(September 2013)
Wow. I read the same author’s The Vagrants a couple of years back, and
that was very good in a well-crafted, interesting sort of way, but this is a
whole other level. This is truly outstanding.
A collection of short(ish) stories about
modern China and modern Chinese, and all quite viscerally, magnificently sad. I’ve
put down books before because I was feeling a bit squeamish, I’ve put down
books before because they weren’t very good, I’ve never put down a book before
because it made the space inside my chest twist so much with sadness that it
was an actual physical sensation. These stories are all about the loss of what
was and the absence of what never will be. Grubby, lonely, tales of soiled and
tarnished souls in a soiled and tarnished world, all wrapped around an achingly
painful absence that you know is there only because it’s not.
I’m using too many adjectives here, I’m
using too many words. All of them are inadequate. I can’t even
Wow.
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