The Murakami comparisons are obvious – a solitary man in a gray and bureaucratic Asian megalopolis whose wife has left him who focuses, narrow-mindedlThe Murakami comparisons are obvious – a solitary man in a gray and bureaucratic Asian megalopolis whose wife has left him who focuses, narrow-mindedly, on his obscure little corner, whatever that may be. I enjoyed The Invisibility Cloak thoroughly, and as with certain other contemporary-ish Chinese novels, I felt a very palpable absence. Power structures are there. They are not discussed. You recognize they are not being discussed. Fill in the blanks yourself. Does this make it great literature? Not necessarily. It's better than the lesser output of Murakami's, not as good as his highest heights. But I am very curious to read more from Ge Fei....more
There is something I'm missing here. On the one hand, I rather enjoyed how the story progressed, but on the other hand, it didn't really resonate withThere is something I'm missing here. On the one hand, I rather enjoyed how the story progressed, but on the other hand, it didn't really resonate with me. Maybe that's because I never was much for whodunits, maybe it's how instrumentally the story is told -- none of those lush European descriptions that I hold so dear -- maybe it's the fact that an incorruptible hero like Judge Dee seems a bit too boring and pure for someone whose sympathies as a child were more towards Batman than Superman. Hm. It is rather interesting from a sociological perspective, but as a work of fiction, I'm unmoved....more
I saw the Zhang Yimou film as a teenager -- pretty impossibly bleak, and there's a degree of bleakness that Zhang's signature polychromatic visual styI saw the Zhang Yimou film as a teenager -- pretty impossibly bleak, and there's a degree of bleakness that Zhang's signature polychromatic visual style captures that isn't present in the original. Rather, Yu Hua's prose is gray, more or less like how I imagine life in rural China, from the nationalist period through to the Cultural Revolution, to be, as someone who has absolutely no experience with rural China. Which of these versions is truer? I'm not sure. I do know that the film was more compelling, maybe because it didn't just seem like a progression of miseries, but a progression of miseries with a humanistic core. Yu Hua is a fine writer, all of that being said, but I was far more enamored of his China in Ten Words....more
As someone who is fond of donning linen shirts and going for an aperitif on the patio at the Oriental Hotel here in Bangkok, I'm a natural audience foAs someone who is fond of donning linen shirts and going for an aperitif on the patio at the Oriental Hotel here in Bangkok, I'm a natural audience for this. That probably played a big part in why I liked it so much.
Eileen Chang was one of the most elegant writers of the 20th Century, and these stories are type examples -- stories of Shanghai beauties in silk qipao wreathed in cigarette smoke, of Hong Kong playboys sipping martinis at the racecourse, of the intersections of war and love, sex and politics. Yet despite the setting, each story has all the psychological depth you expect from the 19th Century, and you imagine that Chang probably received a thorough education in Tolstoy and Flaubert, but told through the lens of this very specific place and time. ...more
When you read the classics of Russian literature, both pre- and post-Russian Revolution, you realize that half of the reason the writing is so incendiWhen you read the classics of Russian literature, both pre- and post-Russian Revolution, you realize that half of the reason the writing is so incendiary was that they had so much to push back against, and they entail a radical rejection of the state-sponsored elegiac tone. In the "Communist" China of today (do everything the opposite of what Marx prescribes, and have the gall to call it Marxist), I have always assumed there are radical writers who simply don't get read in the West, and Wang Shuo seems like he's a prime example. Simply put, he breathes fire.
This is also one of those translated works that makes me deeply regret I can't read the original language. I see bits and pieces of what are clearly allusions to things everywhere, and I almost guarantee that in the original Chinese, it's twice the novel it is in English. ...more
I knew what I was getting myself into -- a mournful series of novellas about the eternal fuckedness of the people of rural China. They are indeed gorgI knew what I was getting myself into -- a mournful series of novellas about the eternal fuckedness of the people of rural China. They are indeed gorgeous in their studied misery, and reveal one of the great truths that is elided by anyone nostalgic for the good ol' days of rural life -- whether that's a right-wing revanchist or a supposedly left new-ager -- that village life was just as filled with violence, depravity, insanity, and stupidity as the worst variations of modern urban poverty. And Su Tong's little lights of dignity and humanity, wherever he chooses to place them, mostly seem to emphasize the darkness of everything else around them.
Oh, and a sidenote -- if you've seen the highly regarded Zhang Yimou film that the first novella is based on, expect an entirely different beast. Pretty similar story, wildly different tone and points of emphasis....more
Another banger from Gao Xingjian, this one dealing more directly with the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath than his other books that I've read. AAnother banger from Gao Xingjian, this one dealing more directly with the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath than his other books that I've read. As far as a way of coping with the problem of memory, i.e. the transposition of memory to the present day, the narrative does an extremely good job -- it is unstructured, but not too unstructured, and you get a pretty complete version of the main character/Gao stand-in. For sure, there are some weaknesses -- is it just me, or do writers spend far, far too much time giving their stand-ins chance sexual encounters? And especially chance sexual characters with masochistic women? -- but the book as a whole works. Sure, it's not the visionary brilliant thing that Soul Mountain was, but it's still pretty damn good....more
A rather lyrical novel that lives up to its title -- the red sorghum is almost the main character, and it is mentioned time and time again, providing A rather lyrical novel that lives up to its title -- the red sorghum is almost the main character, and it is mentioned time and time again, providing both the livelihood of the family that sits and the center of the narrative as well as a landscape for atrocity after atrocity involving Japanese soldiers and their Chinese collaborators. Like so many Chinese novels, it relies on a way of telling a story that is so, so different from Western models, moving back and forth in time, but without at any point seeming like an "experimental" tactic. It's a style that can be maddening, and something I've struggled with on numerous occasions before, and I struggled with it in Red Sorghum. I liked it in the end, but the more conventionally narrated Zhang Yimou film was, comparatively, a revelation....more
Yet another one of those early 20th Century "what is to be done?" type novels emerging from the fringes of global capitalism, and a particularly good Yet another one of those early 20th Century "what is to be done?" type novels emerging from the fringes of global capitalism, and a particularly good one. That being said, it's probably best to have a little backstory about liberal and left movements in late imperial and republican-era China before you start in, or else you're likely to get lost. Because the ideal reader for this is a qipao-donning liberated woman from an old Confucian family in 1930s China who knows her Ibsen, Tolstoy, and Flaubert, not a 21st Century fuckwit like myself....more
A strange and dreamlike novel about the Cultural Revolution -- I suppose I was expecting something closer to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, IA strange and dreamlike novel about the Cultural Revolution -- I suppose I was expecting something closer to One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, I got the ghosts of Karl Marx and Mencius and talking horses (the sort of thing I normally adore). And a weirdly moving story about how people fall in love and how people get torn apart. And while I wasn't perhaps as moved as I was expecting to be, I was absolutely drawn into their world....more
For something so short, it's a remarkably epic novel. You get this very distinct picture of how life evolved in rural China under both the Cultural ReFor something so short, it's a remarkably epic novel. You get this very distinct picture of how life evolved in rural China under both the Cultural Revolution and the early neo-capitalist era, told with empathy for each of the characters. Like a number of other Chinese novels I've read, it has this sort of 19th Century vibe to it, and Bi Feiyu has more in common with Tolstoy and Flaubert than anything that arose in the high-modernist era onwards, even if the narrative resembles all of those sad children-dying-on-the-Yangtze-gorges Chinese art films....more
Think a Chinese Zola -- an epic novel of social change revolving around the life of a single woman, from her youth in the glittering heyday of Paris-oThink a Chinese Zola -- an epic novel of social change revolving around the life of a single woman, from her youth in the glittering heyday of Paris-of-the-East Shanghai, to the tumult of the Deng Xiaoping era. This alone should be a ringing enough endorsement.
Wang Anyi's relationship to the upheavals of 20th Century China is also fascinating, and often in a rather perverse way. While the great realists of the 19th Century whom Wang takes her cue from -- Zola, Balzac, Tolstoy -- were all able to toss full-fledged political bombs, you can sense the invisible bonds of self-censorship. The 1948 Revolution is almost an afterthought, and the Cultural Revolution is addressed more like a sidenote ("and then times were tough and shit"). It's only when Deng enters the scene that Wang Anyi actually comes out guns blazing, and her narration doesn't really pass judgment on the developments of the 1980s, it just comments. Frankly, she's a bit of a genius at evasion of the issue -- somehow (and I'm not sure if this is what she was going for) all that self-censorship makes me notice the elephant in the room even more....more
A much shorter story than I would have expected, given the grand historical narrative of the film. Simple, well-crafted, minimally descriptive, and prA much shorter story than I would have expected, given the grand historical narrative of the film. Simple, well-crafted, minimally descriptive, and precise, it's the sort of thing that you would pass around in a college class on short fiction composition to show how motivations are implied. Not the sort of thing that's really fashionable anymore, but about as good a piece of realist short fiction as I've read lately -- better than most anything in the New Yorker, at least....more
Where to even start with this? Who knew books like this even existed? First, how many Chinese novels have you read (and I ain't talking about those ovWhere to even start with this? Who knew books like this even existed? First, how many Chinese novels have you read (and I ain't talking about those overseas-Chinese novels about how they can't truly connect with their grandparents) for starters... despite the fact that nearly 20 percent of humanity identifies as Chinese in some meaningful way. Now, let's look at how fucking insane the structure of this book is, a dizzying collage of stories all of which are this sort of folk sociolinguistics of the people of one remote area of China during and after the Cultural Revolution. Shit on me, I was consistently disappointed I couldn't read Chinese, seeing as how this was like one gigantic, brilliant linguistic pinball game, even in translation, and given the richness of how Chinese characters are structured, I'm guessing this is better than Joyce in the original....more
A fairly well-written, if decidedly melodramatic novel of the general feudalist shittiness of a China that struggled to modernize, while at the same tA fairly well-written, if decidedly melodramatic novel of the general feudalist shittiness of a China that struggled to modernize, while at the same time being positively steeped in millennia of Confucian tradition. Our characters are attempting to break free, all while getting caught up in courtly intrigues, dramatic deaths, and what not. It's all a bit silly to the modern reader, as so much romantic literature is, with their clunky symbolism and operatic plot points, but it was clearly an important novel of the liberal movement in China at the time, and really is a portrait of a cultural and intellectual landscape I really don't know that much about. Worth reading for anyone interested in Chinese history, for sure....more
Lu Xun doesn't strike me as a Chinese writer so much as a Russian writer who happened to be writing about China and in Chinese. "Diary of a Madman" anLu Xun doesn't strike me as a Chinese writer so much as a Russian writer who happened to be writing about China and in Chinese. "Diary of a Madman" and "The Story of Ah Q" are directly in line with the writings of Gogol, while the more social-realist stories have a great deal in common with those of Gorky. It's no wonder the commies loved him.
And as half a commie, I half loved him. His stories can be funny and poignant. They can also be dull and seemingly half-thought out. He's one of those writers that is more important as a benchmark in the history of writing than as a great writer, but he's still very much worth checking out....more
Several months ago, I read a collection of Gao's stories and was duly impressed. Impressed enough to return to the novel that won him the Nobel.
Dang!
ISeveral months ago, I read a collection of Gao's stories and was duly impressed. Impressed enough to return to the novel that won him the Nobel.
Dang!
It's long and dense and packed with ideas, characters, gorgeous imagery. Start by thinking of a novel by Thomas Pynchon or some other grand-postmodern poobah. Now transpose the setting and cultural background to China, and replace the pop culture references with fragments of folklore, Taoist belief, tribal ritual, and memories of the Cultural Revolution. Keep the play with personal identity, the insanity of modern society, and the odd sexual couplings. Now you have Soul Mountain. Read and enjoy....more
All heroin stories have a way of kind of being the same. Junk is shitty. Yep.
i don't feel like I really got the portrait of modern China I was lookingAll heroin stories have a way of kind of being the same. Junk is shitty. Yep.
i don't feel like I really got the portrait of modern China I was looking for, or for that matter, any well-fleshed out characters. Rather, I felt like I was mostly just reading awkward, adolescent diary entries, with minor characters having all the humanity of cardboard cutouts. But then she catches me with a line like this:
"I like clubs best in the early morning because all of the boring people have gone and only the truly boring people are still there. Chinese and laowai, phony artists and real ones, prostitutes, local slackers, dumb-ass white collar types. It doesn't matter who they are; it's too late, and none of the men are likely to pick up a woman, and none of the women are likely to pick up a guy. Nobody is going to pick anybody up; they're all fucked. A few cold rays of early-morning light pierce the room, and we sway inside the music. Everyone has a language that belongs to his own body. After hours is the most real time of all."
I think that line is better than the rest of the book combined....more
This is my first attempt at contemporary Chinese fiction. I can't say whether he deserved the Nobel-- after all, I only read 120 pages of his early shThis is my first attempt at contemporary Chinese fiction. I can't say whether he deserved the Nobel-- after all, I only read 120 pages of his early short stories-- but I can say that these were wonderful, graceful, quiet stories, marked by surreality. The title story, especially, is a wonder. American writers, why can't you write something about the disintegration of past modes of being that transforms from blank realism to delirious cut-up imagery? I was least impressed by the final story, which is little more than a string of symbolic images, barely held together, but it was still fine. Throughout, there are echoes of Grace Paley, of Samuel Beckett, of Albert Camus, but ultimately the voice is Gao's own, and it's a commanding one indeed....more
Like half of these stories could/should be told by Pei Mei from Kill Bill. They're all, as the title might imply, quite strange and Chinese. Fox spiriLike half of these stories could/should be told by Pei Mei from Kill Bill. They're all, as the title might imply, quite strange and Chinese. Fox spirits, vengeful dragons, immortal Taoist priests, prodigal sons who are punished for their failure to live up to the precepts of Confucius, the whole nine yards.
Borges was a big fan, and it's easy to tell why. The whole thing seems like a prelude to all those formalist mid-century writers-- it's as intertextual, fabulist, and mathematical as Calvino at his best....more
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