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sunleung's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.25
I did not know what to expect when I picked up this collection of short stories. I had read somewhere that she had an outside chance of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. So, something good?
What I got was a challenging read that was difficult to finish. The words, individually, I knew what they meant. But when arranged in this order, the meaning escapes me.
For a couple of the stories, I imagine that the author is hiding her criticisms of certain social dynamics in China. However the language is so difficult to penetrate, I often wonder whether I imagined those criticisms.
More than a couple of times I would reach the end of a story and think “what the fluff?”.
Certainly a worthy challenge but not entirely enjoyable. I do admire how she can convey feelings of being oppressed though - I was made uncomfortable a couple of times while reading the short stories.
What I got was a challenging read that was difficult to finish. The words, individually, I knew what they meant. But when arranged in this order, the meaning escapes me.
For a couple of the stories, I imagine that the author is hiding her criticisms of certain social dynamics in China. However the language is so difficult to penetrate, I often wonder whether I imagined those criticisms.
More than a couple of times I would reach the end of a story and think “what the fluff?”.
Certainly a worthy challenge but not entirely enjoyable. I do admire how she can convey feelings of being oppressed though - I was made uncomfortable a couple of times while reading the short stories.
over60's review against another edition
4.0
Another Booker Prize long-listed book. I usually really love the books chosen for this award, but this year, I have read two books for which I cannot give five stars! This translation started with a short story told from a rat's POV, and it almost made me abandon the whole thing. The next story was from a magpie's POV, and the prose was better. I like the stories, but am not sure if it is the translation that is not fully effective for me. This book of short stories is good tho - and I do recommend it.
nuhafariha's review against another edition
3.0
Thank you Yale University Press and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!
Available May 19 2020
An anthropomorphic collection of tales, renowned Chinese author Can Xue's "I Live in the Slums" is a dreamlike subversive exploration of China's many slums. This English translation reads like Animal Farm or other metaphorical tales with simple, yet disturbing, turns and twists. Whether it is a rat who is fending for themselves in neighborhood of hungry butchers or a magpie's obsession with cleanliness, these tales are by turn amusing and horrifying. They work both as individual stories taken at face value or deeper critiques of the Chinese regime and its inability to provide for its people.
Available May 19 2020
An anthropomorphic collection of tales, renowned Chinese author Can Xue's "I Live in the Slums" is a dreamlike subversive exploration of China's many slums. This English translation reads like Animal Farm or other metaphorical tales with simple, yet disturbing, turns and twists. Whether it is a rat who is fending for themselves in neighborhood of hungry butchers or a magpie's obsession with cleanliness, these tales are by turn amusing and horrifying. They work both as individual stories taken at face value or deeper critiques of the Chinese regime and its inability to provide for its people.
yanulya's review against another edition
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0
furbae's review against another edition
4.0
I actually made a coherent review for this book as a staff pick but my longer thoughts on this are that there is something so frenetic about the way that Can Xue writes that is disorienting but in a good way. Perhaps it has more to do with my love affair with cities and the deep, deep relationship cities have with postmodern art forms (Although Can Xue apparently rejects postmodernity, but I digress--), but the stories were fun to read and definitely left me sitting down for awhile trying to figure shit out (This was a futile endeavour as Can Xue's work doesn't leave much room for figuring anything out).
The slum she writes about is not a definite place, and the entirety of the area remains largely unnamed. Despite the anonymity, however, she creates a world that is tangible while still seeming to exist somewhere in between the fantastic and the physical. The stories are told by a large array of narrators both human and nonhuman as they coexist together, trying to figure out what it means to relate to one another. This isn't a pretty picture though, it is the slum after all, and the existentialist questions (and dread, I suppose) is compounded by graphic descriptions of violence and body horror as well the struggles of hardship and poverty.
Time is also unreliable here, where the buildings and its inhabitants exist in the tension between modernity and tradition. I say this with a caveat, however, my observation of the lack of a definitive time may be more of an affect of Western writing rather than Asian. I cannot speak for Chinese writing in particular as I'm not terribly fluent in the literature, but the themes of slums -- and entire lives, by extension -- being upended to make way for wealthier real estate is something Io'm more familiar with. This is explicitly captured in "Catfish Pit." What I'm saying is...while the stories may not be tied to a specific time, I think trying to situate it in that fashion is futile.
It's not hard to say that there are many contradictions in this book. There is tenderness and love in the muck. The gore and general grossness becomes almost bucolic. The only thing that one can grasp onto is her nebulous world. It's a dizzying yet exciting read that is testament to Can Xue's experimental style and her love of binaries and opposing forces.
The slum she writes about is not a definite place, and the entirety of the area remains largely unnamed. Despite the anonymity, however, she creates a world that is tangible while still seeming to exist somewhere in between the fantastic and the physical. The stories are told by a large array of narrators both human and nonhuman as they coexist together, trying to figure out what it means to relate to one another. This isn't a pretty picture though, it is the slum after all, and the existentialist questions (and dread, I suppose) is compounded by graphic descriptions of violence and body horror as well the struggles of hardship and poverty.
Time is also unreliable here, where the buildings and its inhabitants exist in the tension between modernity and tradition. I say this with a caveat, however, my observation of the lack of a definitive time may be more of an affect of Western writing rather than Asian. I cannot speak for Chinese writing in particular as I'm not terribly fluent in the literature, but the themes of slums -- and entire lives, by extension -- being upended to make way for wealthier real estate is something Io'm more familiar with. This is explicitly captured in "Catfish Pit." What I'm saying is...while the stories may not be tied to a specific time, I think trying to situate it in that fashion is futile.
It's not hard to say that there are many contradictions in this book. There is tenderness and love in the muck. The gore and general grossness becomes almost bucolic. The only thing that one can grasp onto is her nebulous world. It's a dizzying yet exciting read that is testament to Can Xue's experimental style and her love of binaries and opposing forces.
bhagestedt's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
the_bitchy_booker's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Did not like it at all.
waywardtomes's review against another edition
my hold is expiring and i'm just having a hard time with the writing.
leerazer's review against another edition
4.0
Chinese experimental author Can Xue is like the Lady Gaga of modern Chinese literature.
- Harvard Review
Can Xue is an avant-garde writer who is mentioned sometimes as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her stories are described as surreal, nonrational, dream-like; or on the other hand, incoherent, bizarre, impossible to make sense of. Most of her work has not been translated into English but I Live in the Slums, a novella and a collection of short stories, has just been named to the International Booker Prize longlist.
(Can Xue also has a delightful self-puffery streak; a fun game of "Who Said It: Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Can Xue?" could be had. "I can't help but laugh at how perfect I am." - Zlatan. "Can Xue's works are truly exceptional, these kinds of fictions have already surpassed the profundity of philosophy." - Can Xue.)
She has said that both she and her readers are involved in the creation of meaning and interpretation of her works. Readers should work (hard, mind you, she doesn't like to be disappointed by us) to actively create meaning and perform the creative process while reading. With all this in mind, I curiously opened this volume and read the novella that begins the book, titled "Story of the Slums."
This novella features a rat ("I'm not a rat" - Rat) existing on the margins of a deprived community, shuttling from house to house, abused and victimized by violence, with all manner of bizarre settings and actions described with no rational cause and effect. Strange, but not lacking in the ability to have themes and meaning taken from it. What lines I jotted down from the story:
The themes I get from it are of existing apart, existing as an outsider who doesn't fit in or understand people and things around them, indeed is often baffled by what goes on. Existing as someone who is commonly treated badly. Yet, being a survivor, a tough thing that strives and survives. These themes seem to me to continue being present in the stories that continue the book.
In "Our Human Neighbors" a magpie couple are set apart (and above) the rest of their flock, and as all the other birds disappear to a seeming grim end, they alone survive. "It's impossible to understand what's going on in people's minds, isn't it?" asks our narrator's wife. "How dare you doubt your own species?" thunders our narrator's father. "When I tried to get close to them, they looked as if they were saying there was no need for me to exist in this world," says our narrator.
And it continues. In "The Swamp", whose narrator tries to find a geographic location hidden from him, he's told "What you mean is certainly not what I mean! God, why have I kept talking with you all along? How could you ever understand me? Impossible!" In "The Other Side of the Partition" the story's narrator is excited to jump into the darkness on the other side of a dividing line from all her family and community, despite being caused considerable physical pain the first time, she survives it and goes right back. In "Shadow People", our narrator is the only being who consists of more than a mere shadow, "I couldn't touch him, either... I belonged to the shadow people, and yet I was different from the others." He is told, "You'd better lie on your stomach on the floor and not move. Then no one can see you. If they can't see you, they won't be annoyed."
Despite being set apart and often abused, these outsider characters actually seem to have something that makes them superior to their supposed peers. In "Our Human Neighbors", our magpies have made the best and most cleverly formed nest, by far. In "Shadow People" our narrator decides that, "He had spoken that way because he envied me. I - a shadow with a tail." In "Crow Mountain", it's the narrator's friend who is different, and "The path she'd taken had everything - flowers, birds, cherries, chestnuts. I, on the other hand, was surrounded by darkness."
"I Am A Willow Tree" I interpreted as a description of what it can feel like to be an intellectual - like, say, Can Xue. A willow tree is planted into a garden with many other kinds of plants but does not receive the same nourishment and needs-meeting from the gardener. When rain falls, it does not get the same enjoyment, and from the shallow soil it cannot draw the same sustenance. The other plants all sing the gardener's praises, but not the willow tree, and in turn the gardener always seems to be keeping a suspicious eye on the willow, and at one point chops off part of a root and fills in the hole with dirt.
The gardener can be seen here as the government, the other plants in the garden the masses, the willow is the intellectual - set apart from the masses, different, tolerated by the government but sometimes the recipient of its violence (the chopping away of a root and filling in its space with dirt being particularly ominous). "I had no way out. My way out lay in thinking of a way out. It lay in 'thinking' itself," muses the willow, while its roots reach far down and contact some unknown region, stimulating its growth. It sometimes wonders if it can survive in this garden, but as is the book's general theme, it endures and lives.
"Her Old Home" is an examination of looking backwards at history. A woman left her old home very sick, and recovered health in her new environment. Twenty years later she is invited back by her home's new owner, who has recreated the home's interior exactly, and who even looks like her in pictures at places the woman remembers from her past. She doesn't remember the details of this place perfectly, but there is a warm comfort there and it tries to really draw her in and keep her there. "You don't need to fully understand us. All you need is to feel our love, that's enough," says a memory/person, in a most warm and inviting manner. But beware the dangers of sentimentality, though it may feel good. She was not healthy here, looking backwards toward an idealized history is dangerous and self-deceiving, and in the end she vows to not indulge it anymore.
All in all these are very interesting stories, though I feel it would be best to read them spaced further apart in time. Do not gorge on Can Xue, the brain is not a natural at reading stories like these where rationality and logical patterns are frequently absent, and it can become tiring. Each story given space and time with the reader, however, intrigues.
- Harvard Review
Can Xue is an avant-garde writer who is mentioned sometimes as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her stories are described as surreal, nonrational, dream-like; or on the other hand, incoherent, bizarre, impossible to make sense of. Most of her work has not been translated into English but I Live in the Slums, a novella and a collection of short stories, has just been named to the International Booker Prize longlist.
(Can Xue also has a delightful self-puffery streak; a fun game of "Who Said It: Zlatan Ibrahimovic or Can Xue?" could be had. "I can't help but laugh at how perfect I am." - Zlatan. "Can Xue's works are truly exceptional, these kinds of fictions have already surpassed the profundity of philosophy." - Can Xue.)
She has said that both she and her readers are involved in the creation of meaning and interpretation of her works. Readers should work (hard, mind you, she doesn't like to be disappointed by us) to actively create meaning and perform the creative process while reading. With all this in mind, I curiously opened this volume and read the novella that begins the book, titled "Story of the Slums."
This novella features a rat ("I'm not a rat" - Rat) existing on the margins of a deprived community, shuttling from house to house, abused and victimized by violence, with all manner of bizarre settings and actions described with no rational cause and effect. Strange, but not lacking in the ability to have themes and meaning taken from it. What lines I jotted down from the story:
*)What in the world happened? I didn't know. Really didn't know. Everything was baffling.
*)I couldn't say I understood her. I didn't. I seemed to understand every word of that dialect, but when I put them together, I had no idea what she was saying."
*)My tangled relationship with people was probably the main reason I continued staying in the slums.
*)"Will the little thing die?"
"No way. It's a born survivor."
*)People were so fickle! I thought, we probably aren't the same.
*)The slums were my home, and also the hardest place for me to understand. Generally speaking, I didn't make a deliberate effort to understand it. Destiny drove me from one place to another.
*)I endured, I endured.
The themes I get from it are of existing apart, existing as an outsider who doesn't fit in or understand people and things around them, indeed is often baffled by what goes on. Existing as someone who is commonly treated badly. Yet, being a survivor, a tough thing that strives and survives. These themes seem to me to continue being present in the stories that continue the book.
In "Our Human Neighbors" a magpie couple are set apart (and above) the rest of their flock, and as all the other birds disappear to a seeming grim end, they alone survive. "It's impossible to understand what's going on in people's minds, isn't it?" asks our narrator's wife. "How dare you doubt your own species?" thunders our narrator's father. "When I tried to get close to them, they looked as if they were saying there was no need for me to exist in this world," says our narrator.
And it continues. In "The Swamp", whose narrator tries to find a geographic location hidden from him, he's told "What you mean is certainly not what I mean! God, why have I kept talking with you all along? How could you ever understand me? Impossible!" In "The Other Side of the Partition" the story's narrator is excited to jump into the darkness on the other side of a dividing line from all her family and community, despite being caused considerable physical pain the first time, she survives it and goes right back. In "Shadow People", our narrator is the only being who consists of more than a mere shadow, "I couldn't touch him, either... I belonged to the shadow people, and yet I was different from the others." He is told, "You'd better lie on your stomach on the floor and not move. Then no one can see you. If they can't see you, they won't be annoyed."
Despite being set apart and often abused, these outsider characters actually seem to have something that makes them superior to their supposed peers. In "Our Human Neighbors", our magpies have made the best and most cleverly formed nest, by far. In "Shadow People" our narrator decides that, "He had spoken that way because he envied me. I - a shadow with a tail." In "Crow Mountain", it's the narrator's friend who is different, and "The path she'd taken had everything - flowers, birds, cherries, chestnuts. I, on the other hand, was surrounded by darkness."
"I Am A Willow Tree" I interpreted as a description of what it can feel like to be an intellectual - like, say, Can Xue. A willow tree is planted into a garden with many other kinds of plants but does not receive the same nourishment and needs-meeting from the gardener. When rain falls, it does not get the same enjoyment, and from the shallow soil it cannot draw the same sustenance. The other plants all sing the gardener's praises, but not the willow tree, and in turn the gardener always seems to be keeping a suspicious eye on the willow, and at one point chops off part of a root and fills in the hole with dirt.
The gardener can be seen here as the government, the other plants in the garden the masses, the willow is the intellectual - set apart from the masses, different, tolerated by the government but sometimes the recipient of its violence (the chopping away of a root and filling in its space with dirt being particularly ominous). "I had no way out. My way out lay in thinking of a way out. It lay in 'thinking' itself," muses the willow, while its roots reach far down and contact some unknown region, stimulating its growth. It sometimes wonders if it can survive in this garden, but as is the book's general theme, it endures and lives.
"Her Old Home" is an examination of looking backwards at history. A woman left her old home very sick, and recovered health in her new environment. Twenty years later she is invited back by her home's new owner, who has recreated the home's interior exactly, and who even looks like her in pictures at places the woman remembers from her past. She doesn't remember the details of this place perfectly, but there is a warm comfort there and it tries to really draw her in and keep her there. "You don't need to fully understand us. All you need is to feel our love, that's enough," says a memory/person, in a most warm and inviting manner. But beware the dangers of sentimentality, though it may feel good. She was not healthy here, looking backwards toward an idealized history is dangerous and self-deceiving, and in the end she vows to not indulge it anymore.
All in all these are very interesting stories, though I feel it would be best to read them spaced further apart in time. Do not gorge on Can Xue, the brain is not a natural at reading stories like these where rationality and logical patterns are frequently absent, and it can become tiring. Each story given space and time with the reader, however, intrigues.