The Far Field

An exquisite train wreck. Unlike anything I've read or could imagine myself reading, much less enjoying, but I did, both, and I'm finding it hard to figure out why. For now I put the blame squarely on Vijay's shoulders: she is remarkably skillful at observing human relationships; at creating complex, inconsistent, puzzlingly real human characters and dynamics. Her ability to describe settings only adds to the charges against her.

The Far Field grabbed me from the first pages and kept me hooked until near the (weak) ending. Is that a spoiler? It shouldn't be. I don't feel upset about it, certainly not compared to my feelings throughout the rest of the book. And feelings, there were a lot of. The principal character in the novel is Cruelty, one of my lifelong foes. There's the deliberate kind meant to sting; the crushingly indifferent institutional kind; the inadvertent cruelty of thoughtless words or actions; the kind that's an accidental byproduct of good intentions; and the coldly calculated cruelty of the sociopath. Wait, don't leave: it's not like that, not unbearable every-page evil, there's tremendous beauty and discovery too, kindness and affection and vulnerability. It's just that the lasting consequences of cruelty infuse every page.

The protagonist is unlikable but not actually despicable: a shallow, self-absorbed privileged young woman with a reverse-Midas touch: bringing harm and hurt to every life she touches. The catch is, it's the narrator herself admitting these actions, with a buffer of six years; transformed and reflective. None of her hurt is intentional—it all stems from her clumsiness, ignorance, naïvete—but somehow this makes it hit harder. I've been there, I've hurt people with my thoughtlessness, those moments haunt me and I've used them to work harder toward being better. Or have I? The narrator's voice is hard to pinpoint: she clearly has the insight and self-awareness to recognize her actions; the courage and compassion to write of them. Is it enough? Transitively: am I enough? What injustices am I turning a blind eye to, or even perpetrating myself?

I really don't have the talent to describe The Far Field. But that's not my job; my job is to encourage you to read it yourself. I hope you do.