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abbie_'s review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
3.25
Reached for this one as part of Queer Your Year 2024, a book translated from a language that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet, and it’s a fascinating piece of work. It was originally published on a queer Chinese website, and the author is still anonymous. No one knows if they’re a man, woman, nonbinary, queer or straight, but Beijing Comrades has become a cult novel depicting the underground queer scene of mainland China in the 80s/90s.
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Be warned, it’s absolutely not a romance novel - not least because when the two main characters meet one of them is only 16 years old. Lan Yu and Handong embark on a tumultuous 7-year relationship, on and off again, filled with toxic behaviour, internalised homophobia, infidelity, mistrust, the works. A relationship that starts with one side so young and an exchange of money is not exactly written in the stars. Handong, the older man, is also insufferable - intentionally so. He struggles hugely with internalised homophobia, often returning to sleeping with woman and even seeing a psychiatrist to find out if he’s ‘actually gay’. His attitude towards women is awful as well, just all round not a good human being.
.
Scott E. Myers, the translator, wrote a super helpful introduction to this Feminist Press edition. This English translation is not actually a translation of the original Chinese e-novel, or of the later version, or of an even later version - it’s a translation of a mishmash of all these texts. I think is both amazing viewing the novel as a living, breathing text, but has also led to a few inconsistencies. Characters seemingly forget things they knew a few chapters ago, and Handong’s decisions/opinions chop and change - though this could be down to his grappling with accepting his sexuality.
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Beyond queerness, the novel also attempts to tackle capitalism in the wake of China’s cultural revolution. However, that part felt a bit lacklustre. Handong is a ‘businessman’. I genuinely couldn’t tell you more than that, and I don’t think the author could either. It felt almost childish, ‘I’m a businessman, doing business, with my business associates and my businessman suit. Business’. 😂
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Criticisms aside, I do think it’s a valuable piece of queer fiction looking at homosexuality in a closed-off society. I love that the author didn’t hold back with the sex scenes - I can only imagine the stir those would have caused being published even online in the 90s!
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I feel like this quote sums up the book perfectly:
‘China was much more closed off in those days, and its people were much less aware than they are today. On the one hand, we lacked the knowledge and information we needed to understand what we were feeling. And at the same time each of us was unconsciously doing his best not to understand.’
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An agonising back and forth, played out internally and externally, about accepting (or ultimately not) your sexuality when anything other than cishet was considered taboo. Sad, frustrating, fascinating in both content and production.
seanamcphie's review against another edition
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
millennial_dandy's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 rounded up to 4
I finished this novel in 2 days flat, including staying up into the wee hours the first day until the words blurred on the page, so I suppose that says something about my feelings towards 'Beijing Comrades.'
Now that I sit (rather blearily) on the other side of that reading frenzy and have had a chance to think about what I just read, I have to start in the same place translator Scott E. Myers did in his introduction to the novel. Myers spent most of the introduction giving a bit of the backstory of how it came to be in the first place, and as he points out, in some ways its history is more interesting than the story itself.
Anonymously self-published in installments as an e-novel back in the late '90s, 'Beijing Comrades' apparently went through quite a few drafts as the author toyed around with the idea of getting it formally published (which, at the time Myers was writing the introduction anyway, never happened). Indeed, he writes that the version of the novel he translated wasn't a version that had existed before the author handed it over to him, but was an amalgamation of several previous drafts that had been synthesized pretty much just in time for the translation project.
Despite its very humble beginnings, the novel got a film adaptation in 2001 which was, according to its Wikipedia article, filmed on location in Beijing without government permission. The film recieved enough attention to be put forward as an offical Sundance and Cannes Film Festival entry that same year. I doubt the film could be enjoyed by anyone who hadn't read the novel, but for those who have it's worth a look, and the actors do a really great job considering how sparse the script is.
But this isn't a film review, so back to the book! What even is it about?
Starting with the title, Myers explains in the introduction that it's a play on words; in Chinese the word 'comrade' (Tongzhi), in addition to its historic use under the Communist regime, has come to be used as a reference to queerness and queer people.
Despite such a strong setting marker, this isn't really a story that has much to do with the city in which it takes place, making the one plot point that is Beijing-specific feel almost jarring. And what plot point is that, you might ask. Well... let's just say that 'Beijing Comrades' is set partly in 1989 and one of the main characters is a student in Beijing at that time.
As for our first person POV protagonist, Handong, he's a businessman. What type of business? Not sure. But he's really good at it (for a while) and makes money hand over fist in China's newly mixed economy and that's all we really need to know.
'Beijing Comrades' is a very vague novel in a lot of ways, despite its nearly 400 page length. We get a mere sketch of the physical world our characters inhabit, and we barely even know what either Handong or his love interest, Lan Yu (who acts as the core of the narrative), look like. What we do get is a richly detailed account of Handong's inner life. Though it never veers into actual stream of consciousness, author Bei Tong manages to make it feel that way, Handong's thoughts often repetative and contradictory, and his mood all over the place.
Far from feeling amateurish, these qualities are what allow Handong to feel like a real person, albeit an incredibly flawed one. And he is very, very flawed.
See, this both is and isn't a love story. It's definitely a love story to Handong, and so he colors the events of his narration with a thick veneer of nostalgia and very little introspection. There were a few times when I thought he'd have his coming to jesus, 'I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you' moment, but he did not.
Speaking of Nabokov's 'Lolita', that's one of the key things to know going into this story: when Handong and Lan Yu meet, Lan Yu is sixteen and Handong is twenty-eight.
To anyone new to historic queer texts, this might be met with a scandalized gasp of surprise and horror, but to the veterens this is the kind of thing that results in more of a wince. Man-boy love is a very fraught topic in the community, especially in a post '#MeToo' world where we're all coming to the realization that adults sexualizing teenagers is bad, actually.
There's a lot of nuance when it comes to queer stories that lean into youth worship and what we'd now consider 'grooming.' It's a whole thing, it's really complicated.
Luckily for us, Bei Tong, even all the way back in the practically prehistoric year of 1998 got this. The relationship between Handong and Lan Yu is never romantacized in a way that lacks self awareness. A lot of what makes it so uncomforatble is the constant push and pull between Handong lusting after Lan Yu's youth, and nagging him as though he's his father. He gets annoyed when Lan Yu acts like the teenager he is, but also constantly references how those same qualities are what make him attractive once he gets him back to his apartment. He tries to buy Lan Yu's affection and loyalty and then shamelessly throws that 'generosity' back in Lan Yu's face when he doesn't give him what he wants.
And yet, though Handong is undeniably very selfish and immature and manipulative, and though the 'relationship' between him and Lan Yu, especially in the beginning, is incredibly toxic and creepy, there is still a human being behind all of that nastiness.
Without ever allowing it to excuse his behavior, Bei Tong pulls back the curtain a little bit to explore the context that could produce such a person as Handong. We meet his family, who he has a lot of affection for, especially his mother, and his number one goal in life is to make her proud. But despite his success in business, she tells him she won't be satisfied until she sees him settle down and make a family of his own. This is, of course, at direct odds with Handong's lifestyle. Not only is he not interested in settling down and giving up sowing his wild oats all over Beijing, the one person he might have been willing to consider doing that for isn't someone the law, nevermind his family, would ever accept.
This is presented as the crux of the problem, and the root of his internal conflict, the implication being that his committment issues and sexism are borne of, or at least fostered by, social and familial pressure to adhere to a very particular model of manhood. In that model, you grow up, get a job that makes you a lot of money, marry a woman, and have children with that woman to continue your family line. And if you step outside that life plan in any way, you're a failure and an embarrassment.
Being under that kind of pressure, it's unsurprising that a person might become resentful and ultimately rebel against it. And this Handong does in many, many ways. He refuses to have a steady girlfriend and instead views his numerous sexual conquests with women as proof of his domination of them. He has more esteem for the men he sleeps with, but transposes that same goal of domination onto them too. Outside of the bedroom, he is careful to keep everyone, from his lovers to his friends, firmly at arms length. And his relationships with everyone suffer for this.
The one lesson he learns in the entire book is to maybe not do that, and to have a smidgeon of empathy rather than always try and dominate. And wouldn't you know it, when he does a childhood friend a good turn, despite it going against his dog eat dog worldview, that act of goodwill comes back around at a critical moment. And it feels good for everyone when it does.
This bit of life advice comes from none other than Lan Yu, who, at least in Handong's memories of him, is an incredibly kind and gentle person, and someone who ultimately knows Handong better than Handong knows himself. But despite knowing him as well as he does, Lan Yu, in large part due to Handong's manipulation of his softer nature, always fails to walk away from him.
And that's the tragedy.
Because Handong gets so much out of this on-off relationship for the decade it goes on, and is (kind of, maybe, a little bit) made a better person because of it, but Lan Yu gets nothing out of this. Handong tries to insist that this relationship at its core is at least transactional, but it isn't, because nearly every time he tries to even the playing field the only way he knows how (buying things), Lan Yu rebuffs him. He won't accept his money, he won't accept his expensive gifts, he won't accept his connections with people in power. Nada. It sort of feels a little bit like 'The Giving Tree', and just like in the picture book, Handong never truly realizes that he only ever took.
This is such a good exploration of what a toxic relationship can look like i.e. one in which the toxicity is obvious to an outside observer, but not to the people inside it (at least not at first). Handong really does love Lan Yu, but his ability to love another person is so stunted at the point at which they meet that he doesn't have any business being in a relationship with anyone. Lan Yu really does care for Handong, though (to Handong's consternation) he never tells him that he loves him, and it's increasingly obvious that as he starts to get a little older and experience more of life, that he starts to realize their relationship isn't good for him. Though he never finds the inner fortitude to deny letting Handong in when he inevitably comes crawling back.
You get the idea.
The other major point of tension in the novel is between love and money. I'm simplifying a little bit, but it basically came down to: money can't buy you happiness, love > money ... Very that. Maybe in China in 1998 this was a revelutionary discovery, and it's true; I mean, I believe those things too, but then money is used to get Handong out of his one major scrape in the narrative so... I dunno, it wasn't the strongest theme and it wasn't examined in a very interesting way.
Bei Tong also kind of paints themselves into a corner with the relationship between Handong and Lan Yu that can only be gotten out of by employing everyone's least favorite trope: 'bury your gays.' But at least they're up front about that given that we're let in on that ending on literally page one. So... all is forgiven?
That aside, I genuinely did enjoy this novel. It's a fascinating artifact of queer literature of the early digital age, and for a lot of Western readers it would likely offer a fresh perspective on a story you've only ever seen told from your own. I found it interesting that while there were definitely cultural particulars that make this a uniquely Chinese story, there were many, many aspects that transcended that cultural context and just felt, well, human.
As long as you don't mind spending 380 pages in the head of a guy you're not meant to like and all the other caveats we've talked about, give it a go.
I finished this novel in 2 days flat, including staying up into the wee hours the first day until the words blurred on the page, so I suppose that says something about my feelings towards 'Beijing Comrades.'
Now that I sit (rather blearily) on the other side of that reading frenzy and have had a chance to think about what I just read, I have to start in the same place translator Scott E. Myers did in his introduction to the novel. Myers spent most of the introduction giving a bit of the backstory of how it came to be in the first place, and as he points out, in some ways its history is more interesting than the story itself.
Anonymously self-published in installments as an e-novel back in the late '90s, 'Beijing Comrades' apparently went through quite a few drafts as the author toyed around with the idea of getting it formally published (which, at the time Myers was writing the introduction anyway, never happened). Indeed, he writes that the version of the novel he translated wasn't a version that had existed before the author handed it over to him, but was an amalgamation of several previous drafts that had been synthesized pretty much just in time for the translation project.
Despite its very humble beginnings, the novel got a film adaptation in 2001 which was, according to its Wikipedia article, filmed on location in Beijing without government permission. The film recieved enough attention to be put forward as an offical Sundance and Cannes Film Festival entry that same year. I doubt the film could be enjoyed by anyone who hadn't read the novel, but for those who have it's worth a look, and the actors do a really great job considering how sparse the script is.
But this isn't a film review, so back to the book! What even is it about?
Starting with the title, Myers explains in the introduction that it's a play on words; in Chinese the word 'comrade' (Tongzhi), in addition to its historic use under the Communist regime, has come to be used as a reference to queerness and queer people.
Despite such a strong setting marker, this isn't really a story that has much to do with the city in which it takes place, making the one plot point that is Beijing-specific feel almost jarring. And what plot point is that, you might ask. Well... let's just say that 'Beijing Comrades' is set partly in 1989 and one of the main characters is a student in Beijing at that time.
As for our first person POV protagonist, Handong, he's a businessman. What type of business? Not sure. But he's really good at it (for a while) and makes money hand over fist in China's newly mixed economy and that's all we really need to know.
'Beijing Comrades' is a very vague novel in a lot of ways, despite its nearly 400 page length. We get a mere sketch of the physical world our characters inhabit, and we barely even know what either Handong or his love interest, Lan Yu (who acts as the core of the narrative), look like. What we do get is a richly detailed account of Handong's inner life. Though it never veers into actual stream of consciousness, author Bei Tong manages to make it feel that way, Handong's thoughts often repetative and contradictory, and his mood all over the place.
Far from feeling amateurish, these qualities are what allow Handong to feel like a real person, albeit an incredibly flawed one. And he is very, very flawed.
See, this both is and isn't a love story. It's definitely a love story to Handong, and so he colors the events of his narration with a thick veneer of nostalgia and very little introspection. There were a few times when I thought he'd have his coming to jesus, 'I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you' moment, but he did not.
Speaking of Nabokov's 'Lolita', that's one of the key things to know going into this story: when Handong and Lan Yu meet, Lan Yu is sixteen and Handong is twenty-eight.
To anyone new to historic queer texts, this might be met with a scandalized gasp of surprise and horror, but to the veterens this is the kind of thing that results in more of a wince. Man-boy love is a very fraught topic in the community, especially in a post '#MeToo' world where we're all coming to the realization that adults sexualizing teenagers is bad, actually.
There's a lot of nuance when it comes to queer stories that lean into youth worship and what we'd now consider 'grooming.' It's a whole thing, it's really complicated.
Luckily for us, Bei Tong, even all the way back in the practically prehistoric year of 1998 got this. The relationship between Handong and Lan Yu is never romantacized in a way that lacks self awareness. A lot of what makes it so uncomforatble is the constant push and pull between Handong lusting after Lan Yu's youth, and nagging him as though he's his father. He gets annoyed when Lan Yu acts like the teenager he is, but also constantly references how those same qualities are what make him attractive once he gets him back to his apartment. He tries to buy Lan Yu's affection and loyalty and then shamelessly throws that 'generosity' back in Lan Yu's face when he doesn't give him what he wants.
And yet, though Handong is undeniably very selfish and immature and manipulative, and though the 'relationship' between him and Lan Yu, especially in the beginning, is incredibly toxic and creepy, there is still a human being behind all of that nastiness.
Without ever allowing it to excuse his behavior, Bei Tong pulls back the curtain a little bit to explore the context that could produce such a person as Handong. We meet his family, who he has a lot of affection for, especially his mother, and his number one goal in life is to make her proud. But despite his success in business, she tells him she won't be satisfied until she sees him settle down and make a family of his own. This is, of course, at direct odds with Handong's lifestyle. Not only is he not interested in settling down and giving up sowing his wild oats all over Beijing, the one person he might have been willing to consider doing that for isn't someone the law, nevermind his family, would ever accept.
This is presented as the crux of the problem, and the root of his internal conflict, the implication being that his committment issues and sexism are borne of, or at least fostered by, social and familial pressure to adhere to a very particular model of manhood. In that model, you grow up, get a job that makes you a lot of money, marry a woman, and have children with that woman to continue your family line. And if you step outside that life plan in any way, you're a failure and an embarrassment.
Being under that kind of pressure, it's unsurprising that a person might become resentful and ultimately rebel against it. And this Handong does in many, many ways. He refuses to have a steady girlfriend and instead views his numerous sexual conquests with women as proof of his domination of them. He has more esteem for the men he sleeps with, but transposes that same goal of domination onto them too. Outside of the bedroom, he is careful to keep everyone, from his lovers to his friends, firmly at arms length. And his relationships with everyone suffer for this.
The one lesson he learns in the entire book is to maybe not do that, and to have a smidgeon of empathy rather than always try and dominate. And wouldn't you know it, when he does a childhood friend a good turn, despite it going against his dog eat dog worldview, that act of goodwill comes back around at a critical moment. And it feels good for everyone when it does.
This bit of life advice comes from none other than Lan Yu, who, at least in Handong's memories of him, is an incredibly kind and gentle person, and someone who ultimately knows Handong better than Handong knows himself. But despite knowing him as well as he does, Lan Yu, in large part due to Handong's manipulation of his softer nature, always fails to walk away from him.
And that's the tragedy.
Because Handong gets so much out of this on-off relationship for the decade it goes on, and is (kind of, maybe, a little bit) made a better person because of it, but Lan Yu gets nothing out of this. Handong tries to insist that this relationship at its core is at least transactional, but it isn't, because nearly every time he tries to even the playing field the only way he knows how (buying things), Lan Yu rebuffs him. He won't accept his money, he won't accept his expensive gifts, he won't accept his connections with people in power. Nada. It sort of feels a little bit like 'The Giving Tree', and just like in the picture book, Handong never truly realizes that he only ever took.
This is such a good exploration of what a toxic relationship can look like i.e. one in which the toxicity is obvious to an outside observer, but not to the people inside it (at least not at first). Handong really does love Lan Yu, but his ability to love another person is so stunted at the point at which they meet that he doesn't have any business being in a relationship with anyone. Lan Yu really does care for Handong, though (to Handong's consternation) he never tells him that he loves him, and it's increasingly obvious that as he starts to get a little older and experience more of life, that he starts to realize their relationship isn't good for him. Though he never finds the inner fortitude to deny letting Handong in when he inevitably comes crawling back.
You get the idea.
The other major point of tension in the novel is between love and money. I'm simplifying a little bit, but it basically came down to: money can't buy you happiness, love > money ... Very that. Maybe in China in 1998 this was a revelutionary discovery, and it's true; I mean, I believe those things too, but then money is used to get Handong out of his one major scrape in the narrative so... I dunno, it wasn't the strongest theme and it wasn't examined in a very interesting way.
Bei Tong also kind of paints themselves into a corner with the relationship between Handong and Lan Yu that can only be gotten out of by employing everyone's least favorite trope: 'bury your gays.' But at least they're up front about that given that we're let in on that ending on literally page one. So... all is forgiven?
That aside, I genuinely did enjoy this novel. It's a fascinating artifact of queer literature of the early digital age, and for a lot of Western readers it would likely offer a fresh perspective on a story you've only ever seen told from your own. I found it interesting that while there were definitely cultural particulars that make this a uniquely Chinese story, there were many, many aspects that transcended that cultural context and just felt, well, human.
As long as you don't mind spending 380 pages in the head of a guy you're not meant to like and all the other caveats we've talked about, give it a go.
nini23's review against another edition
Beijing Story 北京故事 by Beijing Comrade 北京同志 is notable for being one of the first Chinese web novels and gay erotic content published online. Translator Scott Myers has said in his note that in his opinion, it doesn't matter whether Bei Tong (a pen name of the mysterious author) is male or female. I disagree. If the author is female, then this falls into the realm of danmei/bl which is homosexual stories written primarily by women for the enjoyment of a female audience (similar to m-m romances). There have often been accusations that danmei/bl fetishisizes homosexual relationships.
Indeed, I find having read some contemporary Chinese danmei novels in translation and watched bl dramas that the content is quite similar. The only notable departure point is the inclusion of Tiananmen Square incident and that Lan Yu is from Xinjiang. The power dynamics of this couple is disturbingly familiar and reminiscent of the recent sex scandals of Aaron Yan and Kris Wu in Chinese entertainment. Handong is a rich fuerdai CEO of company he inherited from his father, a Beijing native while Lan Yu is an impoverished student from the outer provinces. At the time of Handong's assistant arranging for his boss his next fresh lay (prey), Lan Yu is only sixteen while Handong is 27. With the substantial difference in power, wealth and worldly knowledge, this is grooming. Handong is no doubt a terrible human being, that is how he is written. I can distinguish between characterization and an author's views. There is a redemption arc upcoming. Perhaps when this was released it was considered groundbreaking but this content now especially with its functional pedestrian writing is quite commonplace in the land of BL.
[I'm also scratching my head as to why the Feminist Press at CUNY chose to pick this up, Handong's views and treatment of women in the novel are abhorrent.]
Indeed, I find having read some contemporary Chinese danmei novels in translation and watched bl dramas that the content is quite similar. The only notable departure point is the inclusion of Tiananmen Square incident and that Lan Yu is from Xinjiang. The power dynamics of this couple is disturbingly familiar and reminiscent of the recent sex scandals of Aaron Yan and Kris Wu in Chinese entertainment. Handong is a rich fuerdai CEO of company he inherited from his father, a Beijing native while Lan Yu is an impoverished student from the outer provinces. At the time of Handong's assistant arranging for his boss his next fresh lay (prey), Lan Yu is only sixteen while Handong is 27. With the substantial difference in power, wealth and worldly knowledge, this is grooming. Handong is no doubt a terrible human being, that is how he is written. I can distinguish between characterization and an author's views. There is a redemption arc upcoming. Perhaps when this was released it was considered groundbreaking but this content now especially with its functional pedestrian writing is quite commonplace in the land of BL.
[I'm also scratching my head as to why the Feminist Press at CUNY chose to pick this up, Handong's views and treatment of women in the novel are abhorrent.]
sirlancelot2021's review against another edition
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
rungemaille's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
anvh_01's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
It's gonna take a few months for me to recover form this.
kalchainein's review against another edition
Tedious. I shrimply do not care about any of these characters. They have the depth of an oily street puddle and about as much appeal.