Charmaine Chan
1. BIOGRAPHY
2. CRITICAL INTRODUCTION
3. SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
4. SELECTED PROSE
an excerpt from The Magic Circle
CRITICAL INTRODUCTION
Written by Eunice Chin
Dated 15 May 2022
Charmaine Chan is a Singaporean writer, journalist, editor, poet, and former lawyer. Her poetry is featured in the anthology No Other City: The Ethos Anthology of Urban Poetry (2000). More recently, she published her first full-length non-fiction work The Magic Circle in 2017 and was subsequently shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. Throughout her oeuvre, Chan is concerned with the theme of loss, which manifests in her explorations of embodied memory and eventually, embodied grief. At their core, her works speak to the act of remembering, forgetting, and the transcendent quality of memory.
Chan’s concern with memory culminates in The Magic Circle but can be traced back to her early poetry. “Neon Reflections”, Chan’s contribution to No Other City: The Ethos Anthology of Urban Poetry, is a first-person rumination on the familiar and comforting sights in an unnamed city. Through Chan’s deft writing, the city’s sights and sounds become sites of embodied memories, each one triggered by the persona’s senses as she navigates the city. Beginning with the streets that “pulse [b]eneath [her] feet” (118), the persona establishes the city as one that is alive and filled with vitality by the individual memories that inhabits it. As the persona wanders through the city, the mood shifts and references to Greek mythology are used to describe the changing experience. She first depicts herself as being drunk on the sights as she passes them with “Dionysian abandon” (119), as though they immerse her into an alternate reality. However, the city’s energy that was described as “technicolor” (118) and a “gorgeous vari-colored tapestry” brings with it a sinister tone as it is also compared to a “siren song” (119). In Greek mythology, sirens were creatures that used their music and voices to enchant and ultimately lure sailors to their deaths. The comparison of the city’s landscape to that of a “siren song” thus creates an ominous air and positions the city as one that is alluring yet threatening. Towards the end of the poem, it is clear what this threat is: the memories of and with an unidentified person that the city reminds the persona of. They are memories that the persona seeks to forget but since they are so deeply connected to the city, where “every detail speaks of [them]”, the persona is constantly being haunted by them. The extent to which these memories have reshaped her perception of the city is so great that the city has long “ceased to be [hers]”. “Neon Reflections” navigates the burden of remembering because a city made alive by “time, experience and memory (118), such as the one in the poem, is a city of embodied memory. Embodied memories are not necessarily negative ones but in this poem, the persona shows us how they are so in her struggle to forget while the city’s sights and sounds constantly remind her of them. Spaces and bodies are permanently inscribed by the relationships and associations that one forms with and though it; they can be layered upon each other but never erased.
While “Neon Reflections” sees embodied memory as antagonistic, The Magic Circle sees them as cathartic – they are “living things, kept alive by sharing and talking about them, so that they can breathe, resuming shape and colour in [our] consciousness” (16). The Magic Circle is Chan’s memoir centred around her sister Elaine’s battle with a rare and aggressive form of cancer, from diagnosis to the aftermath of her passing. We are also given glimpses into their childhood as Chan recounts funny and heart-warming memories and these memories become a way to reconcile the inevitable need to let go in the face of death. Together with their eldest sister Lorraine, the three daughters form the titular magic circle. The magic circle is an allusion to how three is always the magic number in legends and fables, a sentiment set forth in the prologue as well. Chan opens her memoir like “all the best fairy tales do, with ‘Once upon a time…’” (7) before proceeding to tell the story of a king and queen who had three daughters, each blessed by the Good Fairy with a specific gift – intelligence, beauty, and the soul of a poet. The connection is clear: the royal family in this story is Chan’s own and Chan identifies herself as the last sister. With words as her domain, she compares herself to literary characters such as Cassandra, the oracle and guardian of family history, and Cordelia, the only one who dared to speak the truth. By having the prologue centred around an embedded narrative, particularly that of a fairy tale, Chan foregrounds the relationship between storytelling and memory while also emphasising how a childlike imagination can ease the pain when re-experiencing and telling a story of grief. Imagination proves to be paramount as Chan’s childhood home becomes a reminder of what once was and can never be again in the wake of Elaine’s death. These intrusive thoughts consume her with “a longing for a place that doesn’t exist any longer, except in [her] memory and imagination” (64). While this desire might initially be thought of as a sombre one, Chan recognises that it is in her imagination that she can relive memories with Elaine and being the keeper of words, she has now taken on the responsibility to keep them alive despite death’s cruel hand. Ultimately, the prologue highlights how storytelling can help one negotiate and respond to grief. It lays the foundation for the more challenging task of navigating the conflicting and complex emotions when bearing witness to a loved one’s death.
Chan’s sensitive writing weaves vulnerability and humour together as she recalls childhood memories such as that of playing with Paddington Bear and Winnie the Pooh, little sisterly arguments, to those of her being one of Elaine’s caretakers in her later years. Although these might seem trivial, it is by including them that we become privy to the sisters and the family as they grow up, allowing us to form an attachment that makes Elaine’s death that much harder to read. Familial bonds are pivotal to this memoir as Elaine’s diagnosis brings together family members living in different parts of the world and puts their limits to the test, all while strengthening the bond they have. As the family confronts the imminence of Elaine’s death, Chan wonders “[w]hat happens when the person who features the most, your partner in crime and time, so to speak, is about to leave you, to become but a memory herself?” (16). When talking about love and loss, Jeanette Winterson’s famous question – “[w]hy is the measure of love loss?” (9) – comes to mind. Although Winterson’s question is commonly thought of in terms of physical loss creating a void that cannot be filled, Chan provides us with a different perspective as she writes about being at a loss for words: “Words are your métier, your strength, the most formidable weapon in your arsenal of talents. Yet facing the Almighty, faced with losing the sister you love, you are reduced to a prayer made up of a single word, ‘Please’” (Chan 110 – 1). Imagine being the best warrior a country has ever seen and yet being unable to fight because you are being bound by a force beyond human understanding. This is the image that Chan’s description evokes. The prospect of losing a loved one who is so intricately woven into the fabric of her existence since birth is so unfathomable that Chan, the daughter who was bequeathed with the “ability to make words sing” (7) is now unable to make them even speak. This is also one of the four moments in The Magic Circle written in second person, allowing Chan to address the reader directly. Chan has admitted that these second person passages were difficult to write but she wanted to include them due to the “compelling sense of immediacy [they create] and the sheer power [the] have to pull readers into [her] world as it was then” (“Charmaine Chan on Preserving her Childhood through the Power of Memory”), almost as if she is calling to us for help. As we see the master of words being unable to call upon her ultimate weapon, coupled with the use of second person narration, the intensity of this moment continues to build, and the despair reveals how there are moments that words cannot reach. Despite that, Chan continues with the narrative impulse to tell her story because it is by doing so that she can keep Elaine’s memory alive by involving the reader, current and future, in the process.
The helplessness felt in the face of grief is taken a step further as Chan defers to the body and tells herself (and us) that “while your mind can willfully decide it will not dwell on it, your body cannot. As Elaine’s body betrays her, yours unremittingly reminds you that there is something terribly wrong with your world” (108). Here, Chan describes how the feeling of being overwhelmed by grief is so visceral and beyond control that even though the body intuitively knows something is amiss, it is unable to counter it and involuntarily allows the unease to permeate. As Jeanette Winterson aptly puts it, “[t]he physical memory blunders through the doors the mind has tried to seal. [..] Wisdom says forget, the body howls.” (130). The discomfort triggers panic and anxiety responses such as sudden nausea and the inability to breathe but above all, it exposes how grief paralyses: “[y]ou feel lost, for a split second you totally forget how to function, don’t know what to do next, even if the next step is something as basic as putting your right foot in front of your left” (Chan 108 – 9). Acknowledging and navigating the agonising terrain of grief involves a literal embodiment as one must submit their body to it, willingly or otherwise. Chan understands that these involuntary bodily responses are physical reactions to a grief that is not usually expressed (109) simply because it is impossible to do so. Grief cannot be rationally and logically processed; it is invasive and soul crushing – it demands to be experienced in its rawest form.
Grief is often discussed in the wake of death, but Chan also writes about how she deals with grief before Elaine’s passing. How does one mourn a loved one in their presence? Chan introduces us to two unwanted companions, Guilt and Despair, and personifies them as shadows hovering and lurking at every crevice whenever she faces her sister due to her inability to do anything to relieve Elaine’s pain. Chan wills herself to not look at Elaine’s “gaunt, skeletal body [and] […] her shrivelled flesh. Most especially don’t look at the jutting bones of her pelvis” (214). While this avoidance can be interpreted as a means to deflect the guilt and despair she feels, it also serves to draw our attention away from the physical and underscores the importance of not letting a memory be dictated by it. This is reinforced by Chan’s instructions to herself: “[d]on’t think about the past or how ravishing she used to be. Don’t think about the future, a future that won’t include her”. As she implores herself to not look back in comparison or forward with melancholy, we witness a flash of vulnerability as Chan admits that these moments of “don’t look” and “don’t think” are her “finest moments in the exercise of self-control”. She tells herself: “[steady] your trembling hands, [still] your sobbing intakes of breath, [hide] how you really feel from your sister because you know the one thing that will break her is your grief”. This is precisely what the experience of grief is – a battle with the self, a battle that Chan has translated onto the pages of her memoir.
Charmaine Chan writes from the heart and from the gut, she writes the inarticulable in a way that allows us to feel it. Her words are no stranger to anyone that has experienced grief and even though we might think that we have processed it and are able to move forward, the pain still rises to the surface periodically because it has already been etched into our bodies. This is why the honesty in Chan’s writing makes it familiar and timeless. It is a testament to the power of storytelling, of being able to navigate and acknowledge what one bears witness to and being able to go on despite it. Even with Elaine’s passing, Chan’s memoir has “sealed [Elaine’s legacy] in black and white, preserved […] in print”, ready to be passed on to Elaine’s daughter Yazmin because with her, “they will stay safe, carried forward into the future” (236). Memories do not die with a person. They are so deeply inscribed onto our bodies and the space around us that they remain alive so long as someone remembers. With her sensitive and tactful words, Chan’s writing demonstrates the possibility that our own magic circles, just like hers, can and will remain unbroken and immortal.
Works Cited
Chan, Charmaine. “Neon Reflections". No Other City: the Ethos Anthology of Urban Poetry, edited by Aaron Lee and Alvin Pang, Ethos Books, 2000, pp. 118 – 119.
--- The Magic Circle. Ethos Books, 2017.
“Charmaine Chan on preserving her childhood through the power of memory — Singapore Lit Prize Feature” Ethos Books, 24 July 2018, https://www.ethosbooks.com.sg/blogs/interviews/charmaine-chan
Winterson, Jeanette. Written on the Body. Vintage, 2001.
