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mediaeval history, in which the dwarfs are seen as an ancient race of little people who were
assimilated into the Celtic gene pool but who reappear as throwbacks. The narrator wonders,
But who did Billy truly wish to be? Perhaps, with his archaic slang and
Public School accent, his ‘old man’ drawled in mockery (of himself or of us?)
he played an upper-middle-class Australian or Englishman of the pre-war era.
Yet sometimes he played a special role as an Asian: he was to go through
Confucian Chinese and Japanese Zen phases. It was as though, since his race
was double and his status ambiguous, he had decided to multiply the ambiguity
indefinitely. In the Middle Ages he might have found his true function as a
vagans, a wandering scholar. (YLD, 67)
This would certainly make Billy Kwan someone special, and not just a half-breed,
achondroplastic dwarf with a wide, frog-like smile.
herself:
Perplexed by similar problems of identity and size, Alice begins crying and then scolds
‘Come, there’s no use in crying like that!’ said Alice to herself rather sharply.
‘I advise you to leave off this minute!’ She generally gave herself very good
advice (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded
herself so severely as to bring tears into her own eyes; and once she
remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of
croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of
pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to
pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one
respectable person.’ (Lewis Carroll, 14-15)
It is a conclusion Kwan might have been well advised to reach himself. He is, after all, a very
likeable figure, and one almost wishes he could have kept Alice’s sense of humour. Billy
Kwan, however, is tormented by his disparate origins. Hamilton wonders why he would reject
his Chinese side, and Billy responds:
‘My heritage isn’t China—my heritage is Europe, just as yours is. Tell me,
what books did you read, Ham, when you were twelve years old? Sherlock
Holmes? The Saint? The William books?’
‘All of those. Used to love them. Why?’
‘So did I. Do you see? I used to want to be William. I suppose you did
too. But I couldn’t be—my face wouldn’t let me. Sooner or later, you see, at a
party or in a bar, there’s a character who’s always waiting for me. He says,
“Kwan: now what sort of a name’s that?”’ He was imitating a crass
Australian. ‘“Half Chinese aren’t you?” he says. I can never get rid of that
bastard.’ (YLD, 83-84)
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