By Annabel Lee

Lydia Kwa’s 3rd novel called Pulse follows the life of Natalie Chia, an acupuncturist who has moved from Singapore to Toronto, Canada. The story sets off in the summer of 2007 in Toronto, where Natalie receives a handwritten letter from her childhood friend and ex-lover, Faridah, from Singapore. Natalie learns that Selim, Faridah’s son, has committed suicide. Here comes the interesting part: somehow, Selim’s death is connected to Natalie and Faridah’s past love life back in the 1970s, emblematised by the two words “Godzilla’s touch”. Selim leaves behind a note persuading his mother to remember this phrase. Disturbed, Natalie returns to Singapore to uncover the truth behind Selim’s suicide. Returning to Singapore, therefore, not only becomes a quest to understand the tragedy of Selim, but also a reworking and remembering of Natalie’s left-behind past.

The novel premises itself on the fact that Natalie has abandoned her past in the hopes of forgetting the pain it has caused her, and move to a foreign land to recuperate and reinvent herself. Thus, I feel that it is of no surprise that what Natalie has been trying to run away from, has to eventually be resolved. In other words, perhaps there is a slight exemplification of the Freudian notion of the return of the repressed, in which Natalie’s repression stems from her being unable to arrive at a resolution of her break-up with Faridah, and Faridah’s eventual marriage to a man. Kwa definitely wants to give Natalie a sense of closure. In fact, the entire novel can be read as Natalie’s journey towards closure, albeit an unconventional and painful one.

I say painful, mainly because while attaining her closure, Natalie has to recall her traumatic experience of her father’s abuse towards her. The sheer fact of having to remember, re-work and repeat the past as the plot progresses, allows the reader to get that a disturbing sense of secrecy and hidden-ness is being forced out into the open. The revealing of one’s darkest secrets is a prevalent theme in Pulse. It is interesting to establish the connection between the hidden-ness of a pulse, and the discovery of secrets. The act of pulse taking is one in which one can understand what is going on internally – the pulse is invisible to the eye; absent in this sense – without having to actually see what is going on internally. Kwa cleverly uses a motif to emphasise how one can understand the absent without having to resort to seeing what is present. A mere simple touch on the wrist is adequate to understand absence via its absence.

The novel definitely becomes really full of symbolic value, in this sense, precisely because the entire plot revolves around the simple notion of a pulse. Kwa does not hold back on playing up this notion. I think it is no coincidence that Kwa falls back on her roots by paying tribute to the Chinese language. She pays this tribute wonderfully by offering a substantial and fresh insight into how two vastly different languages (in terms of its execution) can work harmoniously in a predominantly English-language novel. For instance, in Pulse, the conscientious effort to include the Chinese character “脈”, which directly means “pulse”, next to every single chapter number first draws the reader’s attention to it, and second probes the reader to figure out the significance behind such a move. However, if I were to break down the character into its root components, what surfaces is an artistry of symbol-recognition that drives meaning-multiplicity. The Chinese character itself literally emblematises the shape of a human body, with the left component “月” a modified word from its original word “肉”, which means “meat” in English. The right component of the word originates from “永” which means “eternal” in English, symbolising the perpetual flow of human vitality. On a deeper level, the multiple layers of strokes in each component mimics that of a pulse in which a reading of a pulse can be made via multiple layers:

 only when I probe more firmly – at the “pressing” level – can I pick up a faint pulse through my ring fingers placed at the chi point on both wrists. The quality of the pulses confirms it: I’m showing the signs of someone in shock, the kidneys and adrenal glands most affected by the news about Selim. (Kwa 27)

What happens here is the mirroring of a bodily function to the symbolisation of the Chinese character “脈”. The phrase “faint pulse” indicates a sense of secrecy and hidden-ness in which it resembles the second component of the Chinese word. The narrative works in a way such that it is thought-provoking while captivating, probing the reader to connect the puzzle pieces of past memories and present as he/she uncovers the reason behind Selim’s suicide. On a deeper level, perhaps a slight knowledge of Chinese would enrich the reading experience due to the multiplicity in meaning-making.

In an interview with Kwa, she mentioned that “we remember through our lived experiences, and we re-live memories in our bodies”[1] which I think is a dominant recurring theme in Pulse. Kwa employs the the act of kinbaku (Japanese bondage) as a creative device for the narration of Natalie’s quest – at once creates a lived experience, and marks the body in the way that each intersection of the markings symbolises a memory, a vital point, and ultimately, a pulse. Overall, the novel is beautifully dark, sensual and captivating. It is rich in its exploration of two lesbian women’s struggle to accept their loss of their loved ones, and their eventual overcoming of this loss that has been suspended across space and time, ultimately providing Natalie and Faridah with a sense of closure.

[1] You can read the full interview here: http://cwila.com/we-remember-through-our-lived-experiences-and-we-relive-memories-in-our-bodies-an-interview-with-lydia-kwa/