Finding Yourself. Finding Love.

I didn't mind Katie Kitamura's 'A Separation' (2017), and was eagerly waiting for her new book to drop. I like her writing and its concise manner of getting to the point. 

Her fourth new novel 'Intimacies' (2021) didn't disappoint. It's not a long story. It feels almost like a short story, or a long essay. It's nuanced and introspective. (Reviews here, here, here, here and here.) 

In an interview with Brandon Yu at The New York Times, Katie Kitamura spoke of uncertainty in the world and in everyone. And that was what she wanted readers to feel when we read 'Intimacies'. Our beliefs and opinions have become so entrenched that we've stopped exploring, questioning and being curious. 

Embedded in that dissonance is a kind of complicity, the act of participating in systems responsible for terrible things — a notion that, to Kitamura, is perhaps the book’s central concern. “These things are happening, but it’s never enough. Whatever you do, it’s not going to be enough,” she said.

The unnamed protagonist is multi-layered and complicated. She moved from New York to The Hague in the Netherlands to work as an interpreter and a court translator on a contract at the International Criminal Court. She worked on a case in which a former president is on trial for war crimes. She met colleagues and built a superficial relationship with them. She made new friends; she goes out, but she didn't seem to have found happiness. 

It was something that had begun to weigh upon me, more heavily by the day. Ever since the witness testimony, my time in the booth had become more difficult, and I had started to look at my colleagues differently. They no longer seemed like the well-adjusted individuals I had met upon my arrival, instead they were marked by alarming fissures, levels of dissociation that I did not think could be sustainable. And then there was the question of Adriaan, to which I had no real response. I did not know whether I wished to stay or not. But where would I go, if I were to leave? I was not yet able to envision an alternative. For this reason alone it was not a matter of small interest to me, whether or not the Court would extend my contract. 

There was a love interest of course, Adriaan. He brings with him a promise of a 'stable' relationship. But it didn't seem to be an equal one because the man is not yet divorced, and was deeply conflicted, and doesn't seemed to be focused on the protagonist or her feelings. It felt like an entanglement that was more tedious and tiresome than joyful. He hadn't resolved his own issue with the estranged wife and kids, and here he was, jumping into a new romantic liaison. 

The power of gender is clearly highlighted in this novel. Who is she in the men's lives? A neutral party? A useful house-sitter? A outer-circle friend? It doesn't seem like the men in her life value her for who she is. She seems to be a totally competent professional. And after a long complicated project at an ex-president's trial that saw the suit dismissed,  she was offered a permanent position at The Hague, she declined. 

Adriaan, had finally returned to The Hague after spending months in Lisbon chasing after his estranged wife who decided to live in Portugal and took the children. Adriaan and the protagonist met at a cafe to sort out their relationship, and had a conversation, which contained Adriaan's apology to her. 

I was offered a permanent contract at the Court.

That is wonderful news. 

I declined.

I see. 

But I saw that he did not see, or that he was not certain of what the words meant, whether in telling him I had declined the position at the Court I was also telling him that I would no longer be living in The Hague, that I would never meet his children, that there was no possibility of a future between us. I'd had to make the decision without him, I'd had to make it alone. After a moment, he raised his eyes to my face. 

This is still a romance novel. I'm not hot about the genre, but I appreciate the writing, and the author's style of presenting it. It was a story about romance and a relationship that was workable, and very real. It's a question that comes at many of us while we're at crossroads (this can be at any age), traveling on a long vacation, on a sabbatical, or living and working in a new city. Do we stay or do we leave? Where will our decisions lead us in a few years?  Do we allow life to lead us by our noses, or do we take control of our lives?

Although she was firm on leaving the Court, she was wavering about staying on in The Hague, and being with Adriaan. The ending told us as much. The narrator let on that she was willing to give this relationship another chance. I suppose how the relationship pans out depends on the point of life both parties are at. You know the old cliché about meeting the 'wrong person at the right time versus meeting the right person at the wrong time'? Yup, this is pretty much the narrator's state of affairs.

I did not reply. Adriaan waved to the waiter, signaling for the bill. I'd been quiet long enough for the silence to take on meaning. I would need to make a decision. yes, I said softly. He turned around and I saw that in his eyes there was nonetheless a glimmer of hope. That we might yet proceed from here. That this might yet be enough. He reached for my hand, his face turned toward me. And so I said it again. I said yes.