Ling Ma’s Severance (2018) is, in my eyes, an extraordinary exploration of the affective experience of late capitalism in a global system. The text interrogates the notion of freedom in relation to capitalism, ultimately suggesting the impossibility of escaping the system. The text resonates with Lauren Berlant’s notion of the cruel optimism of capitalism. We are repeatedly told that it is possible to achieve success with hard work – yet people work tirelessly and still remain in precarious situations. Ma uses the body as a physical extension of capitalism – victims of Shen Fever become slaves to relentless routines associated with late-capitalist life. Their bodies slowly disintegrate as they carry out meaningless tasks until they finally die from malnourishment – suggesting that death is the only escape from the workings of the system.
Candace, the novel’s protagonist, does not become fevered. Despite this, she carries out the routine of working life meticulously – Candace would “get lost in the taking of inventory […] snuffing out any worries and anxieties. It is the feeling I like best about working.” (Ma, p65) She finds comfort in the routine of work. As everyone else in the city flees, Candace remains, moving into Spectra’s offices to finish her contract. Despite being successful in completing the contract and receiving a large sum of money, the failing of world systems as a result of Shen Fever means that it is completely worthless, thus validating Berlant’s notion of the cruel optimism of capitalism.
The city’s infrastructure is a disaster; its apartments are famously tiny; everything is overpriced; there are too many people in too small a space; and the whole city will one day have to reckon with the ravages of an encroaching sea.
The Guardian, Desolate New York
Ma introduces us to Jonathan in the opening chapter – a romantic anti-capitalist becoming increasingly “disillusioned” (Ma, p9) by the myth of New York City: “The future is more exponentially exploding rents. The future is more condo building, more luxury housing bought by shell companies of the global wealthy elite […] Manhattan is sinking […] literally and figuratively” (Ma, p13). Jonathan works freelance jobs to afford to live and the rest of his time is spent writing. He believes that this gives him the freedom to do what he loves, even if it means giving up financial stability. In reality, he is still imprisoned by a dire financial situation. Candace’s decision to hide the fact that she is pregnant from Jonathan is an attempt at escaping this financial imprisonment, whilst also meeting her mother’s expectation for her to do as well as or better than her father – “We didn’t come to America so you could be homeless. We came for better opportunities, more opportunities” (Ma, p186). This is highlighted later in the text when Jonathan tells her he is leaving New York, she states: “What I didn’t say was: I know you too well. You live your life idealistically. You think it’s possible to opt out of the system […] you think this is freedom but I still see the bare, painstakingly cheap way you live […] I used to admire this about you […] In this world, money is freedom. Opting out is not a real choice.” (Ma, p205)
[…] Neobohemians who go to university, live off part-time to temporary jobs […] while making art; and well, everyone whose bodies and lives are saturated by capitalist forces and rhythms.
Berlant, p192
Nostalgia and capitalism are interrogated throughout the text. As a first-generation immigrant, Ruifang finds it difficult to understand America and longs to return home to Fuzhou. Zhigang uses American consumerism to placate his wife – “Her homesickness eased in department stores […] places of unparalleled abundance. The solution was shopping.” (Ma, p277) – consumerism becomes a way of numbing the negative affective experience of nostalgia experienced with first-generation immigration. Candace’s nostalgia for Fuzhou (Fuzhou Nighttime Feeling) is repeatedly infected by American capitalism: “Because I misremember everything, because I watch a lot of China travel shows when I am alone at night in New York, because TV mixes with my dreams mixes with my memories […] It is not a cohesive thing, this feeling, it reaches out and bludgeons everything. It is excitement tinged by despair. It is despair heightened by glee […] It is the feeling of drowning in a big hot open gutter, of crawling inside and undressed, unstanched wound that has never been cauterized” (Ma, pp. 97-98). American capitalism is portrayed as an epidemic in itself, infecting people and memories in the text – impossible to escape.
In the End, Candace disappears into the Chicago skyline: “Beyond the bridge is more skyline, more city. I get out and start working.” Even in the End, the metropolis remains the life blood of survival. The system is all Candace knows and her use of a city’s resources will ultimately be her chance at survival. The endless loop of capitalism dominates.
Bibliography
Ma, Ling, Severance (New York: Picador, 2018).
Berlant, Lauren Gail, Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012).
Webography
Conroy, J, “Desolate New York: Eerie Photos of a Ghost Metropolis”, The Guardian, 2020 <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/04/desolate-new-york-eerie-photos-ghost-metropolis-coronavirus> [Accessed 17 November 2020].