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nini23's review against another edition
I was very interested to read a translated book of fiction from an Uyghur writer. My thanks to Columbia University Press and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. It's difficult to say whether it's the original writing style or the translation of Darren Byler that soured my reading experience. The bombastic self-righteous introduction by Byler certainly didn't do it any favours. There is another Uyghur translator who is unnamed due to having been disappeared. This short novel is in a stream of consciousness style with a deliberate disorienting bleak isolating effect meant to reflect the protagonist's mental state. This literary device can be wielded to great effect such as with László Krasznahorkai's The Melancholy of Resistance.
I made a good faith effort to plow through the book but picked it up and put it down repeatedly over a few weeks with little enthusiasm. The last straw was when the protagonist was leering at a woman emerging from a public washroom at an out of the way place and thinking to himself that she 'smells like semen.' How uncomfortable and unsafe did this woman feel being stared at hungrily like that? Being oppressed does not give an excuse to oppress others. The suggestion that she is dressed provocatively is just gross.
There are many non-fiction memoir books by Ugyhers detailing their experiences in the hands of the Chinese state. I intend to turn to those for a better understanding instead.
I made a good faith effort to plow through the book but picked it up and put it down repeatedly over a few weeks with little enthusiasm. The last straw was when the protagonist was leering at a woman emerging from a public washroom at an out of the way place and thinking to himself that she 'smells like semen.' How uncomfortable and unsafe did this woman feel being stared at hungrily like that? Being oppressed does not give an excuse to oppress others. The suggestion that she is dressed provocatively is just gross.
There are many non-fiction memoir books by Ugyhers detailing their experiences in the hands of the Chinese state. I intend to turn to those for a better understanding instead.
mcarroll's review
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
lukasch's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
shonatiger's review
3.0
Thank you to NetGalley and to Columbia University Press for this eARC.
Perhat Tursun is an Uyghur author who was reportedly imprisoned in 2018 for sixteen years by the Chinese government. In his surreal, stream-of-consciousness novel, an unnamed Uyghur man wanders the foggy streets of Ürümchi, Xinjiang, one night, while looking for a place to stay. The narrative is split between memories of his childhood and village, his experiences as a student in Beijing, accounts of his days at work in this new city, and the disturbing and nightmarish encounters of this night. He bumps into hostile strangers, and wanders into a home where a woman threatens him with a cleaver. He ponders—obsesses over—the meanings of numbers. He is assailed by smells, a major theme in the novel, with horrifying odours creating an unsettling atmosphere, particularly with his vision obscured by the fog. He talks a lot about physical contact, bodies—especially those of women, and sex. He hears things, including a woman screaming, and he knows this is not real.
Even without knowledge of what has happened to the author, this is a heartbreaking account of what it’s like to be unmoored. The narrator has been subjected to childhood trauma, and uprooted through colonization. The narrative shifts, digresses, and comes back in on itself, like the fog in the novel, and one feels just as lost as the narrator. He repeats over and over that he does not know anyone in the strange city, and one feels his complete disconnection and dislocation.
This felt to me very much like reading Marechera’s House of Hunger, with a similarly seemingly unreliable narrator who has very clearly been through and is going through great trauma (also in first person narration). There will also be comparisons to that famous stream-of-consciousness novel, Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway; however, any similarity to it is only in style.
I cannot say I enjoyed this unsettling book, but I am glad I read it.
Rated: 6/10.
Read with: Dambudzo Marechera’s House of Hunger.
Perhat Tursun is an Uyghur author who was reportedly imprisoned in 2018 for sixteen years by the Chinese government. In his surreal, stream-of-consciousness novel, an unnamed Uyghur man wanders the foggy streets of Ürümchi, Xinjiang, one night, while looking for a place to stay. The narrative is split between memories of his childhood and village, his experiences as a student in Beijing, accounts of his days at work in this new city, and the disturbing and nightmarish encounters of this night. He bumps into hostile strangers, and wanders into a home where a woman threatens him with a cleaver. He ponders—obsesses over—the meanings of numbers. He is assailed by smells, a major theme in the novel, with horrifying odours creating an unsettling atmosphere, particularly with his vision obscured by the fog. He talks a lot about physical contact, bodies—especially those of women, and sex. He hears things, including a woman screaming, and he knows this is not real.
Even without knowledge of what has happened to the author, this is a heartbreaking account of what it’s like to be unmoored. The narrator has been subjected to childhood trauma, and uprooted through colonization. The narrative shifts, digresses, and comes back in on itself, like the fog in the novel, and one feels just as lost as the narrator. He repeats over and over that he does not know anyone in the strange city, and one feels his complete disconnection and dislocation.
This felt to me very much like reading Marechera’s House of Hunger, with a similarly seemingly unreliable narrator who has very clearly been through and is going through great trauma (also in first person narration). There will also be comparisons to that famous stream-of-consciousness novel, Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway; however, any similarity to it is only in style.
I cannot say I enjoyed this unsettling book, but I am glad I read it.
Rated: 6/10.
Read with: Dambudzo Marechera’s House of Hunger.
ktlee_writes's review
2.0
THE BACKSTREETS: A NOVEL FROM XINJIANG by Perhat Tursun follows an unnamed narrator as he wanders through the streets of Ürümqi, the capital city of Xinjiang, China’s vast northwesternmost autonomous region and the native home of many Uyghurs, a Turkic ethnic group. Most Uyghurs are Muslim and have faced increasing persecution by the Chinese government, including forced sterilization, forced labor, and internment. In fact, Tursun himself disappeared in 2018, with reports that he has been imprisoned.
The novel is an atmospheric journey through the narrator’s mind, the predominant sensation one of melancholy and loneliness, as the narrator describes the constant “fog” of the city. His refrain is, “I don’t know anyone in this strange city, so it’s impossible for me to be friends or enemies with anyone.”
The plot, if one exists, follows the narrator as he tries to find a place to live, facing rejection after rejection. He perseverates about the numbers he sees making patterns, his office job with an uncaring but creepily smiling boss, and the smells and impenetrable pollution of the city.
Darren Byler, who translated this work along with a Uyghur writer who remained anonymous, provides an introduction that is very helpful for situating this book in the sociopolitical context.
This novel won’t be for everyone, as parts of it feel repetitive and dense, and the way women were depicted as sexual objects made me uncomfortable. The prose is reminiscent of Camus; stark and bleak. It’s neither plot- nor character-driven, but rather illuminates the emotional essence of Uyghur existence in the city. I picked this book up because I’m extremely interested in better understanding Uyghur life, but there were still several points where I almost set the book aside.
However, for readers who want insight into the Uyghur world, this is one of the few #OwnVoices books available in English that illuminate life in Xinjiang. I read it to honor Tursun’s life and as an act of resistance against the repression of Uyghurs by the Chinese government.
The novel is an atmospheric journey through the narrator’s mind, the predominant sensation one of melancholy and loneliness, as the narrator describes the constant “fog” of the city. His refrain is, “I don’t know anyone in this strange city, so it’s impossible for me to be friends or enemies with anyone.”
The plot, if one exists, follows the narrator as he tries to find a place to live, facing rejection after rejection. He perseverates about the numbers he sees making patterns, his office job with an uncaring but creepily smiling boss, and the smells and impenetrable pollution of the city.
Darren Byler, who translated this work along with a Uyghur writer who remained anonymous, provides an introduction that is very helpful for situating this book in the sociopolitical context.
This novel won’t be for everyone, as parts of it feel repetitive and dense, and the way women were depicted as sexual objects made me uncomfortable. The prose is reminiscent of Camus; stark and bleak. It’s neither plot- nor character-driven, but rather illuminates the emotional essence of Uyghur existence in the city. I picked this book up because I’m extremely interested in better understanding Uyghur life, but there were still several points where I almost set the book aside.
However, for readers who want insight into the Uyghur world, this is one of the few #OwnVoices books available in English that illuminate life in Xinjiang. I read it to honor Tursun’s life and as an act of resistance against the repression of Uyghurs by the Chinese government.
bizzerg's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
arturob's review
Liked the explainer on the context of the book more than the actual book
andrewspink's review
3.0
What a strange book! It is saturated with superstition, and magical significance is attached to all sorts of things like walking with the left or right foot over a line or various numbers. And the protagonist is obsessed with numbers, assigning all sorts of meanings to various apparently random numbers. He is also obsessed with smells.
There is no real plot to the book. For most of the time, the protagonist is wandering through the fog looking for a house to stay, but not being able to find the address. It is very reminiscent of Kafka's The Trial, with a similar dream-like state, and I was also reminded of Albert Camus' The Plague, although the reason for that that was harder to put my finger on. The atmosphere evoked, I suppose.
Some of the sentences were hard to make sense of. It is hard to know if that is the translation or in the originals. For instance, 'the handle of the bicycle'. Bikes don't have handles, they have handlebars.
Without the introduction, the whole book is also hard to make sense of. There we learn that the author belongs to the oppressed Uighur minority in Eastern China. Then a lot of the book becomes more understandable. But a lot remains a mystery. At least for me.
The copy of the book this is based on was kindly supplied by the publisher in return for an honest review on Netgalley.
There is no real plot to the book. For most of the time, the protagonist is wandering through the fog looking for a house to stay, but not being able to find the address. It is very reminiscent of Kafka's The Trial, with a similar dream-like state, and I was also reminded of Albert Camus' The Plague, although the reason for that that was harder to put my finger on. The atmosphere evoked, I suppose.
Some of the sentences were hard to make sense of. It is hard to know if that is the translation or in the originals. For instance, 'the handle of the bicycle'. Bikes don't have handles, they have handlebars.
Without the introduction, the whole book is also hard to make sense of. There we learn that the author belongs to the oppressed Uighur minority in Eastern China. Then a lot of the book becomes more understandable. But a lot remains a mystery. At least for me.
The copy of the book this is based on was kindly supplied by the publisher in return for an honest review on Netgalley.
nyertryingtoreadeverything's review against another edition
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0