I think it is pretty safe to say that there is a lot going on in Shawn Wong’s “Homebase”. Somewhere underneath pages of shifting perspectives and extended metaphors lies the narrative of a guy trying to figure things out. Well, several guys, really. I’ll throw in my lot with them as yet another guy trying to figure something out, and that something is wind!
What is “wind”? Seriously. How does it work? Please comment and expla- no, just kidding. I know what wind is, (Thanks Wikipedia) but Wong is starting to make me think that it means more than usual. One of the things I noticed while reading through “Homebase” is how often certain elements are repeated. Wind, moisture and heat all come back again and again and each with their own unique impact. I’ll focus on wind in this post.
Wind comes into play as early as page 6, when Rainsford Chan is relating the story of his father’s mountain-climbing.
“… he tried to climb […] but was defeated by the wind rushing down the mountain face. My father said the wind was always the conqueror, not the cold, or the snow, or the heat, but the wind that makes you deaf, numbs your touch, and pushes blood into your eyes.” (6)
This establishes the characteristic of wind throughout most of the novel as an obstacle. Beyond that, as an unstoppable force that dulls the senses, specifically sight, hearing and touch. It is recognized repeatedly in each of the three main storylines (Rainsford, Father and Great-Grandfather) and even its absence is acknowledged in comparatively positive sections. An example is five pages later when Great-Grandfather is walking “in the windless night” (11) and proceeds to feel refreshed by the waterfall.
Wind’s violent (another commonly repeated word!) nature isn’t gone for long though. Still within the first chapter, Great-Grandfather and the other Chinese workers expand upon what we’ve already learned from Father: “… the one element they feared most was the wind. […] Hearing goes first, […] they wrap cloth around their ears. But the wind never lets up. […] their eyes are swollen from the blood pushed into the aching veins of their sight.” (16) One difference is that we can begin to see how they protect themselves from the wind by covering their ears with cloth. He even describes how they talk or sing to themselves just to hear something other than wind.
Rainsford encounters the wind himself in the second chapter while he is driving: “I am too busy for fear, checking oil, rpms, engine heat, speed at a glance, hands and arms working at the wheel, correcting for wind gusts.” (29) At the risk of over-quoting, I think this passage explains a lot. This is the third time we see wind’s adverse relationship to sight (“The straight road, at last, that familiar white blur”), hearing (“No sound now except for the building whine of my engine,”) and feeling (“… my knees go weak, no blood there”.)
I swear, “wind” has to be one of the most frequently used words in the novel! What’s so maddening is how many different ways it can be linked to larger themes. In one way, it is a physical feeling that links several generations of Rainsford’s family – wind is constant and unchanging throughout each era. In its very nature, it has the impression of traveling from one man to the next. In another way, it is present during what is arguably the most challenging times of each man’s life; Great-Grandfather builds the railroad against it, Father climbs a mountain against it and Rainsford searches for his place in the world against it. Another way still, wind carries legends: “There is a whole nation there and the legend says that the ocean was my father’s lover. Her spirit rides into the canyon at night like the sound of wind,” (94).
There are so many interpretations. I don’t even know. What do you guys think? What is “wind”? Seriously. How does it work?
Hey Peter, I really like your blog; you are seriously an articulate man. I read a lot of Stephen King novels and when I read how you pointed out that Shawn Wong uses “wind” throughout his novel it reminded me of a thought I once had during the reading of one of Stephen King’s books titled “The Shining”. In The Shining at the beginning of the book, no more than the first ten to twenty-five pages, he uses the words “your temper”. After that initial use I cannot tell you how many times I read him say “your temper” throughout the book. Honestly it got on my nerves a little, but I got passed it because the book is simply incredible. I cannot remember what word it was but in the book “Jackdaws” by Ken Follett there is a word in it that Ken uses over and over again. I want to say the word begins with a “Z”. Anyhow, maybe the use of a word that authors latch on to throughout their novels is not such an irregular occurrence? Maybe it’s something that all authors do subconsciously and we as the reader either notice or not.
ReplyDeleteI will definitely read more of your blog postings; I really enjoyed reading your stuff. You could not have chosen a more suitable major than English Literature. Hang on to my email address, when you get published in the future I would really like to receive a copy of your work. Thanks again for pointing out the repeated use of the word “wind” throughout Homebase. It made my mind ponder the times I’ve read novels and kept stumbling on the repeated use of certain words.
Oh yeah, I have been feeding your and Gina's fish, I take responsibility for their livlihood :)