Infinite Books

One day, a package of rare mushrooms is delivered to the doorsteps of the Beijing apartment where Song Yan lives with her husband. The sender is unknown, but the mushrooms came from Yunnan province, and Song Yan’s visiting mother-in-law immediately decides to cook them. They were his son’s favorites when he was a boy and lived in Yunnan.

As strange as it sounds, at the same time, Song Yan discovers another kind of mushroom – a peculiar, orange creature that talks to her, asks questions, and in a way, starts pushing Song Yan toward finding what life means for her and what she wants to do. She was trained as a classical pianist hoping to become a concert protégé, but it didn’t happen, primarily because of her psychological barriers. Now she gives piano lessons; her distant husband Bowen is an executive at the car manufacturing company.

The novel moves between the reality of Song Yan’s everyday life and the strange world of the orange mushroom. I was reminded of the magical world of Alice in Wonderland, where the Caterpillar told her that eating one side of the mushroom would make her smaller and another side would make her taller. Similarly, the dreamlike mushroom in Song Yan’s world moves her between what she knows now and what she wants to know. There are secrets in her husband’s life that make her uncomfortable, but there is no communication in her marriage. For Song Yan, the only refuge is music. Eventually, she learns who was sending the packages and meets her ideal musical genius – an older man who used to be a world-known pianist. Now, close to his death, unable and unwilling to play, he becomes her teacher in understanding music and life – not by showing her how to play but by listening to her play and discovering her authentic sound.

It’s a mesmerizing book that can take a reader from the streets of Beijing, with all its noises and smells, filled with people rushing about to the quietness of Song’s room. Of course, other books have been written about the loneliness of women (for example, the recent novel by Mieko Kawakami comes to my mind), loss, grief, and ways of coming to terms with it, but the poetry and slow calmness of this novel are spellbinding. It can also be challenging, especially when the book’s flow seems slow and meandering. In the end, I  hoped Song Yan would become free and confident, but honestly, I wasn’t convinced she did.

GHOST MUSIC, by An Yu, Grove Atlantic, 2023