A.E.: The plot in Headmaster’s Wager has strong emphases on male relationships, which can be complex, conflict-ridden or traverse several shades from absence of male figures and nostalgia about ‘ancestors’ to conflict between fathers and sons. I am thinking specifically of the relationship between Headmaster Percival as a child (Chen Pie Sou) and his own absent father, Chen Kai, Headmaster Percival and his wayward teenage son, Dai Jai, and that between Teacher Mak and the Headmaster. Male ‘homosocial’ bonding generally seems to be a central underlying plot. But this got me wondering if you had any psychoanalytic intent in the plotting or if you think a psychoanalytic reading is justifiable.
V.L.: I had no psychoanalytic intent, and probably for that exact reason, a psychoanalytic reading might prove fruitful! Isn’t that what a Freudian would expect, that I would act unconsciously? The funny thing is that when it comes to novels, I think that any psychoanalytic (that’s a really big word, perhaps the reason I rarely use it) effort will always reflect as much about the observer as it does about the art. For instance, an article was published in which it was suggested that the Christian resurrection story is embedded in my work. Well, that certainly never occurred to me, but it doesn’t mean it is false. It is true for that reader. That’s just part of the amazing thing about literature – the experience is an exchange. The reader is ‘lying on the Freudian couch’ as much as the writer.
A.E.: Again I am thinking of D.H. Lawrence’ Sons and Lovers, which has encouraged many a Freudian reading. This has been due to the convergences between the author’s suspect troubled relationship with his father, and closeness to his mother in real life, and a replication of these relationships in Sons and Lovers. I do not presume that Headmaster’s Wager has any autobiographical intent beyond, well, the setting, does it?
V.L.: Well, in the sense that autobiography refers to one’s actual life – no. Is the setting important for me? Of course, but it is more than setting. It is a character in the story. I have written about the Chinese community in Saigon during the Vietnam War. This is my own family’s background, therefore much more than an arbitrary setting that could have been somewhere else. It is essential to my feelings for the book.
A.E.: Please do elaborate about that setting. Was this an excavation of roots for you, a dialogue with self? Was there a physical revisiting of those places or just the mental journey? And did you have to do some research for purposes of verisimilitude?
V.L.: I’ve never lived in Vietnam, though I’m flattered when people who have read the book assume that I must have lived there. I went to Vietnam twice for research, and read extensively. My family is ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, and the events of the war were integral to my family’s historical trajectory – though I should distinguish that they were never integral to my own life or upbringing. So, the book is not a literal excavation of my own individual roots, but it does meditate upon history that is very meaningful to me. Isn’t every meaningful book a kind of sketch of a portion of the writer’s heart? It is deeply personal, without being autobiography.
A.E.: In your biography of the great and inimitable Tommy Douglas, CBC Greatest Canadian for 2004, you express pride in the fact that Canada’s health care system, championed first by Douglas in Saskatchewan and adopted nationally later on, is based on the social democratic premise “that all human lives have equal value.” Obvious as it might appear, what was your initial impetus for choosing that “father of Canadian Medicare” as subject?
V.L.: I think we need to remember that when we discuss health care, we are not just discussing a consumer good like breakfast cereal, or a government service like road building. Health care discussions are a discussion of how we, as a society, want to treat our fellow human beings in their most vulnerable moments. When we discuss health care, we are discussing morality and humanity. I’m not saying our system is perfect – we should always strive to improve it. I do think that having a universally insured medical care system is a fantastic starting point for meaningful discussion and work. So, why did I write about Tommy? Well, because in this country Tommy’s story is integrally intertwined with these human and moral discussions of how to provide health care, and I think we need to remember how we got here.
A.E.: You have talked more pseudo-scientific prose in The Flu Pandemic and You. By Pseudo-scientific I mean you would not alienate the readers by throwing all the Latinate Jargons at them. What was that experience like compared to writing fiction or the biography of Tommy Douglas?
V.L.: The best scientific writing is very clear. So is the best non-scientific writing. There’s nothing special about the way doctors talk to each other. It’s just that for the sake of efficiency, we use certain verbal shorthand conventions. Lingo, if you will, or jargon. If I communicate with a patient or a reader who is not a doctor, there is no point in me using those conventions, so I write without them. That’s not such a distinctive experience as a writer; it’s just a different set of tools. I have found non-fiction and fiction to be quite different. In non-fiction, you don’t have to make things up. You just have to get the facts straight, grasp their story, and find a way to express them. In fiction, you have to make it up, but paradoxically you are trying to create a kind of truth out of invention. So, that is another layer of difficulty. A big one!
A.E.: Recently you posted a fan letter on your Facebook wall, which expressed gratitude and satisfaction. Was that letter in respect of Headmaster’s Wager? How does this affect you? Compare it to how Dr. Fitzgerald would have felt in “Bloodletting” (the book) had he been able to save the stroke victim’s life.
V.L.: It was a letter to do with ‘The Headmaster’s Wager.’ These things are hard to compare: my actual response to an appreciative reader, vs. a fictional character’s potential response to saving someone’s life? I’m not even sure where I would begin, so I’ll move to the next question.
A.E.: You are so versatile going from biography, to factual writing, to the short story and novel that I am suspecting you probably see poetry on in the aesthetics of well-knit and tidy stitching of broken skin. Do you indulge secretly? I mean write poetry – or anything else?
V.L.: I indulge in bicycle riding, which I find very poetic. I do not write poetry.
A.E.: You are an emergency doctor; which means the pace can be fast, the difference between life and death might be a blink of an eye. How do you handle a situation where the patient does not respond to all treatments?
V.L.: Well, first of all, most situations do not unfold in the blink of an eye. Some do, but most develop over a slightly longer period of time. So, what do I do? As a diagnostician, I think laterally. I revisit and reconsider the clinical scenario. As a professional care provider, I communicate with the patient and the family, both to see if there are new perspectives on what is going on, and to make sure that they have as much understanding as possible of what is going on. As part of a team, I turn to colleagues for fresh ideas.
As a human being, I remember that there are often lots of things that can be done to make the journey better, even if a patient is not ‘responding’ in the way we would hope they might to treatments. Above all, I try to act kindly and usefully. I try to help the person to have dignity and comfort, as well as the best medical treatments. All our journeys will end the same way, and then often the most crucial question is what kind of humanity we offer each other along the way.
A.E.: Finally I will like to thank you on behalf of MTLS for taking the time out of so many demands on your time from different directions.
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