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sherbertwells's review
funny
hopeful
relaxing
fast-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
This was a beautiful, beautiful surprise.
I found by accident on a premeditated trip to my local library, and read it over the course of the night and a morning. It is concise, beautiful and filled with poignant moments. The friendship between the protagonist and his co-exile Luo is top-notch, and their situation—young people in a remote mountain village for “re-education”— is both sympathetic and foreign to me (an educated American). For the first half of the book, I followed the antics and the suffering of Luo, the narrator, and the Little Seamstress with enthusiasm. I wanted them to live, to learn, to fall (happily) in love and to survive the ordeal of their re-education.
And then in the second half, something got lost.
There are a couple threads and symbols set up at the beginning of the story that are dropped, or not built upon sufficiently. For example, the narrator is a very skillful violinist and the fate of his violin is questioned from the first scene of the story. His musical ability is a unique characteristic, and he soothes the people around him a few times in the story with Mozart, but there’s no conclusion to this motif. A dangerous coal mine, a tricoteuse, and a water snake all appear in the plot and are quickly abandoned. The ending of the story, while not completely unforeseen, comes as a bit of an accident. It’s like the author had intricately planned the first half of the book, got called away for a month to perform complicated dental procedures (or something else equally consuming) and returned to a “completed” outline.
But on that outline there are probably twenty different brilliant ideas. I’m not super well-versed in Western Literature, but it wasn’t hard to recognize the Sinister Knitting Woman from A Tale of Two Cities or the “two boys try to educate a lower-class girl” plot (which Sijie twists convincingly) from Pygmalion. Since Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress discusses the role of Western Literature in post-revolutionary China, it makes sense that the narrator’s own recounting of events is influenced by these classic novels. I feel like if I came back in 10 years after reading the complete works of Balzac this book would blow my mind.
Right now it’s a great book, and I’m very grateful that I discovered it. But it’s not the hidden classic I first thought it was.
It’s also the second book in a row to mention The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas., which I never planned on reading in my life. I might just have to read it now. After all, following a surprise has worked out so far.
Edit: It's been a few months, and I can't stop thinking about it. I think it's one of my favorites after all.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gore
Minor: Drug use
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