By Ian Wedde
VUP, $30 | Reviewed by Jolene Williams

WESTERNERS often feel surprised, curious and intensely confused after their first encounter with Chinese opera. And so, after reading only the back cover of Ian Wedde’s novel Chinese Opera, it was apt that my sensitivities were equally awry. The blurb promised big things. Strange things. Things that would test boundaries of expectation. Like its musical equivalent, Chinese Opera proved suited for a very specific, very flexible, readership.

It’s 2090 somewhere in central Wellington. Little Frank, a well-respected man about town, suddenly has his brain switched on. The fog of semi-consciousness has lifted and, like the reader, he is confronted with a surprising, curious and confusing ‘reality’. Long ago, Little Frank traded his memories and mental autonomy as part of a mind-altering engineering programme. In exchange, he is granted immunity from age. But since his awakening, 120 year old Little Frank begins to question the nature of his externally controlled existence. Why is he involved in these experiments? Who are his benefactors? Why is he being watched and threatened? Who can he trust? And why does his parentless upbringing haunt him still?

With a protagonist determined to solve these riddles, Chinese Opera reads like a detective story. The reader assumes the confusion and disarray will gradually dissolve to reveal the truth. But unlike a good who-dunnit, Chinese Opera resists disentanglement. The alien setting and disjointed narrative prevent the reader from fitting the jigsaw pieces together. They are forced into a passive reading, relying on the insipid Little Frank to keep the narrative rolling.

Unfortunately, Little Frank is a terrible bore. He rarely speaks with emotion, suggesting his previous robotic lifestyle has stripped away his personality. The narrative is dense with detail, with a heavy, sluggish pace. And so the reader’s initial curiosity soon gives way to frustration. The illogical sequencing further hinders the novel. Instead of getting closer to the truth, the reader struggles to make sense of events.

Wedde is renowned for his original scripts. Though Chinese Opera reads like a Vanilla Sky/The Island hybrid, the plot is far from predictable. The novel is coloured by unusual, if not incongruous characters: the unnervingly polite Dr. Smiles, body-part pirates, Asian heavies and an enigmatic Chinese opera singer. So despite Little Frank’s monotonous narration, Wedde’s world is alive and eccentric.

Overall, the novel’s laboured execution lets down an otherwise intriguing premise. Chinese Opera perhaps is more suited to film where a faster pace and high-tech visuals could better translate the complexity of Wedde’s futuristic vision.