Reviews

Family Catastrophe: A Modernist Novel by Wang Wen-Hsing, 王文興, Wen-Hsing Wang, Susan Wan Dolling

lievemealone's review against another edition

3.0

i didn't actually read the last 20 pages so this is technically a dnf, but i got so close to the end (i.e., i read the first 200 pages) so i'm just saying i finished it.

laurj's review against another edition

4.0

Really enjoyed this read, translation was easy to follow, it didn't really maintain the off-ness of modernist literature that my friends who read it in it Chinese say it was penned in (this translation comes 20 years after it was published). I felt my own complicated feelings toward my parents mirrored in the protagonist - though by the end his behavior has become so extreme he's barely a sympathetic character. The reader is forced to reckon with the nuance of familial relationships and how we exist as perpetually morally gray.