All That Matters

I just finished reading Wayson Choy's novel, All That Matters.

I bought it in 2005, shortly after it was published, but only got around to reading it now. Until I had a home I was unable to read ... unable to focus long enough, I think. But also there never was a place that was "right" for reading. There was never a chair that was comfortable and well lit. There was never a sofa that welcomed me into its embrace. The beds I slept on ranged from ones that had no reading lamps to mattresses on the floor that I shared with Kenya. I suspect that it also helps that it is winter so I am often snowbound, and that I am a hermit living with dogs. Whatever the reason, I am delighting in my lost ability to lose myself in a book.

When I was a child in the 40's and 50's, books were my escape from my life: from sadness and loneliness, mainly, but also from the more common miseries of childhood: piano practice sessions, homework, chores. I don't feel a need to escape from anything now, but I do enjoy these sojourns in the lives of other people.

All That Matters is one of those great titles that can be interpreted more than one way depending on which words you stress, and all the interpretations work to encompass the themes of the novel.

One of the Canadian literary genres is the immigrant novel, and this fits into that genre. Choy allows us into the little known world of the Chinese family living in Vancouver's Chinatown in the thirties and forties. The story is told by Kiam, who immigrated with his father and grandmother as a young child. His younger siblings are born in Canada. Kian is the fulcrum between the old world and the new, raised as a Chinese first son, but attending school in English as well as Chinese. We see the tensions between the generations and the different ways of thinking, but even more importantly we see the harmonies that occur when people are loved and truly valued.

It was a novel worth waiting for.