Sky Burial

Xinran, 2004 [Julia Lovell & Esther Tyldesley, 2004]

(January 2017)

This is one of those ‘non-fiction’ books, like, say, In Cold Blood or Tokyo Vice, wherein you’re not quite sure exactly how much trust you should place in the ‘non’.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Ken Liu, 2016
(May 2016)

Reviewed over at Strange Horizons. It's very good.

Love in a Fallen City

Eileen Chang, 1943-47 [Karen S. Kingsbury, 2007]

(April, 2016)

  

I read this straight after Occupied City, and to be honest I was expecting to get a bit more of a compare/contrast thing going. That I’m finding that harder to do than expected is, I guess, a function of the luxuries afforded by both time and distance, as well not living under an occupying military administration.

China's War with Japan

1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival

Rana Mitter, 2013

(July 2015)

Holidays are over. I'm sure you're delighted, because this means that not only do you have a maudlin and self-indulgent State of the Nation/Family/Self post to look forward to in the next couple of weeks, but I'm also going to be indulging my slightly obsessive record-keeping streak with individual updates for my summer reading. Hurrah!

Lust, Caution

Eileen Chang, 1979 [Julia Lovell et al, 2007]

(April 2015)

  

I need to read more of this kind of stuff: mid-twentieth century writing by vaguely dissolute women. Of course, all that most female writers from that era needed to do to gain a ‘vaguely dissolute’ reputation was to speak their minds and openly enjoy something other than childcare or macramé, but on the occasions I do read them they seem infinitely more contemporary to the present day than male writers of the same period. I’d be the first to admit that my sample sizes for both populations are pitifully small, but there’s something to be said for the theory that in order to compete with the men women had* to be better than them. Clearly this was grotesquely unfair, but as a reader it does mean that you get access to books that are, well, better.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

Yiyun Li, 2006

(February 2015)

  

I really think that Yiyun Li might be my favourite short story writer, and it’s not like that’s a field where competition is thin on the ground. As with Gold Boy, Emerald Girl I find myself fruitlessly casting around for something intelligent to say in order to express just how good this is, and failing utterly. GB,EG might just shade it, to be honest, but that’s such a high bar that even coming close enough to fall short is a significant achievement.

Cat Country

Lao She, 1932 [William A. Lyell, 1970]

(January 2015)

One of the main strengths of science-fiction as a genre, one of its main attractions for writers and reader alike, is how use of the speculative allows for a more honest examination of the real. The observer paradox is an ever-present concern in the social sciences, exacerbated by the fact that it is an essentially reciprocal process: the act of observing changes that which is observed, but as a component member of the observed the observer is themselves also changed. The trappings of SF allow for a certain distance, a cleaving of subject and object.

Atlas

The Archaeology of an Imaginary City

Dung Kai-cheung, 1997 [Dung Kai-cheung, Anders Hansson, and Bonnie S. McDougall 2012]

(June 2014)

  

Hong Kong is a pretty special city. I’ve only been a couple of times, and at this stage of my life I imagine actually living there would fairly rapidly end up with my appearance in local newspaper stories with the word ‘rampage’ in the headline, but as a place to visit it’s really like nowhere else I’ve been. Even trying to begin to unpack the various interweaving narratives of globalization, (post)colonialism, trade, capital, and belonging that wrap around every stone of the city is a herculean task, and one I’m certainly not up to in a 700 word blog post.

  

Boxers and Saints

Gene Luen Yang, 2013

(March 2014)

This is phenomenal.

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

Yiyun Li, 2010

(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.

China in Ten Words

Yu Hua, 2011 [Allan H Barr, 2011]

(December 2012)

I’ve recently touched on the effects of Japan’s rapid industrialization and Westernization since the end of the sakoku period. My exact words, in case you've forgotten, were, “in barely five generations it’s gone from being essentially medieval to one of the most economically and technologically advanced nations in the world, and frankly it’s not surprising that social change hasn’t kept up with that hectic pace.” China’s in much the same boat now, but instead of five generations, it’s only been five decades. It’s been a fairly bumpy ride.

  

Shit just got real...

Right. Big real life project coming up in the next few weeks. To keep things ticking over here I've scheduled one of my by now infamous multi-part specials (don't act like that, you love them really), but I'll probably be less than prompt with the smaller posts, comments, and responses. Apologies.

Normal service will be resumed as and when. I've not come this close to the full year to bail out now...


Credit where it's due.

The Opium War

Julia Lovell, 2011
(June 2012)

More imperial (mis)adventure. Her Majesty’s Government as military-industrial drug pushers. Obviously this is one of the more morally suspect episodes in the history of the British Empire, and it’s not exactly short of competition in that respect.

The Fat Years

Chan Koonchung, 2011

(January 2012)

Trailers for movies suck, in that they have no qualms including massive spoilers if they’re dramatic enough. Being the intellectual snob that I am, I’d thought that books were above this, but increasingly it appears not. The blurb on this promises, in addition to “a message that will rock the world…” (their bold and ellipses), a kidnap (again, their bold) which doesn’t occur until page 225. This is a 300 page novel.