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Michael Hollingworth

Professor Lisa Orta

English 123

11 May 2017

The Poetry of Realism

In Steer Toward Rock Fae Myenne Ng presents a story of finding oneself in a foreign

land. She gives the reader a peek into a world that they probably are not familiar with. This genre

of fiction is known as realism. Realism consists of several general qualities, one of which is

transparent language. However, anybody who has read Steer Toward Rock can confidently say

that its language does not read easily. It does not even have quotation marks during dialogue.

This might discourage people from considering it a realist book, but the cloudy language actually

enhances the realism.

Psychology has documented and shown that language profoundly affects the way a

person thinks. This means that someone who learnt English as their first language thinks

differently from someone who has learned Chinese as their first language. A common exercise to

demonstrate this is to count out loud, and then in ones head. Even though when counting in

ones head, there is no longer the limitation of how fast one can speak, one cannot count any

faster than when speaking out loud. In Steer Toward Rock Jack speaks Chinese, and Chinese is

full of idioms and flowery phrases that simply do not exist in English (Hsu). Thus, the way Ng

has written about his inner thoughts is more realistic than if she wrote it clearly and concisely.

An example of this occurs when Gold Szeto gets his revenge on Jack by having his henchmen

cut his hand off. In moments of extreme stress and pain, the human body literally shuts off the

nervous system so that it does not overwhelm itself. How does the language reflect that? Rather
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than talking about how painful the experience of losing his hand is, Jacks mind wanders back to

memories of his mother, and there he finds his peace (Ng 111-112).

But is there any point to writing like this, especially when the author walks the dangerous

line of losing the reader? The answer is yes. Not only does Ngs writing more accurately reflect

the difference in traditional Western culture and what Jack is used to, it also demonstrates a

profound fact about Jack himself. As the story progresses, the reader soon realizes that Jack is a

traditionalist, and his actions, the way he speaks, and, yes, even the way he thinks all point to

that. The fact that Jack literally thinks in idioms is one example of this, but an especially

poignant example comes when he tells Louie about Joyce saying, Joyce said the sun was round

and I heard it was square so it was impossible to fit ourselves into one sentence (49). This

beautiful line shows in every way Jacks traditionalism. It uses the flowery Chinese way of

speaking, and beyond that, he heard the sun was square, meaning that what he was taught is

different from what Joyce has chosen to believe.

Steer Toward Rock is filled with grammatical atrocities. The most glaring example comes

from the dialogue, and how there are no quotation marks in it at all. But it goes deeper than that.

For example, the quote above runs on and on and on. Two commas would fix it, but both Ng and

her editors refrained from inserting those simple two commas. This already should set off alarm

bells. In a story that on its surface seems like it should be realistic, both the author and the editors

bypass grammatical accuracy for a run-on sentence? But examine the sentence from another

perspective, and one will realize the genius encased in it. People do not speak with grammatical

accuracy. It is why most people cannot write with grammatical precision. Living busy lives does

not leave much room for considering the placement of commas and periods every five words. In

fact, people typically punctuate dialogue with breaths and swallows rather than actual
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grammatical rules. So in neglecting the appropriate punctuation for that piece of dialogue, Ng

actually makes herself even more a slave to realism than before.

Perhaps one of the clearest examples in the book of how Ng uses this lack of

transparency as a way to talk about her characters happens in Part V, when she presents the story

from Vedas perspective. In the several times that Jack had sex during the book, it was described

in a very beautiful and erotic way, reflecting, once again, the way he thinks. However, when

Veda recalls her escapades, she refers to it as fucking (232). This is only one of the many clear

distinctions between how Jack thinks, and how Veda thinks. Another example comes in the

dialogue between Part V and the other parts in which Jack is the protagonist. Apart from the lack

of quotation marks, the dialogue in Part V is properly punctuated. This reflects how Veda was

brought up. Unlike Jack, Veda speaks English like a native, and she was brought up in America.

She spent time as a gate keeper for the airlines, and had to mediate between riled passengers and

staff. In other words, the way she learned how to talk, and by extension the way she learned how

to think, is entirely different from what Jack knows. This demonstrates the glaring difference

between an immigrant to America and the child of that immigrant growing up in America. Even

though Veda is directly related to Jack, she displays characteristics very disparate from those of

her steady, traditional father.

With all of this evidence for why the lack of transparent language in Steer Toward Rock

supports its place in Realism, the question must be asked: Why is transparent language

considered a quality of realism? The realist movement sought to represent its subject truthfully,

in the clearest light possible, without clouding the mix with funny literary business. However, in

doing so the Realists lost an element of fiction that is commonly overlooked. Ng sought to

convey a message through this book. She presented a window into the life of one of many paper
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sons who came to America, and the language that she used played an important role in sending

her message. It helped add authenticity to her characters, a quality that is hard to portray when

said characters should be speaking through ideographs and tonalities rather than letters and

syllables. Language is more than a series of grammatical rules and conventions. Words do not

have to be put in the order that everyone else puts them in. Steer Toward Rock demonstrates this

in its entirety, from cover to cover, defying grammatical standards, filling every page with some

beautiful piece of writing, to the point where it no longer feels like prose; instead, it is poetry.
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Works Cited

Hsu, Fred. What Is the Difference between Chinese and English? Quora, 4 Sept. 2016,

www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-Chinese-and-English.

Ng, Fae Myenne. Steer Toward Rock. New York, NY, Hyperion Books, 2009.