August 2017 Meeting: The Wangs Vs. The World by Jade Chang
If there's any word that best sums up last month's book club, it's "intimacy." Not just in the sense that this had been the first meeting in several months where we had less than 20 people. Intimacy in the sense that we were able to really grapple with the heavier topics of Jade Chang's novel, and take our time. As the plot of The Wangs vs. The World follows Charles Wang, a cosmetic company mogul, whose company collapses during the recession of 2008, we talked about one of the many foundations (no pun intended) of the industry which brought Charles his fortune. "Makeup," Chang writes in novel's opening, "was American, and Charles understood makeup. It was artifice, and it was honesty. It was science and it was psychology and it was fashion; but more than that, it was about feeling wealthy. Not money--wealth." The distinction between wealth and money wasn't by mistake, and we treated it as such over the course of the evening. W.E.B. called this the "psychological wage." The price we pay to "feel" like we belong even when the reality shows us something entirely different. The fact that, as a culture and society, many of us would rather "feel" or appear powerful, or beautiful, or important, or rich, than actually BE those things. The dangers of subscribing to that "American Dream," which, in its very definition is at odds with reality. But how to confront reality in a culture that values dreaming? How do you tell yourself the truth in a society whose foundation is built on lies? No one had the answer, but we had answers. Meaning plural. Meaning many miles were walked because with every anecdote told about how life is navigated, we saw in real time that one size doesn't fit all. That the shoes we wear and walk in don't always belong to us. Like the novel suggests, you can only lose that which never belonged to you. This meeting was about finding the things that did.
