by Jesse Motte
September 20, 2022
Jesse Mott is an MFA candidate for fiction at the University of South Carolina. He is the co-fiction editor at Yemassee Journal, and a fiction editor at word west. He’s been reading for literary magazines for four years and is currently an editorial assistant for fiction at CRAFT.
Book of Goose by Yiyun Li; Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 368 pages; $28.00
The Book of Goose, is Yiyun Li’s fifth novel, and a wonderful iteration of her status in the literary world. After learning of the death of her childhood friend, Fabienne, Agnès decides to reflect on their intense and obsessive relationship. The result is The Book of Goose, a chronicle of events and reflections from the writer, Agnès, as she tries to account for Fabienne, and understand how such a tautly bound friendship formed, functioned, and ultimately ended.
The story is interiorly guided—we spend so much time propped up right against the motivations of Agnès’s prior self. And it’s through the recounting and reflecting of these motivations, that the story thematically fractals, taking us from control and power in a relationship between two girls to exploitation in the publishing industry, the effects of WWII on families, class, the “real” versus the “myth,” and the question of storytelling itself.
Readers may expect details of a post-WWII rural France setting, as the bulk of the novel is set in an immediate post-WWII rural France, but this is secondary to the novel because it is secondary to Agnès. It’s ironic, then, that the war is the antecedent to the complex, core conflict of the story. We might also be looking for details of Agnès’s highly specialized and privatized education at Woodsway. However, her life at Shelbrooke Manor is punctuated largely by Fabienne and her “brother,” Jacques. This might jar some readers who, given the circumstances, might want an account of the extraordinary dissonance Agnès must experience by being thrust so abruptly into the world of the upper class. Such distractions will come with little reward for the reader, if only they return their gaze back to the richly complex and deftly infuriating relationship between the two girls. Ultimately, this is how you inhabit character—the worldview of the “I” swallows up any preoccupation with any authorial anxiety to unnecessarily historicize or unnecessarily populate a work with details of less or no concern to the “I.” If you want a post-war tonality or even mild evidence of it, you’re misunderstanding the story already. Because this is about Fabienne and understanding the enclosure and wholly engulfed presence of her within Agnès is key in respecting the novel for what it is.
In fact, even when Agnès’s thoughts seem to take on more independence (especially after her first visit to Paris), it’s hard not to be suspicious of Fabienne’s influence in her own head. And yet we can tell Paris has changed her. She tells Fabienne she likes it there and when Monsieur Bazin, the photographer, comes to Saint Remy, she asks, “How do I make use of my fame if I stay here?” But even here it behooves the reader to question Fabienne’s influence. What accounts for Agnès’s sudden boldness? It’s again, Fabienne. Li’s constant redirection away from worldly details of Agnès’s incredible and unlikely journey helps focus our attention back to her motivation. Subsequently, we see Agnès’s sense of agency develop out of her love for Fabienne. Thus, our vigilance as readers must rest on the choices Agnès makes and does not make. Does she, for instance, really want to live in Paris? But she does really seem to want to go to Paris the question is, who is it for?
Of course, we already know who that is. Fabienne’s hold over the narrative is almost absolute throughout Agnès’s book. You’re almost scared for Agnès when Fabienne finds out that she wrote something for M. Chastain in Paris without Fabienne’s permission. This is because it appears as a threat to Fabienne; if Agnès is independent, she can’t help Fabienne make sense of a world that doesn’t see her as real. We come to understand more and more clearly that Fabienne’s hold over the narrative is indicative of her hold over Agnès. But the two need each other for the same reason—Fabienne just understands it consciously. Yet Agnès is still totally controlled by her friend. At the beginning of the novel, upon learning of Fabienne’s death years later, Agnès admits, “I may not have gained full freedom, but I am free enough.” And there is no shred of shame in this admission. Agnès is defined by Fabienne, and with her The Book of Goose itself. For Agnès to have written it is for her to have seen more clearly the nature of her and Fabienne’s relationship in addition to both their singular, interdependent identity and their two separate ones.
Structurally, the novel is fastened together by short sections—almost like entries in a diary—and Li’s signature steady prose, which remains light as a feather and sharp as a knife. Thematically, we see another signature of Li’s: the exploration of storytelling within the confines of the narrative. Storytelling is, to Fabienne, a “game” that makes her real. And Agnès’s undying, unwavering attention to Fabienne too makes her feel real. Reciprocally, Agnès too is made real in Fabienne. “I lived through her,” Agnès says. “What was left behind was only my shell.” The power of storytelling for Fabienne is less the creation of external ripples in the world, but the ability to create a sense of control in a world that has stolen so much from her: her mother, her sister, her ability to feel safe and happy.
But the most compelling feat of layered storytelling is when Fabienne invents “Jacques,” Agnès’s boyfriend, who sends Agnès letters alongside Fabienne throughout the school term. It’s the first time in the narrative where the idea of something more than friendship feels like more than just a thought in the back of your head. A lot of what Jacques says to Agnès in his letters has an incredible multiplicity of meaning to it. “I can tell from the way you write me that you’re saving the words you don’t want her to read,” Jacques says. “I like to imagine those words: it feels like we are holding our hands behind her back. My life is a little boring without you, though this I don’t tell people, not even Fabienne.” It’s as if Jacques is the medium not just for Agnès to be honest, but for Fabienne, too. Later, when they are finally reunited, Fabienne says, “‘Why did you love him when you could’ve love me?’ she said. ‘What does he have that I don’t, other than he’s a boy and I’m a girl?’” Agnès doesn’t have a response, but upon reflection, Agnès thinks, “But I had loved her all my life. I had loved her before we knew what the world was, what love was, and who we ourselves were.” How Fabienne treats Agnès can be downright infuriating at times, but it’s a short-lived anger when you remember that, for Fabienne, this is a revenge story; one that Agnès is not caught up in. Yet it’s still this quest for revenge, for control, for power over a world that has abandoned her, that prevents the two from loving one another. It’s this same force, too, that pulls them apart.
The Book of Goose is a novel that lends itself to a second read in a particular way. That jaw-dropping, almost mythical first page comes sliding more and more into focus as you wade further into the story. “You cannot cut an apple with an apple,” it says. “You cannot cut an orange with an orange.” It’s almost like a riddle that subsequent reads texturize. The nature of Agnès and Fabienne’s relationship unfurls similarly. Patience is the name of the game here and it comes well-rewarded—it testifies to Yiyun Li’s mastery as a writer and The Book of Goose as a timeless story.
©2022 West Trade Review
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The Paradox of Power in Yiyun Li’s The Book of Goose
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