Marianne

3.5★s
The White Cockatoo Flowers is a collection of seventeen short stories and one novella by award-winning Chinese-born Australian poet and author, Ouyang Yu. The subject matter of the stories varies widely and includes the Chinese experience in Australia, visits to other Australian cities, and… more return visits to China.

It is quickly apparent that Yu draws on personal experience, relating incidents that illustrate the feeling of statelessness, the treatment by Chinese officials of ex-pats on foreign passports, and attitudes towards other Chinese who don’t meet the standard he is trying to keep; musing on the sincerity of friendship and invitations; dealing with cheats and liars when buying a new car, among other things.

One story emphasises the Australian tendency for laziness with pronunciation of foreign names, prompting name changes: “He must keep his workmates happy, too, so they would never feel tongue-tied in addressing him or greeting him.”

Some of the stories seem to lack a point, or it is perhaps too highbrow for the average reader to discern. This is a collection that is likely to resonate with Asian immigrants, who might have similar experiences in trying to assimilate into Australian society, perhaps less so for non-Asian immigrants, while it might provide some enlightenment about those experiences to Caucasian English-speakers.

Yu engages in word play and demonstrates the vagaries of the English language; his descriptive prose is often quite evocative “…the degree to which you can stretch the human skin of imagination” and “Only sad waves put out their long and languorous tongues, to lap the wounded rocks” are examples. In the last story, he bemoans the world’s demand to be entertained, something to which this reviewer freely admits.

Some stories have an autobiographical feel: “Despite the fact that writing a novel over a period of three or four years resembled a sustained session of lovemaking, much more pain was involved than pleasure: becoming pregnant with the book, then delivering it, often stillborn, at the moment of truth when one reflects on how many years had gone into the making of this baby that was destined to remain a baby for the rest of its life, and a ‘dead life’ into the bargain.”

While he claims “… he had for long ceased to worry about getting paid for his poetry. In his imagination, he was a bird who sang beautifully in the morning before people woke up. As long as people were happy listening to his fresh. Spontaneous and dewy creations, he would be content”, he does seem to lament the fact that a poet’s work is not given the value it deserves.

The novella is titled Island, and consists of somewhat disjointed snippets of multiple narratives that are interspersed with letters, journal entries, a reading note, a notice, poems and translations, news items, and a notebook excerpt, featuring mostly unnamed protagonists. There are wise words and insightful observations therein, but connecting with the anonymous characters is a challenge. The hardback edition has an attractive dust jacket and gorgeous endpapers, and the collection will likely appeal to readers from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
This unbiased review is from an unsolicited copy provided by Transit Lounge
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