Review of Ministry of Moral Panic by Amanda Lee Koe
“It’s
important to live for yourself. To know life.”, Jenny instructed Alice in the tale
Alice, You Must Be the Fulcrum of Your
Own Universe, the story with the longest title in Ministry of Moral Panic. “You don’t have to be afraid to give,
because we are always in a process of becoming.” These two statements, I feel,
sum up the premise of the collection of fourteen stories by Amanda Lee Koe. The
characters seek love to live. They give love, they dare to become, even if their
becoming would be frowned upon. In the process they toughen up, and they
(mostly) continue with hope.
So
Jenny, a woman in her sixties, and in her
nude pantyhose and cream pumps and apricot dress, salmon lipstick, always trying something new, something she’s
never done before, admitted to Jenny, a young art student, “I think I’m a
little in love with you. It isn’t your fault.” But neither was it Jenny’s fault
to pursue joy and vitality through love. “We let ourselves get into the habit
of the grind, we let the grind wear us down”, drawing a sharp contrast between
Jenny and the narrator in Love Is No Big
Truth. The latter suffered in
silence and dutifully fulfilled the gender and role expectation on her until
the mistress brought home by her husband ate the food she cooked and drank from
the cup of her daughter. After her
husband died and her daughter moved out, she
felt an incredible elation course through her body. Loneliness is freedom. She
declared that there is no such thing as “I cannot live without you; you cannot
live without me.”
In all
stories, the protagonists find and lose or discard love, none with a happy
ending. It is a woeful reminder that love relationships are challenging, and
perhaps doomed between two persons from different geographical, social or
cultural background, or of sexual orientation not considered the acceptable
norms. For example, in Flamingo Valley,
a rich Chinese girl and a Malay guitarist separated after he was beaten up by a
similarly wealthy Chinese love rival. In The
Ballad of Arlene & Nelly, Arlene has been obsessively in love with
Nelly for years, and both could finally live together after Nelly’s divorce,
but the happy times did not last.
Lest the
readers think that there is only a narrow focus on love and emotion, Amanda Lee
Koe does portrays other social phenomenon, and I question the value of
art through the curator’s interview with the artist in Carousel & Fort, ponder on self-cutting disorder in Chick. In The King of Caldecott Hill, the protagonist idolized the King, but
was more able to thrive by carrying her delusions through her life. Even if some characters need some made belief
and illusion in their realities, they have lived for themselves.
Amanda
Lee Koe succeeds in depicting the emotional struggle of characters coping with
situations that challenge the ministry or institution
of social norms, cultural formations and moral standards instilled through
education, religion
and social interaction.
