Book: River Town (Peter Hessler)

I bought this book to read on my China trip upon the suggestion of a friend. It's been a month or so since I finished reading it now, so I have lost some of the details of the book but on a high-level the book is a travel log of Hessler's experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fuling China in the 1990s. He describes the physical surroundings of the city, the inhabitants, and his interactions with both. I would say the following 3 things about the read: 1) Hessler has moments of great descriptive writing, 2) Hessler provides interesting insight into what it's like to be an American abroad, 3) Hessler was young when he wrote this travel log which is reflected in some of his commentary.

1)I often appreciated Hessler's language in River Town. I especially liked his descriptions of the rural landscapes of the Chinese river towns:

"And this particular moment -- today's ripening corn and growing rice--this may very well be the most beautiful day of the most beautiful season. Next month the corn will be harvested, and after that the rice will turn a drab pale yellow, but today any change seems far away... Standing here in the country side it is easy to forget that everything is growing, shifting, changing; and it is easy to forget that this moment won't last. It's like waiting for rain without worrying."

"The sky darkened and then suddenly flared white, as if somebody had scratched an enormous match against the quick-moving clouds...Soon the rain brought a mist over the rivers, until at last the Yangtze was invisible and the Wu was only a flat streak of gray that blended smoothly into the unknown horizon."

Even in his more elaborate descriptions, Hessler tends to write with an economy of words. His style is direct and somewhat terse, preferring short, simple sentences. However, I can't say that I'm always a fan of the way he wraps up a paragraph with his last sentences; I find them to be a forced and trite at times. But mostly I appreciate his full descriptions and direct, journalistic style of communication.

2) The main arc of this story is drawn along Hessler's development as a young man living as a foreigner in strange surroundings. He writes often about the alienation and identity struggle involved in being immersed in a country that is not one's own. His frustration is palpable when he struggles initially to learn Chinese and as he deals with others' reactions to his physical appearance:

"...the work of learning Chinese...had no clear endpoint and gave me more frustration than satisfaction...Most people in town only saw my failures, the inevitable misunderstandings and botched conversations."

"They attention was so intense that in public I often became clumsily self-conscious, which was exacerbated by my suddenly becoming bigger than average...I was like Alice in Wonderland, eating the currant-seed cakes and finding her world turned upside down."

But as he continues to acclimate and find his routine in the city, he becomes more comfortable with who he is in the context of Fuling. He talks of his rituals of going into the city for tea on weekends and visiting the Father at the local Catholic Church after Mass. The reader is happy that Hessler begins to find harmony with his surroundings.

3) However, I am not convinced that Hessler ever felt completely comfortable in Fuling, and I wish that he had described that feeling more openly rather than defensively. In much of his commentary on Fuling and China in general, Hessler comes off sounding arrogant and judgemental. He even recognizes this himself in a few passages where he qualifies his criticism of the building of the Three Gorges Dam by saying: "...I passively watched the preparation for the project, and I tried not to be too judgemental. I was, after all, and outsider." But I found him to be quite indignant of Chinese life several times in the book especially regards to the Communist government and its policy. He denounces the building of the Three Gorges Dam and everything pertaining to Chairman Mao and Cultural Revolution in a personal and almost bitter way, as if Hessler had some personal vendetta with the government. I don't think it's wrong to have a strong opinion, but I failed to see any strong validation for his opinions, which left me unable to relate to the emotional intensity of his, what seemed to me, prejudiced convictions. "...I knew I had access to a great deal of information that was unavailable to the Chinese, and as a result I often felt as if I understood the political situation better than the locals. It was impossible to avoid this type of arrogance..."

Other passages similarly resound of youthful disillusionment:

"The more I thought about this, the more pessimistic I was about the education that my students were receiving, and I began to feel increasingly ambivalent about teaching in a place like that."

Hessler wrote this 400 page travel log in the two years that he was in China. It was an interesting and informative read at times, but I felt it could have been more so if he had reflected on some of his experiences more and turned this book into a deeper memoir of his experiences in China. A teacher once told me that a writer needs at least 5 years after a major event in order to write about it convincingly and honestly. I agree with this advice for this book as well.