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A review by italo_carlvino
Frontier by Can Xue
3.0
Frontier is a strange novel that I admit I do not wholly understand. Maybe I will never understand it even if I reread it a dozen times. It really does feel like a dream, loosely connected vignettes where time, space, logic and emotion are malleable, permeable and interchangeable. There is something enticing to the idea of a frontier, a place of mystery and freedom. Can Xue really takes the time to explore that sense of freedom. Perhaps that is why the novel is hard to understand and how it gets away from you. It is one of the freest novels I've read. Many scenes in the book struck me with their sense of wonder and banality at the strangeness of this fictional town. Though, the book did not hit me as much as say Italo Calvino, Borges or Bulgakov did. Nevertheless it is interesting and I want to try to reread it at some point. It is at times beautiful yet ultimately diaphanous.