When thinking of a recipe, most people imagine a list of ingredients mixed together to make some type of food. It can be seen in the more literal, culinary sense, or it can be interpreted more figuratively, like when someone meets their goal through the steps of a recipe. Either way, recipes are made up of ingredients that make the final piece. In this way, any major plot events of a book can be considered recipes, especially in Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. These major plot events are led up to and hinted at using different ingredients, including smaller plot events, mood shifts, character developments, dialogue, etc. In Everything I Never Told You, Ng uses these ingredients to her advantage so that the reader is constantly moving towards the final product.
Throughout the beginning of the novel, Ng uses small plot events, changes in her character’s mental state, and dialogue to hint at Marilyn’s absence. Her disappearance is first mentioned by the police in Chapter One when asking if James’s “wife also went missing once” (13). Even though the full explanation won’t come for another three chapters, Ng wants to grab the reader’s attention and introduce it immediately. While it’s a clever decision to keep the reader entertained, it also represents her writing style: dropping small breadcrumbs of information that will eventually lead to the product of a recipe.
Later on, in Chapter Four, Ng flashes back to Marilyn’s absence, first noting that “All fall, she’d been wrestling a vague discontentment” (77). Though this is just the third sentence of the chapter, Ng is again whisking ingredients into the book that will lead to the final piece: Marilyn leaving home. Even though this important mood shift might not stand out to the reader initially, it becomes more noticeable later on in the chapter when Marilyn begins to think about leaving. Ng then expresses Marilyn’s unsettled thoughts about how she might have become just like her mother. These emotions and plot events--or ingredients--all add to her growing desire to just run away and finish her degree.
The most important ingredient is literally a book of recipes, one that belonged to Marilyn’s mother. After reading line after line of highlighted sexist remarks such as, “Does anything make you feel so pleased with yourself as baking bread?” (83), Marilyn becomes more determined to upend her life and become a doctor. Understanding her mother’s goals makes Marilyn realize her own and want to act on them. This is her breaking point--when she understands that she’s heading down an unwanted path, one aimed at a life all too similar to her mother’s. Ng turns what seems like a minor plot event into one of the most influential ingredients in the book.
Similar to the ingredients leading up to Marilyn’s absence, Ng drops multiple hints throughout the first few chapters of the book that lead to James’s affair with Louisa. The initial clues are placed in Chapter One when James and Louisa change their body language. When Stanley Hewitt enters the classroom, James becomes “acutely conscious of his hand” and Louisa starts “blushing” (11) after leaving, showing that both characters feel guilty. Their physical affair has not started yet, so they aren’t technically guilty of anything, but their change in body language shows knowledge of the inappropriate choices they’re making as both student and teacher, but also as a single woman and a married man. Without directly stating that something immoral is happening between them, Ng is carefully moving the reader towards her eventual recipe product: the affair.
Later on, Ng becomes more discreet with her ingredients by comparing Louisa and Marilyn. Both women are students of James when they get involved with him, which only contributes to the reader’s growing suspicion of an affair. Ng uses body language again to express these similarities by writing that during a lecture, Marilyn’s “cheeks went hot, as if she’d stepped into the summer sun” (36). This is just like Louisa’s blushing after being caught by Stanley Hewitt. It also shows James’s and Louisa’s guilt because Marilyn blushes after kissing James. Therefore, she has already done something inappropriate with her teacher, and she is blushing because she feels guilty.
In another comparison, Ng uses dialogue as an ingredient. When meeting with James, both Louisa and Marilyn try to comfort him. Louisa tells him that his “‘life is not a waste’” (10), and Marilyn explains that even though paleontology was his favorite school subject, it still counts as history so his area of teaching makes sense (35). While the two types of advice aren’t identical, they both express a similar idea-- that James didn’t choose the wrong career. Ng’s ingredient once again moves the reader towards the final recipe of James and Louisa’s affair.
While the reader knows of Lydia’s death throughout the entire novel, Ng often mixes ingredients into the book that hint at the reasons why she dies. Clues to the biological cause first appear when Ng corrects her own character. Marilyn’s thoughts explain that nothing exciting or scary happens in Middlewood because it’s a simple college town with a “glorified pond” (7) for a lake. Ng then fixes that statement by saying that Middlewood Lake “is a thousand feet across, and it is deep” (7). If the reader didn’t know about Lydia’s death, this correction might seem a little strange, but not suspicious. However, because the reader knows of her death, this statement implies that Marilyn will learn this information about the lake because that’s where the police will find Lydia’s body. This correction is a significant ingredient that leads to the physical reasons for Lydia’s death.
As for mental and behavioral causes, Ng uses character development, plot events, and dialogue to move the reader to think that Lydia commits suicide. By mentioning Nath’s understanding that “Lydia has never really had friends” (16), the reader gets a glimpse into Lydia’s social life. When this ingredient is put in the mix, the reader immediately begins to think about adolescent life and social issues.
In addition to social pressure, Ng adds ingredients related to the academic pressure Lydia faces from her mother. While going through Lydia’s room, Marilyn identifies “every poster she’d given to Lydia since she was a child” and “the books Marilyn had given her over the years to inspire her” (73). She’s forcing her interests onto her daughter because she wasn’t able to achieve her own goals. The reader can then understand the effects of this pressure on Lydia and how they contribute to her possible suicide.
Aside from being academically flawless, James and Marilyn expect overall perfection and purity from their daughter, another factor that contributes to her possible suicide. Ng makes their favoritism towards Lydia clear throughout the novel, eventually using possessive adjectives and high expectations to help illustrate this thought. When approached with the idea that Lydia might have snuck out during the night, Marilyn says, “My Lydia? Never” (108). Later, after finding cigarettes in her daughter’s backpack, Marilyn thinks that they must belong to someone else because “her Lydia did not smoke” (120). James and particularly Marilyn always expect Lydia to never make mistakes, which is a burden on anybody, but especially for someone who is already under other pressures.
Lastly, Ng uses police dialogue again to help move the reader towards the conclusion that Lydia commits suicide. When the police ask James, Marilyn, and Nath if Lydia “ever [gave] any sign she might want to hurt herself” (110), the reader’s suspicions are confirmed. Because the police are suggesting suicide, the reader feels comfortable making the same assumption. Therefore, the recipe of the reasons why Lydia dies is composed of many ingredients that support the theory that Lydia kills herself due to overwhelming pressure.
The ingredients in the recipes of Marilyn’s absence, James’s affair, and Lydia’s death, while seemingly insignificant at first, become more noticeable and important throughout the book. While some ingredients are more vital or heavier than others, similar to in a literal recipe, all of them play a role in the outcome of each chapter, and eventually, the book. Therefore, Everything I Never Told You isn’t just a regular book; it’s a cookbook. And in this way, nearly every novel can be called a cookbook because they’re all teeming with individual recipes.
Just like the ingredients mix and bake to create the final recipe product, the recipes themselves work together to create the final book. In a cookbook, learning each recipe teaches the chef how to cook better in general. With a literary cookbook, the reader finishes the novel with a better or more thorough understanding of the theme. By making all of the recipes in Everything I Never Told You, the reader learns from Ng about the effects of parental pressure on teenagers and the prejudices faced by Chinese-Americans in the twentieth century.
No comments:
Post a Comment