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A review by fcty
Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin
5.0
aka. the tales of a lesbian situationship survivor. that shit is lethal!
in all seriousness i wish 1) that i’d read this in university, when i was Lazi’s age and facing similar issues with love, friendship and sexuality (though those issues haven’t changed much since…) and 2) that my chinese was better so I could read this in the original language!! I don’t believe that sentiments are fundamentally untranslatable between languages, and i have massive respect for translation as an art form, but there were many phrases in this book where I knew roughly what it would be in chinese but it comes off slightly clunky in translation. maybe one day i’ll get there… it’s a shame that the translation seems to fail this book but i ended up liking it so much I can’t bring myself to bump down the rating.
really related to this friend group’s struggles with love, toxic relationships, self-acceptance, self-respect and mental illness. i’m not sure how much of this is drawn from qiu miaojin’s life but if even a fraction of the events in the book actually happened my heart aches for her and her friends.
in all seriousness i wish 1) that i’d read this in university, when i was Lazi’s age and facing similar issues with love, friendship and sexuality (though those issues haven’t changed much since…) and 2) that my chinese was better so I could read this in the original language!! I don’t believe that sentiments are fundamentally untranslatable between languages, and i have massive respect for translation as an art form, but there were many phrases in this book where I knew roughly what it would be in chinese but it comes off slightly clunky in translation. maybe one day i’ll get there… it’s a shame that the translation seems to fail this book but i ended up liking it so much I can’t bring myself to bump down the rating.
really related to this friend group’s struggles with love, toxic relationships, self-acceptance, self-respect and mental illness. i’m not sure how much of this is drawn from qiu miaojin’s life but if even a fraction of the events in the book actually happened my heart aches for her and her friends.