I’ve been feeling the urge to apologize for other peoples' traumas. Summertime, with its extended family get-togethers, dentist appointments, desultory evenings, long afternoon naps, and new jobs, seems to uniquely feed the generally irritating and bitter monsters of memory. I sometimes wish I understood this stuff more, like it could be me who somehow makes up for the past, but then I remember what a privilege it is to not understand.
Leave Society is a 2021 novel by Tao Lin which explores the fact of multi-generational and cross-cultural rifts between Li (frequent LSD/cannabis/ambiguous mineral compound user, writer based duly in New York and China, and obsessive, nervous malcontent) and his parents (classic Asian parents of a certain generation — cue-missers, anxiety-inducers, sacrificial caregivers, toughened workers, hoarders, dog lovers). I tried reading it a year ago and was just confused, couldn’t get through it. This time around, though, I found it sincere and touching, if slightly long-winded. Li and his parents share a comical, absurdly earnest relationship which oscillates between dysfunction, delirium, and giddiness, fueled by drugs, wellness trends, pungent supplements, nightly walks, and Li’s metaliterary authorship of works that tiptoe the boundaries between real and unreal.
The novel is chock-full of these hilariously mundane, dry moments, like visits to the dentist’s office: “As she paid for the visit with the assistant, Li’s dad called the dentist a liar, the dentists said other dentists had lied to Li’s dad, and Li had said his dad needed to stop believing lies.” It’s simultaneously unafraid of being darkly, deeply poignant: “In 2015, he no longer wanted to die, but also wasn’t averse to dying, which he now feared mostly out of timidity and unreadiness instead of neurotic pessimism, because it had gotten increasingly plausible to him that death was a microcosmic history — a personal untethering from time-paired matter — meaning it might feel like reading a novel’s last sentence, as you involuntarily returned to the more daunting and consequential world of your life.” Through all of Leave Society, Li stretches wildly, desperately, for routes of escape from the aforementioned “daunting and consequential world” of his life, hence the drugs, the selective health obsession, the very act of being a novelist. But what tethers him to reality are relationships which, under his scrutinizing and observant eye, fall into something palatable, soft, and endearing: “Li thought that how his parents treated Dudu, with attentive patience, enduring curiosity, and unconditional love, was probably how they’d treated him when he was small and maybe how they still treated him.”
Ultimately, Lin’s Li emphasizes benevolence, but never forgetfulness, towards the past that he shares with his family. While discussing being dropped on the floor as a child, this perspective is a boon, allowing him to empathize with his parents without denying his own experiences: “‘If I took care of someone, I’d also drop them,’ said Li. ‘The most important thing is that nothing happened,’ said Li’s mom, which somewhat amused Li because part of him was viewing the fall as possibly another factor, among thousands, in his various problems.” Li’s acknowledgement of the damage and hurt on both sides of the Chinese parent-child relationship is what lets him see how precious it is. “‘Regardless of who is caretaking, there will always be mistakes,’ said Li. ‘The Greatest Love of All,’ sung by Whitney Houston, was playing in the room.” The greatest love, that between a child and their parent, has been historically problematic and perplexing. But it remains transcendent, radiating backwards and forwards through time and all of history. In conversation with his dad, Li remarks, “I was like you in the past.” His dad responds, “‘In the past, you were like me?’ ‘Of course,’ Li says, 'I ate a lot of candy as a child.’”
Li presents a running theory about the past near the end of the novel: “The past was like a biofilm…It couldn't be destroyed or suppressed. It had to be replaced gradually, with emotion-charged information, story-embedded ideas, memorable stories.” How to enact this replacement? Visualize life as a novel. “Novels crystallized dreams into prose, made them shareable through matter, he thought in bed. Like dreams, they could be disruptive and unhelpful, fomenting fear and bitterness and confusion, or calming and uplifting, connecting disparate elements from history and memory into holistic stories with natural resonance.” In Leave Society, Li takes ownership of his “history and memory,” piecing them together with a piercing authorial gaze, characterizing life as a literary narrative. Choosing to focus on the capacity of this story helps him conclude that he doesn’t need to escape the world despite its trickiness, trauma, and trouble. In the end, maybe the point isn’t to leave society, but to make yourself whole from within it.
Cover Image: Detail from "Space Hansa Prismatica" by Jovi Schnell
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