Oh No, I Have a Napkin

Reaching backward in time, you discover who you are. Stumbling forward in time, you discover who you are becoming.

I enjoyed the beautiful literary novel Exhibit, by R.O. Kwon. The protagonist, Jin, is a Korean American art photographer. The story of Jin’s life is interwoven with an ancient Korean tale, half legacy and half curse, that she sometimes treats reverently and sometimes doubts the importance of. The ancient tale is lovely, constantly changing, mythopoetic, interesting in its own right.

The main tale is about Jin’s love life, as well as her artistic life as a photographer. She and her husband, Philip, are in an ongoing disagreement about whether to have kids when she meets a female ballet dancer who is injured, Lidija. Check out the expert dialogue writing in this exchange between Jin and Lidija, on the night they meet at a party:

“‘Philip hoped to talk, here, tonight. It’d help, he thought, being high.’
“‘Will it help?’
“‘It’s possible,’ I said. ‘But he fell asleep.’
“‘Should you get him up?’
“‘He’s had a tiring month.’
“‘It sounds as if you had a hard month, too, though.’
“I didn’t say anything.
“‘Oh no,’ Lidija said. ‘I have a napkin, Jin, take it. I’ll shut up.'”

Kwon allows so much space in this passage for reading between the lines. Jin never says she isn’t eager to talk to Philip. It’s implied when she mentions his “tiring month,” which seems like an excuse if I ever heard one.

Also, Lidija never says she is concerned about Jin. It’s implied when she says Jin has had a hard month.

And then, most expertly of all, Kwon never writes a thing about Jin starting to cry. But Jin most certainly does. It’s implied when Lidija says “Oh no,” offers Jin her napkin, and says she will stop talking.

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So lovely. And it’s fun to read between the lines. There are many passages like this in the novel.

This novel is also interesting in its sincere and plain portrayal of BDSM. This topic is the source of another disagreement between Jin and Philip; she’s into it, he’s not. Kwon seems to saying in this book that sadomasochism shouldn’t be a dirty word (as long as there’s consent and safety).

In Exhibit, Jin examines the stories and structures of her past. As she stumbles along, never knowing what move she should make until she makes it, she accidentally creates a future she can inhabit as herself.

What structures and stories live in your past? Are you stumbling, accidentally, into a new, self-inhabited future?