind/looking for a place to rest” - yet even that image offers a loving care & sensuality as they “offer you assurances of dawn”.
I invite you to revisit this poem7 after you watch All of Us Strangers, though it will likely lead to renewed tears so be prepared.
Sleeping With Ghosts by Stephen Dunn The ghosts who’ve resided for years in those perfectly made beds in houses you visit overnight were once just guests like you or true inhabitants who died quietly, almost happy, with the lights out. They are the ghosts who let you sleep, who speak, if they speak at all, into the ear closest to the pillow offer you assurances of dawn while their vaguely palpable bodies touch you like a strange wind looking for a place to rest beneath the covers. Those other ghosts, wronged And forever in league with wrong, so much has been said about them. But the ghosts who sleep with you and let you sleep are the ones you might have invited to your bed had you known them proper in time. They might have believed in the future even then, and would have let you leave them easily, knowing somehow it would come to this, you one day drifting toward them, without fear, in a world wholly theirs.
…whom I kept picturing as Anna Kendrick, with her wicked smart bitchy style, then suddenly on page 207 I was validated.
Disclaimer: I am not advocating for theft of any services.
But, hypothetical shoutout to hypothetical friends & family who might do this.
366 this year!
Okay also very handsome/sexy, but Mescal is only 2 years older than my actual son so we’re going to stop talking about this.
Maybe the frequent playing of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Power of Love” throughout but even that was necessary & meaningful in its poignancy, especially at the end.
The ‘80s fever dream of a video ought to help lessen some of the movie’s heartache, however.