I've had great luck with short story collections this year. I've only read 3 so far, and all have been 4 or 5 stars. This one wasn't perfect, there weI've had great luck with short story collections this year. I've only read 3 so far, and all have been 4 or 5 stars. This one wasn't perfect, there were stories I just didn't get (Yeti Lovemaking) and also many of the stories ended right when it could have gotten a lot more interesting. But still, I think there's a lot here that resonated and felt poignant. I felt like her surrealism came from a place of authentic emotion. Some felt metaphorical but not overly so.
Some have complained that all the narrators have been a similar person, but I actually really liked that about it. It felt almost like connected short stories, the way Oranges picks up where Los Angeles stopped, with the character of Adam. And the way the last story reminded me of the first stories with its protagonist named Eve (Adam and Eve). Just tiny little things like that made me connect them, but not in an overly literal way. My favorite story was definitely 'Returning'. It's one of those stories with many smaller stories inside of it but also an undeniable emotional core.
Los Angeles - 4.5 (loved the atmosphere of these first two stories, the surreal angst, the trauma of relationships and their long reaching effects made real through an un-real conceit that seems very emotionally real) Oranges - 4 (abuse, responsibility, how do we reconcile outwardly and inwardly, how do we get over trauma, how do we warn others, a powerful story) G - 3.75 (a drug that makes you invisible, what it means to truly be seen, what it means to be not seen) Yeti Lovemaking - 2.5 (didn't get it, should probably re-read it) Returning - 4.75 (definitely my favorite, the idea of transformation being a kind of death, the mood of it, displacement and the immigrant experience, the many mini-stories within the bigger story, but all having a similar theme, the sense of not knowing where the narrator stands in relation to her husband or the people around her kind of felt like The Unconsoled a bit) Office Hours - 3.5 (many of these stories end right at the cusp of something happening, many of which I didn't mind. This one, I kind of did, and wished I knew what happened afterwards.. I do like the idea of stepping into a secret otherworld, the premise for many works of fiction, but I'm not sure what she adds to that trope here) Peking Duck - 4.25 (brilliant use of story within story, and the idea of questioning whose story belongs to whom, like how it could happen to someone else but still be your story, and anticipating the criticisms of the story itself (it's kind of like the story teaches us how to read it) before finally revealing the story, also the one that most speaks to the immigrant experience, along with Returning) Tomorrow - 4 (a story of motherhood anxiety that kind of reminded me of the themes of B&E and I'll Go On, but done in a way more surreal way)...more
it has a mythic quality to it where the spiritual and everyday physical world permeate each other's borders
the "stoThirteen Ways of Looking at a Stone
it has a mythic quality to it where the spiritual and everyday physical world permeate each other's borders
the "stone" in this title is actually the structural frame of the story... and the book takes a while to actually get started because it takes so long with this framing device. but whereas some may be frustrated with this, i found the framing to be very interesting, especially since it was written so long ago, that this level of a story within a story and intricate device is quite inventive even by today's standards
i love that even the smaller characters like the maids have their own lives here, and often the story would veer so that it focuses on some super minor character
i do feel like there are a lot of scenes that are just about logistics though, which I did not enjoy, i.e. how a certain character found themselves in the company of another character instead of just starting in media res
it is alluded to the fact that the real world is a dream, an illusion, and perhaps the spiritual world is the real one
episodic, almost plotless, court intrigue, seemingly inconsequential although there are some stories here that touch on class and society that are more important than they seem
lots of foreshadowing of a future downfall of this family
lots of rowdy humor in here as well
some really boring repetitive sections like the naming of the places chapter (bao-yu, his father, and a bunch of scholars walk around thinking of names for different places in the palace in preparation for a visit by his royal-concubine sister, bao yu comes up with names that all the others praise, but his father insults it, this happens over and over and over again for each place)
if i had to compare it to anything western, i'd say proust, just because the story of bao-yu as a child surrounded by luxuries and women seems to remind me of proust's protagonist and how coddled he was, and also both are concerned with society in a similar way, and both are concerned with memory, of some idyllic past time, but of course the two are super different as well
because of its plotless nature, i don't really feel like i HAVE to read on in order to have "gotten" something from this novel, I could stop here and I just may, it was enjoyable throughout (except for some specific parts that I already mentioned) not that continuing won't have its rewards as well, I just might need a break from this world now
there are soooo many characters, it's hard to keep straight, and sometimes their names are so similar
the translation is excellent, though i'm surely missing many references, but what does come through is the tone and the feeling of it, the rhythms of speech and the characters are all very alive, even though it was written in 18th century china...more
Loading...
