'The Moon Represents My Heart'

Geographical, language and cultural influences resulted in the moment I read the book title 'The Moon Represents My Heart' (2023), I thought about it in Chinese and referenced it to a Chinese song 《月亮代表我的心》that was written in 1972 and first sung by Taiwanese singer Chen Fen Lan (陳芬蘭), but the song was made famous in 1977 by fellow singer Teresa Teng (鄧麗君).  

Written in English by Pim Wangtechawat, this book is her debut novel, and it has scored a slot as a Netlix limited series to be directed Shawn Levy, and co-directed by Gemma Chan, who will also star in this series as I dunno which character. I won't presume she would be 'Eva Wang'. She sounds like a Peggy or even May. (Reviews here, here and here.)

The Wangs, a British-Chinese family has a secret ability to time travel into the past. But where they can travel to, seems to be limited by their life's experiences or when they've grown up in. No one can stay longer than 24 hours in the past, and no one could travel back earlier than the 20th century. 

However, be warned: this isn't science fiction and there's nothing fantastical about time traveling in here. Make no mistake, this is a multi-generational family saga with romances, coming of age tales, immigrant sentiments and experiences thrown in. Yup, those genres. 

One day in November 2004, when the parents Joshua and Lily went into 1899 and didn't return, their children, then-12-year-old twins Tommy and Eva are left to grieve. The twins didn't have the ability or the knowledge to find their parents. Their maternal grandma Carol moved in with them. The twins grew up with the shadow of the tragedy hanging over them. They can't quite come to terms with it. 

The description of the venues and destinations in London and Hong Kong are fairly detailed and beautiful. But the character development wasn't sufficient. Both Tommy and Eva are haunted in a different manner. For Tommy, his grief and not being able to let go of the past hurt two women — the love of his life Peggy who lived in London and he met while in 1930s, and the final meet before 1950 separates them, and May in present day London, his girlfriend whom he never really loved, but of which their union produced an eventual daughter Daisy. That was a doomed relationship from the start. Tommy wanted to be responsible for Daisy, but he couldn't even be present for her. He couldn't bring himself to marry May either.  can't stop returning to London 1940s to search for Peggy. 

Without Christelle around, Tommy's trips to the past continue; he moves in and out of time like breathing, even though most of the time it feels like he cannot breathe at all. The Blitz. The Thames. Snow. Rain. Fire. he blinks and he's back there again, searching. Running. He lingers, far longer than he should, and when he feels his body tearing itself away from his bones, he shuts his eyes and forces himself to return.

He thinks of Peggy on that day she told him that they should never see each other again. Her expression breaking in waves. 'This is not how it's supposed to be, Tommy,' she'd said to him. over and over. 'There's a price to what you can do and you always have to pay it. Eventually something has to break.'

Eva moved away from London and went to Hong Kong. She found her way and seemed to have come to terms with herself when she met her paternal Aunt Dorothy and grandmother JiaYi in Hong Kong, and built a life there as an art teacher. We've come a long way since the twins were 12 and in shock. The year now is 2019, and the twins are 27 years old.  

It's contemplative, but it isn't polished enough. The different of narrator voices in all the chapters and switching between young Joshua and older Joshua, etc made it very confusing. If that's supposed to emulate the confusion that the characters feel, then yeah, I'm suitably confused too. 

I'm not a fan of this book. The ending isn't sloppy although it cuts pretty near. I suppose it left enough clues for readers to infer, and some could even read it as ambiguous. I hate it though. I don't like ambiguous endings. I think the Netflix limited series would be better produced and be even more surreal. If they don't change the damn ending, I'm quite sure I wouldn't like it either.