A review by luxxybee97
The Noodle Maker by Jian Ma

dark funny slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

3 stars 

 

tl;dr – where were the noodles? 

 

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   The back of the edition of The Noodle Maker which I read includes a blurb referring to Ma Jian as the Chinese Milan Kundera, so I was rather excited to give this collection of short stories a bash. It’s a pretty bold claim to live up to, though, and honestly, I don’t feel like this book ever hit the heights necessary to hold on to such acclaim. Ma’s writing certainly has positive traits – it’s laced with acerbic humour, and showcases the personalities of his characters well – but I don’t know if I found the short story format to work that well. For many of the characters, although I got to know them, I don’t feel like I knew them as well as I wanted to by the end of each story, that there was something missing there. Some layers were peeled back, but others remained impenetrable, often so verging into the surreal that the point of each story finds itself hiding in a nebulous cloud. Not bad but not great either.