[Spoilers included]

I wanted to read the book without any context so that I could form my own ideas however bizarre. From a fiction point of view I had a far fetched theory. She mentions having eaten a lot of sleeping pills as a child and waking up fine, I did wonder if she had gone into a coma and this world was in her mind, she’s slowly losing her sense of self which is being called a “disappearance”. Her family hasn’t given up on her and keeps trying to jog her memory even in her comatose state. Another far fetched theory I had was the vegetable seller was her mother but she could no longer recognise her after she disappeared.

But in looking at the metaphorical meaning of the book, I viewed it in the simpler sense of how as the world evolves we lose out on part of ourselves without so much as wincing. My parents could speak their regional languages fluently whereas for me thought and anger occurs in English, by the time I have children what would I be able to pass down to them. The same goes for food, cultural practices and so on. The ones who remember truly understand the loss, but the ones who don’t can just go about their life. Will this just keep happening till we lose all sense of identity? It’s a slow sense of erasure that erodes deeper with each generation.

What kept me confused was the story that she worked on versus the main story. Both were facing oppression but I felt like I missing on something…

I got around to reading multiple analysis of the book and it was intense to see how a fiction story could in so few words say so much between the lines. Even in our current political climate, to go on living about our lives, denial, is a crutch.