We will discuss Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You at our meeting on Wednesday, May 22nd at 4:00p.m. in the GAHS library. Please post questions, comments, concerns, criticism, and the like on this blog prior to, during, or after our meeting (before May 31st if you want extra credit). All questions and responses should indicate an active reading of the text and function to move the conversation forward. (Note: surface-level or obvious questions and responses will not count as participation.)
Those of you unable to attend due to scheduling conflicts may participate in the discussion below by posting a discussion question and offering a detailed response, or by responding to two questions already posted. The note above applies here as well, so heed it!
This book was very different from the rest of the stories we’ve read this year, just in the way the story was conveyed. Most of the books we’ve read have been non-fiction or non-fiction based, and it was nice reading a realistic fiction book that still served a significant purpose. Immediately from the first chapter, I was hooked which made it a quick read for me.
In the first chapter there is sort of a dramatic foreshadowing where the reader can sense that the siblings, Hannah and Nath know more than they are telling about Lydia’s disappearance. Lydia is also described with kind of a negative connotation like how she didn’t really have friends and failed her driving test. Despite this, she is still the “perfect child” with blue eyes. This opens up the tension that is unraveled throughout the story about the personal battles that each character in the family struggles with and exposes the gaps in their relationship.
The most important chapter is 11, a few days before Lydia dies. The limits of these characters is exposed in this chapter the most which is what pushed Lydia to go try to swim. Lydia does not want Nath to leave so she begins rebelling and her swimming symbolizes her trying to resist this “childhood” and fight for “independence.” Jack’s newfound identity was also very shocking to the reader and I kind of almost didn’t believe it. However, this contributed to the theme of prejudice and social norms that was presented throughout this text.
From the first chapter we learn that Lydia is held superior because she looks the most American. Her parents even got married because they both faced types of prejudice. However, despite Lydia having blue eyes and blonde hair, she still felt the pressures from within and outside of her culture. In fact, each character in the book suffers from their own feelings of loneliness and prejudice. When Lydia finds out that Jack is gay, she threatens to expose him to their school which shows that even Lydia’s own discriminatory experiences did not stop her from verbally harassing Jack. This is a lesson that I found very applicable to the real world. Oftentimes, we are conscious of a specific flaw and in order to cover it up, when we see other people’s flaws we use them to cover ourselves up. This is seen in grade school when students get bullied. However, if we overcome this and realize that everyone is different, not flawed, we can move forward instead of create friction. Marilyn also faces shunning by her family despite being a housewife which exposes the inability for Marilyn to connect with Lydia prior to her death.
Another theme in the book was ambition and disappointment. This begins with James and Marilyn. James pushes his fears of failure onto Lydia and pushes her to be popular by buying her books teaching her how to make friends which only made her more uncomfortable. Marilyn’s ambitions’s of being a doctor were ruined because of pregnancy and marriage and Marilyn pushes these sentiments onto Lydia, almost forcing her to study to be a doctor. This causes Lydia anxiety, throwing her in her own loop of ambition and disappointment because she struggled in school, but didn’t want to disappoint her mom. This is interesting because Marilyn and James only place pressures on Lydia, but not Nath even though he’s the one that got into Harvard. This creates the tension between each character’s feeling of not being enough because the parents didn’t give enough attention to Nath and Hannah, but too much to Lydia. This shows that disappointment is inevitable. However, it also shows that when so much pressure is put onto one person, event, etc. it is unhealthy. Nowadays, parents place a lot of pressure on students which causes the students to be anxious and the parents to be overbearing. Moderation is key, while failure is inevitable.
A major symbol in the book is swimming. James and Nath are good at swimming and Nath joins the swim team at the Y, but this leads to discrimination and isolation. The children would shout racist insults at him in the pool which shows a contrast between how Lydia perceived swimming as a symbol of freedom. When Nath falls into the water at the end of the novel, he reflects, thinking about Lydia. This further emphasizes the loneliness that swimming symbolizes. Another connection is between isolation and drowning. Lydia had a close relationship with her brother and said that Nath was “keeping her afloat” implying that she will “sink” when he goes to Harvard because of the unrealistic pressures of her parents. However, this figurative language comes to life and leads her to drown.
Overall, I really appreciated this type of novel and definitely have found an author that I will be reading a lot of in the summer! Through the development that keeps the reader hooked and the well thought out symbolism, Celeste Ng conveys the vivid message that we should not take people for granted and that life is precious. She shows that we should be aware and open to everyone’s differences.
The author, Celeste Ng, begins the novel by sharing that Lydia Lee, the daughter of Marilyn Lee and James Lee, is dead; I think that is interesting that the author chooses to share this with her readers first, before her family is actually aware of her death. This conveys a sense of innocence and shows that Lydia’s parents were completely blindsided by the incident and may not have known her as well as they thought.
Marilyn Lee, Lydia’s mother has been trying to peruse her dream of becoming a doctor, she attends Radcliffe at Harvard University, and is particularly brilliant. But the author makes it prominent that by being a woman she faced opposition from professors and people at the university. At Harvard, she meets James, her husband, sets her medical career dreams aside to raise their first child, Nath, and later their two other children Lydia and Hannah. Throughout the novel I found it to be prominent that Marilyn had many issues of her own (not having her mother’s support on her marriage, not being able to fulfill her dream, and facing female opposition), which made her complex and sometimes hard to grip as a character; she is constantly reaching for this goal of becoming a doctor and eventually results in aggressively badgering her daughter to fulfil this dream. Because she is so immersed in trying to satisfy her own needs she misses out on understanding the complexity of her daughter’s needs.
Lydia’s father, James also seems to have issues of his own; his parents were Chinese immigrants and the author conveys that even though he was born in the United States, he doesn’t particularly feel like he belongs. He is denied from being a professor of the Harvard history department because of his Asian roots and the idea that he isn’t “popular” enough. The author conveys that due to this hardship in James’s life, he makes Lydia feel that popularity is important and she will need it to succeed. The author shares the backstories of Marilyn and James to give us insight as to what shaped their family.
Nath, Lydia’s older brother, is also a very important character. He portrays the role of the “protector” and we can see that he deeply cares about Lydia, even after her death and is determined to place the blame on someone. He is convinced that their neighbor, Jack Wolff, is responsible and should be held accountable for the death of his sister. Nath’s aggression towards Jack evokes that he loved his sister dearly and considered their relationship to be very important; I think this also shows that Nath does not want to except the fact the this could’ve been his sister’s own doing, so it was easier for him to morn if he can convince himself that someone did this to her. It is also conveyed Nath had the closest relationship with Lydia and was really the only one who understood her before her death.
Throughout reading the book I picked up on the bad parenting that Marilyn and James portrayed and feared for Nath and Hannah. It is clear that their parents are so wrapped up in their own problems that they are not able to grasp how their children felt. Even after the death of Lydia, Hannah feels as If she was a mistake; although her character isn’t very complex we are still able to understand that her quiet personality sometimes makes her feel as if she doesn’t exist, conveying that both her and Lydia both felt alone but in different ways.
The impact of her Lydia’s parent’s struggles and failure to understand her, clearly deflect onto her emotional state; the constant nag to feel as if she must fit in and peruse a medical career, makes Lydia feel that her thoughts and dreams were not heard, which result in her feeling even more alone. Although it is not made clear as to whether or not Lydia committed suicide or not, I believe it is left up for interpretation by the readers.
The book teaches many important lessons, such as the fact that it is essential for families to have a strong connection and It’s crucial for parents to always be immersed in their child’s life’s and be there to support them as they to grow into adults. Parenting is an important aspect of life because as new generations occur the legacy will carry on. Though these take-aways were portrayed through a tragic death the book powerfully demonstrates the importance of family and the importance of being able to connect with the ones we love.
Just by reading the summary on the back of the book, I knew this book would be a powerful and captivating read. Losing a loved one is almost everyone’s biggest fear, as it has the power to completely change a family’s daily routine and dynamic. My favorite moment of the book was when Lydia was on the rowboat and thought of mending everything that was broken, which she showed in her determination to swim to the shore. Unfortunately, she drowned, but it was quite the satisfying twist to find out that her true intent was not suicide. However, her death completely derailed her family’s dynamic, especially due to the fact that they are an Asian-American family living in the 1970s.
Why does Celeste Ng use the third-person omniscient point of view on the entire family?
Usually, the third-person omniscient point of view gives a character significant depth and meaning, and with suicide, a character’s death affects their family more than themselves. By sharing the backstory of Lydia’s mother and father’s initial encounter and later, marriage, the reader is able to see what exactly shaped their family dynamic and how the expectations held over Marilyn reflected in her expectations for her daughter. James, also, wants his daughter to be popular in school and liked by her friends, causing her to become even more lonely, seeking friends with her neighbor Jack who smokes and takes girls’ virginity. My favorite point of view is Nath’s who acts as the traditional protective older brother who needs space yet is wary of any boy who comes across Lydia. By knowing Nath’s thoughts, I was better able to understand their bond and the fact that it was positive was relieving as sibling tensions didn’t add to her desire to go to the lake. This shows that while Lydia thought everything was falling apart in her mind, the reality was that each of her family members always gave part of their hearts to her even if they needed their own space.
Is the book truly about Lydia, or more of a lesson on parenting style?
Although there is not much of a history of James’ life, he does talk about how as an Asian-American he constantly felt the embarrassment of looking different. Even when he gets into Harvard, he doesn’t feel completely accustomed to American society. Marilyn, on the other hand, is also accomplished as she has made it into Harvard, yet she was always told to “marry a Harvard man” and her mother disapproved of her marriage. Both James’ lack of fitting in and Marilyn’s loss of connection to her mother set expectations much higher for Lydia. For example, Marilyn couldn’t achieve her dreams of being a doctor, so she pressures Lydia to follow her fate. This leads Lydia to cheat in school, yet she still ends up failing physics, causing her to feel even more out of place and lonely than she already feels from being the only Chinese-American in school. Her parents’ failure to realize her already piled-up stress is an example of bad parenting, which reflects the parenting they may have gotten as well. What they failed to understand was that in the rapidly changing society of the 1970s, children are different and need their parents’ guidance. This can be shown with Hannah and her point of view, especially after Lydia’s death, when James is sleeping with another woman and Marilyn locks herself in Lydia’s room. Hannah feels like the “mistake” her parents made as she is always watching from afar. There were several times throughout the book where I felt as if Hannah may do the same thing Lydia did just in order to get her parents’ attention because they are so stuck in their own problems and aspirations.
Overall, the book truly gave me a new perspective on peoples’ lives inside their homes. Most of us see our families almost everyday, and although we are meant to be open and honest with them, it can be hard when they don’t really want to listen or have problems of their own. For some people, it’s hard to open up even to loved ones. But those who stay together should make every effort to hear each other out. After all, it is true that people take others for granted an when it’s too late, then only they wish they had listened, spent more time with them, and cherished their presence. This book truly demonstrates the value of a human being though the loss of one.