By Daria Husni
Introduction: My “Reading For”
What defines me as a reader? For years, my answer has only been surface-deep: I read as a form of escapism. I enjoy the fantasy genre most of all, but I like being able to experience a world I could never see on my own, and live a life completely different than my own. I like seeing characters grow and develop, face challenges and overcome them. If I had to go a little deeper, I could say that fiction, fantasy in particular, has ways of dealing with danger that aren’t present in reality. I avoid tragedies because I want the promise of a happy ending. I’m willing to read intense suffering, as long as there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. In a way, fiction tempers my anxiety: in my own life I’m constantly faced with the fear of failure, of the unknown and the uncertain. When I read, I know that there will be an ending, and often a victory. And in the process of reading, maybe I could learn something new about humanity, or about myself.
But I was not prepared to examine myself as closely as I needed to in this class. When I chose my book I was still thinking in terms of genre. If I was to choose a book I normally wouldn’t read, then of course I would avoid fantasy. A mystery novel set in the real world seemed like it would be something completely out of my comfort zone. Thus The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao had already begun working its magic, molding me into the role it wanted me to play.
As I began the first chapter of The Majesties, I was immediately hooked. Even though it was not in my typical genre, the narration immediately drew me in, and I was actively engaged in Gwendolyn’s retelling of the events leading up to her family’s murder. Really, I shouldn’t have been as engaged as I was—I already knew how it was going to end. I knew the twist. I knew that Gwendolyn and Estella were the same person. But the story was engaging, and so it was easy to put myself in the role of the person who came in with a clean slate. It was easy to forget the truth I knew all along. And that was because of who I am as a reader. I read for escapism: if a story is engaging or interesting enough, I will throw myself wholeheartedly into it. And if I really enjoy the story, I am willing to become whoever it needs me to become in order to enjoy it. When I initially reached the twist, despite knowing that it was coming, I was disappointed. But was this the fault of the novel? Or of myself?
In his blog post on The Majesties, Scott writes, “While reading The Majesties, I wanted to figure out what role I was being asked to play. When I submitted to the narrative, who was I becoming? According to Peter J. Rabinowitz in “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences,” there are four basic audiences at play in any given narrative: the actual audience, the authorial audience, the narrative audience, and the ideal narrative audience. The actual audience “consists of the flesh-and-blood people who read the book,” and the author has no control over them, but the other three are much more complicated” (MacLean). Unwittingly, I had immediately fallen into the role of the narrative audience. In my bibliography, I want to dissect the roles that the different audiences play in experiencing The Majesties, and why my disappointment had less to do with the quality of the novel, and more to do with how I let myself explore it.
Part One: My submission to the text: breaking out of the narrative audience
“Is it worth betraying your family to protect your humanity? Or vice versa, is protecting and supporting your family the most important thing in life, even if it means tearing away at the social fabric that allows our world to function? As I started to read The Majesties by Tiffany Tsao, a clear premise emerged: what would happen if your closest family member betrayed everyone you cared about?” (Husni)
In my blog post on the book, I pointed out that my role while I was reading essentially became the role of Gwendolyn: I was ignoring what I already knew in favor of the flow of the story. Gwendolyn and Estella felt like such real, separate entities, that when I reached the reveal at the end it almost felt unearned. Where were the hints, the foreshadowing to this earlier in the story? Did the story really need a “twist” to be powerful? At the time it felt cheap, but that was because I was still caught in the role of the narrative audience. In my rejection of the twist, I was still being Gwendolyn. Up until the very end, even after she’s remembered that she is really Estella, Gwendolyn refuses to see herself as anything other than separate. And I, her reader, agreed.
But Gwendolyn is not a reliable narrator. Her character felt too complete to be a figment of Estella’s imagination, but that was by Gwendolyn’s (or really, Estella’s) design. If a character addressed her, can we really call that an inconsistency in the story? After all, she has twisted her own memories to suit her narration. If a character talks to Gwendolyn (which, after reviewing the story, I can’t find an instance of them doing outside of fabricated relationships), it could be her rewriting how events took place. If someone responds to something she said, how are we to know if this actually happened in this way? In my blog I note the inconsistencies that crop up in the story, “Estella is stated to be older than Gwendolyn, and yet they are in the same grade at school, and they go off to college at the same time. She has supposedly never visited Gwendolyn’s company, yet she magically knows the way through their laboratory” (Husni). The clues were there, but I was too blinded by the narration to see them.
When I began to analyze The Majesties, and began expanding on the theme of truth vs lies, I realized how brilliant this twist actually is. In my initial blog post, I classified the controlling and counter ideas as lies vs truth. While I still stand by my take on the central theme of the story, I think my own narrative experience skewed my identification of the climax. Initially I thought the climax was in the sisters’ conversation with their aunt, where they discover that their grandmother had been as corrupt as the rest of the story. This was, after all, the breaking point that drove Estella to murder. But the point of the story isn’t really about why Estella killed her family. The point of the story is for Gwendolyn to remember her true identity. The Estella in her—her real self—is trying the whole time to have her see the truth.
But she refuses to. Even down to the very end, Gwendolyn clings to the identity she has built for herself. I address this in my blog: “I’m part of Estella,” Gwendolyn says in the coda. “Yet she’s dead, and I remain—as do certain memories that refuse to be accounted for, that bear stubborn testament to my life as my own” (Tsao, 251). She recounts all of Gwendolyn’s memories, the memories that she’s created, that are too strong for her to let go of. “You understand, then, why I find it so difficult to accept the truth of my circumstances. I’m Gwendolyn. I have to be” (253). The story ends with Gwendolyn slipping happily into sleep, the doctors ready to pull the plug, forgetting all that she’s recounted to us. “It’s Estella . . . She looks so serene, I don’t think she remembers anything of what has passed, what she has done. And in these dreams, I too forget” (254)” (Husni). Gwendolyn’s rejection of the truth is, in turn, a rejection of the true climax, and of the significance that climax brings to the story. So it makes sense that someone fully immersed in the narrative, as I was, would also find fault in it.
I was already breaking out of that role when I wrote my first blog. Now in hindsight, I can see how much it was still affecting me. Part of the issue I had with my controlling and counter ideas was my confusion with the concept. Even after multiple attempts I still confused them with controlling and counter values. Quite frankly, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what they mean. But it’s clear to me now that I built them around the wrong climax. Now I can say that they have less to do with protecting family, and more with protecting the lies we tell to ourselves.
Part 2: Genre in The Majesties: the authorial audience and breaking convention
Genre is something that so often defines the authorial audience of a book. Each genre has its own audience of sorts, and each genre comes with its own expectations from its audience. Murder mysteries need a mysterious killer. From the beginning, The Majesties was already defying the constraints of its genre, as the identity of the killer is written on the jacket cover. The mystery surronding The Majesties’ murder isn’t the identity of the killer, but the actions that drove her to that point. In some ways it’s a reverse murder mystery—we are discovering the motive after discovering the murderer. In other ways, The Majesties has more in common with the thriller genre. Because of this breaking of convention, The Majesties is able to pull from multiple authorial audiences.
Paige shared my feelings on the genre of The Majesties. She writes, “Instead of taking the path I was expecting, Tiffany Tsao took it to a whole new level and revealed that Gwendolyn was only a part of Estella, her “better half” as she says. Because of this, I have branded Majesties as a psychological thriller” (McTernan).
Later in her blog Paige goes on to quote Jane Gallop from her book The Ethics of Reading, “Close reading slows us down, stopping us at words, getting us to look around at the context of the words that stopped us, making us remember similar words and go back and look for them.” (Gallop, 12). This is something I had to remember in my own reading of this story. Too often I am a reader that rushes through a story. I am eager to devour it, to race my way to the end. Because of this, I often miss crucial details. I remember when I was a teenager watching the second Thor movie for the first time, I was so distraught over Loki’s death that I missed the very obvious hint that he was still alive. So when he was fully revealed at the end, I was completely shocked (my friends, amused by my antics, were less surprised). While this is a humorous example, my tendency to run through a story, completely absorbed in the narrative, still hasn’t changed. Slowing down, letting myself play into multiple audiences at once—this is a technique this class has really helped me hone.
Part 3: Cultural coding, and different kind of authorial audience
To only discuss the genre of The Majesties when talking about the authorial audience would be to do it a disservice. For many, it was not the mystery that drew them to this story, but the issues and cultural narratives that were explored within. Indeed, what made this story so alluring to me was being able to throw myself into a culture I was unfamiliar with. Although The Majesties is not fantasy, the unfamiliar territory the novel placed me in was still fantastical enough for me to be engaged.
But for others, it was the representation of Asian culture in a western novel that drew them in. Only recently are we seeing Asian culture really being celebrated and represented in mainstream American media, and the box office success of movies such as Crazy Rich Asians have proved that it’s here to stay. For many Asian-Americans, a book like The Majesties was not possible in the publishing market they grew up in. They finally have the opportunity to support novels that give them the representation they’ve been craving.
This is reflected in Tsao’s writing, and the cultural codes she uses—especially when the girls are in California, Tsao’s birthplace. Angelica writes about this in her blog. There is a really insightful scene midway through the book which represents a misappropriation of asian culture. . . . While attending [a BASA meeting] they run into two situations within pages of each other that represent a larger issue; “‘Seriously?!’ exclaimed a senior girl in a blue bandana and a yellow T-shirt that read GOT RICE?” (Tsao 96). The second event occurs with an american student, “After she talked at us for ten minutes straight about anime, we realized she thought we were Japanese,” (Tsao 97). The book raises a cultural issue at play; Americans don’t seem to understand other cultures, sometimes completely disregarding an individual and their personal knowledge at hand and sticking to the ‘lack of knowledge’ they have” (Faustino). This discrimination is something Asian-Americans readers are very familiar with.
Later in her blog Angelica writes, “Morality is a cultural code that spans most all cultures. This is one of the cultural codes that stood out to me the most in the text. A line in Tsao’s novel sums up the sister’s mission; “Redemption. You know. So we can change. Be better. Honest. Open. Like normal people,” (Faustino). I found this interesting because an argument can be made that morality is different from culture to culture. Even within cultures morality can be vastly different. What is morally okay for the mega wealthy would not be okay for the average person. When Oma so casually orders a hit on her daughter’s friend, she didn’t seem to think of it as a bad thing. Murder is normally seen as immoral, but to her it was perfectly acceptable. This made me wonder again about the authorial audience. Even if the story is about a culture they’re familiar with, I doubt that there are many multi millionaires who are reading this story. Estella and Gwendolyn’s experience as Chinese-Indonesians is very different than the average one, something Gwendolyn admits but does not often face. Most Chinese-Indonesian citizens don’t have ceo positions waiting for them when they graduate college, or private shopping rooms in extravagant boutiques. Most of them don’t have access to the kind of wealth that Gwendolyn so effortlessly, even thoughtlessly, enjoys. So perhaps even this type of authorial audience may be reading for something new, for a glance into the lives of the ultra-rich, under the lens of their own cultural background.
Part 4: The role of the audience
It was Scott’s blog on The Majesties that inspired me to look deeper into the kind of role I was playing as a reader. As he wrote in his blog, “My goal during reading this book was to figure out who the narrator is addressing, and if I was becoming a submissive reader of the narrative. What role did the text ask me to play?” (MacLean). As I re-read his blog and thought about how my reaction to the ending of the story has changed, I wondered if this could have to do with the role I played while I was reading.
Earlier in this very blog I made the point that I had taken on the role of the narrative audience. But Scott makes an interesting point. “Lastly is the ideal narrative audience, which simply accepts uncritically whatever the narrator has to say. Unlike the authorial audience or the narrative audience, the ideal narrative audience would not be shocked by Gwendolyn’s claim that she forgives her sister, and would remain stone-faced when confronted with the truth behind Leonard’s death, and Tante Sandra’s past. As a member of the narrative audience, I’m meant to take on the role of confidant, but still critique the decisions that Gwendolyn and Estella made. “ Perhaps I was not the complete, ideal audience after all. While I was deeply engrossed in the story, I was still able to see the issues with a lot of Gwendolyn and Estella’s actions. I was not numb to Leonard’s death. I was uneasy with Gwendolyn’s narration in the coda.
The interesting part of The Majesties is that it’s difficult to say which perspective—Estella or Gwendolyn, counter or controlling—really won in the end. This was part of what tripped me up when I wrote my initial blog post, and I think Scott’s insight into the role of the audience helps to shed some light on why the ending is so complex. It would be short-sighted to simply say that Gwendolyn’s perspective, the one of comforting lies, really won in the end. It may have been how Gwendolyn ended her story, but I doubt that most of her readers would completely agree with her. The ending is bittersweet, uneasy. The reader may be happy that she is at peace, but unhappy with the actions that put her there. They may question whether that peace is even real. They may be upset that the truth is being stifled. I tried to ask the book what value won, but the ending of The Majesties does not give a clear answer. Instead, it asks its readers to decide for themselves what audience they will choose to be.
Final Reflection
While this has been my hardest class this semester, it has also been the one I’ve seen the most growth in. I’ve constantly had to push myself through mental barriers to succeed. Whether it’s pushing myself through mental reconceptions I had around reading, or the barriers of failure I’ve built around my writing, this class has urged me to find ways past them. It has been uncomfortable, and often painful, but it was necessary for me to grow as a student, a reader, and a writer. Even though a great deal of my assignments have been late, even though covid exacerbated my issues, I’ve still been able to produce work I didn’t think I was capable of.
As a reader, I’m now far more aware of the components that go into sculpting the stories I enjoy. I can see how the narrative is trying to shape the kind of experience it wants me to have, and I can choose whether or not I want to participate. As a writer, I can take the tools I’ve learned and apply them to my own works. I’m more prepared now to thread themes and values through my stories, now that I understand a little more about how they work. I’m very glad that I took this class, and I’m excited to see how my work transforms in the future.
Works Cited:
Gallop, Jane. “The Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 2000.
McKee, Robert. “Structure and Meaning.” Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting. (1997)
Faustino, Angela (Blog 3): https://allyoureadislovewa.wordpress.com/2020/10/29/romance-on-the-court/
Husni, Daria (Blog 1): https://allyoureadislovewa.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/finding-the-truth-in-the-majesties-narrative/
MacLean, Scott (Blog 4): https://allyoureadislovewa.wordpress.com/2020/11/02/unlocking-the-codes-in-the-wrong-mr-darcy/
McTernan, Paige (Blog 2): https://allyoureadislovewa.wordpress.com/2020/10/23/a-closer-look-at-majesties-reading-into-genre/
Tsao, Tiffany. The Majesties. Atria Books, 2018.
All You Read is Love 