Ling Ma’s Surreal Subversions – Fox News

Ling Ma’s Surreal Stories in “Bliss Montage,” show women who are insouciant and detached, mainly Chinese American, making questionable decisions.

BLISS MONTAGE Stories by Ling Ma

Jeanine Basinger, a film historian, observed something unusual in early Hollywood films about women in 1993’s “A Woman’s View”. She noted that the sequences featured “the protagonist in her marginal territories of joy”. The elegantly dressed lead lady would smile over dinner, laugh, walk in the park, or dance into the morning.

Basinger explained that these were “a woman’s short piece of the action”, which was “a rapid and brief passage time in which she can be happy.”

fleeting interest instead of endurance

It signaled the film’s fleeting interest instead of her endurance through social terrors (heartbreak, marriage, birth, motherhood, etc. Basinger called this sequence “the Happy Interlude” or the Bliss Montage.

Ling Ma’s “Bliss Montage”, which she created, is a bizarre subversion of the trope. These stories have women at the center. They wander languorously around the world, watching and operating with cool detachment.

Their questionable choices, such as stalking an ex-lover and having sex in a Yeti, and living with 100 ex-boyfriends, fuel the stories and increase their stakes.

These eight tales are the return of an author whose original novel, “Severance”, proclaimed her to be a writer worth following.

The post-apocalyptic office novel, published in 2018, follows Candace Chen (a listless, but well-trained, production coordinator at a specialty Bible publishing house) during the spread of a virus.

Shen Fever, a virus that makes the infected zombies, quickly shuts down the globe. But Candace is unaffected by the panic and continues to follow her routines.

“Severance” starts as a humorous take on modern office life. But its power lies in Ma’s narrative dexterity. Candance leaves the city to join a group of survivors, an odd assortment, who promise her salvation.

Without interrupting the arduous, compulsive pace of the crew’s journey toward a mysterious location called the Facility, meditations on religion, capitalism, and immigration are common.

The novel received rare appreciation

The novel received rare appreciation from critics, including this one, who praised its thoughtful writing, humor, and sharp observations.

“Bliss Montage”, an assured follow-up and a striking collection that specializes in the surreal and uncanny, is a charming collection, but it lacks the “Severance”s zest. Ling Ma’s Surreal  Some stories are bold in their strangeness, and ambiguity and some feel like promising sketches for stronger narratives. Ling Ma’s Surreal The rest of the stories fall somewhere in between.

They are connected by the same leads, insouciant Chinese American women who process their isolation and disconnection. Their behavior echoes Marie NDiaye’s French novelist “All My Friends”, a hypnotic collection of eccentricity and illusions.

Two estranged friends, “G”, the strongest story in the collection

Two estranged friends, “G”, the strongest story in the collection, spend a drug-fueled night together to relive their youth. G is a powerful drug that can make its users ghostly.

The story moves seamlessly between the present and the past, emphasizing the appeal, but ultimately the fallacy, friendships built solely on shared identity markers.

Bea, a Chinese American, and Bonnie started their relationship in survival mode but continued it out of obligation. Ling Ma’s Surreal Bea, the story’s author, says that Bonnie was her first love. All it takes to feel at home is someone’s gaze. Although it is true that I felt watched, it’s not entirely accurate to say so.

Her interest actualized me

It was more than that. I was taught how to be myself by her. “Her interest actualized me.” As their intimacy blossoms, the toxic undertones and mercurial undertones of this matter-of-fact observation surface.

There is seductive confidence in G’s inscrutability, and deceitfulness. Ma provides enough detail to keep the story afloat before adding in some disturbing twists.

M.F.A

Similar energy is felt in “Office Hours,” Peking Duck, and Tomorrow stories where she blurs reality from fantasy. The most interesting structurally is “Peking Duck”, where Ma considers and reconsiders authorial ethics. An American young woman from China writes a story to her M.F.A.

Workshop about a time she saw as a child when her mother’s boundaries had been violated. Her mother recalls it differently. The conversation at dinner turns into a hilarious and bitter exchange, with the mother accusing her daughter of being weak due to too much time in America.

Samanta Schweblin and Helen Oyeyemi

Ma’s imagination is as chimerical as that of Samanta Schweblin and Helen Oyeyemi. This is evident in the wry and bizarre stories “Los Angeles” (and “Yeti lovemaking”), which are both humorous and odd.

Each story reveals Ma’s phantasmagoric interest by leaning unselfconsciously into the speculative. They’re also funny.

The narrator of Los Angeles says, “My 100 ex-boyfriends (and I) hang out every day.” “On the Husband’s credit card: 101 Umami Burger burgers, 101 tickets to LACMA, 101 Moon Juice golden kinds of milk, and 101 tickets to Moon Juice.

The narrator of “Yeti Lovemaking

“The narrator of “Yeti Lovemaking” explains that “you don’t call it making it love because it’s not the same.” It is not possible to give you the name, but I can tell you what it is. I laughed more than once to get the reader to where she needed to go.

Ma’s stories are a reminder of the possibilities that exist, despite their imperfections. They are unpredictable and twist in unexpected ways. I didn’t regret getting on board, but it was always fun.

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