Short Story Review: “Heart” by Shuang Xuetao (Translated from the Chinese, by Jeremy Tiang.)

Written by

Matthew Groff

in

(The short story “Heart” by Shuang Xuetao appeared in the October 9th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

Illustration by Sally Deng

If you write a story about a parent/child relationship, and then throw in a dying parent, you pretty much are half way to claiming a small place in my heart. My logically analytical side gets thrown out the window, and I am running on emotions. And let’s be honest, if you’re creating art, you want people to have an emotional reaction – it’s like the whole point. I say this because I can be completely biased when it comes to certain subject matters, which can complicate things when I try to review short stories from an objective place.

Which is why it’s strange for me to say that I didn’t feel an emotional connection to “Heart” by Shuang Xuetao. This is a fine story, well written, engaging, and just odd enough to keep me intrigued with what was happening. And as I was reading this piece, I kept expecting it to “click” into place and tap that raw parent/child emotion in me, but it never came. But I don’t begrudge the story for this, nor am I left feeling that the story “misfired” in its execution. Oddly, I feel this might have been exactly the reaction the story was attempting to create in the reader.

The story mainly takes places on a medical bus that is driving late at night to Beijing. The passengers are an older man dying of heart disease, his son, a driver, and ER doctor who agreed to accompany the father and son. We learn from the narrator, who is the son, that the heart disease that is killing his father skips every other generation, meaning the son is immune from the fate of his father.

The tone of the story is straightforward, logical, and there are no literary flourishes. But the events in this story slightly graze the edge of surrealism – just slightly. It’s enough touches to make the story feel that it’s not completely in reality. But still I had to wonder why these touches were there. What did the father’s daily boxing routine really symbolize? Why was the driver sleeping as he drove the vehicle? Also, what about the doctor’s sleeping? Was this all a dream? And the need for the son to have to use the bathroom? Was there a meaning to the son’s self-described laziness and his recent decision to stop working, while the father worked every day; even when he retired, he went and found a new job to keep working? All of these questions left me feeling uncertain, unsettled, and wondering what I was supposed to make of this?

And then there is a moment in the story where the son wonders what he is supposed to do when his father does pass away. He thinks of all the work that will come with making the arrangements for a funeral; contacting family and people his father worked with, raising money to pay for it all, and cars for the procession. Then the son thinks that once his father is gone, that he will truly be alone and by himself. To that the narrator says, “I guess that’s what freedom looks like nowadays,…” A sobering, and heartbreaking realization, that can also feel overwhelming to the point where one can be left numb, and disconnected.

There isn’t one way to mourn, and that’s what “Heart” reminded me of. I don’t know what all of these pieces in this story amounted to, but I don’t think Shuang Xuetao is wrong for presenting that either, if that was the intention. Maybe not having a feeling right away is still a sort of feeling. Maybe.

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4 responses to “Short Story Review: “Heart” by Shuang Xuetao (Translated from the Chinese, by Jeremy Tiang.)”

  1. Avatar
    Anonymous

    There were interesting moments such as when the driver fell asleep. But the different parts didn’t quite add up.

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    1. Matthew Groff Avatar
      Matthew Groff

      I still wonder if the point of this story was to have parts that didn’t add up, thus showing the complexity of mourning.

      Say, thanks for reading the review and leaving a comment!

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    Anonymous

    The

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      I would like to share someone’s review of the piece on douban.com. It is AI-translated into English.
      We learn that my father was once a “sent-down youth,” having participated in the “Up to the mountains and down to the countryside” movement. After returning to the city, he worked as a laborer, and even after retiring, he spent several more years working as a spray painter at a private factory, continuing to work until he fell ill. The scattered details throughout the novel reveal that he was not a talkative man and didn’t form close relationships with others. Why did the father spend decades practicing martial arts, and why was he so silent? Here, I venture to imagine that perhaps the poem in his QQ space was a reflection of him: “In 1962, wearing the label of a rightist, starving and growing weak in Xinjiang” (the description of him using his legs to wrap around the blanket while sleeping in summer aligns with Xinjiang’s climate).

      In such a turbulent time, everyone’s fate seemed to sway unpredictably, and it’s no wonder that religious beliefs became uncertain. “Incense burning indoors, a rising perplexity.” I asked my father, “What happens after we die? Can you still take revenge?” He replied, “No, once you’re dead, you’ve lost completely.” Indeed, regardless of the era, as the documentary title by Chen Weijun puts it, “a peaceful death is not as good as a miserable life.” There is no such thing as victory—surviving is all that matters.

      The father depicted in Shuang Xuetao’s writing actually represents a vast group of people from that era whose fates were similarly shaped. These were people who, perhaps once able to play the piano, were forced to remain silent as history surged forward, working as ordinary painters. Every individual’s heart silently beats in rhythm with the era. As Shuang Xuetao remarked, “My father did indeed die of heart disease. I am his descendant, and I know this is our history.” If each era is likened to a heart, some hearts are healthy and strong, while others are tainted with dust and afflicted by disease. Those who carry no joy may perish due to the sickness of the era’s heart. This is the indelible history that we cannot erase.

      My father said, “Why is it so stuffy? (this sentence is omitted in the translation. I think this is about the father’s job as a paint sprayer. The smell must be choking, and it causes problems in his lungs.)” I replied, “We’re almost in Beijing.” He asked, “What are we going to Beijing for?” I said, “To get you treated; you’ve got heart disease.”

      Indeed, we hope that Beijing remains forever healthy, free from illness, because Beijing has always been the “heart” of our era.

      The above is the comment.

      Moreover, when a person is dying, it may usher them into the hazy realm between two worlds. Many Chinese folklore stories explore this concept, such as tales of a late-night bus or the eerie transport of a deceased body in a coffin under the cover of night.

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