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A review by furbae
I Live in the Slums: Stories by Can Xue
4.0
I actually made a coherent review for this book as a staff pick but my longer thoughts on this are that there is something so frenetic about the way that Can Xue writes that is disorienting but in a good way. Perhaps it has more to do with my love affair with cities and the deep, deep relationship cities have with postmodern art forms (Although Can Xue apparently rejects postmodernity, but I digress--), but the stories were fun to read and definitely left me sitting down for awhile trying to figure shit out (This was a futile endeavour as Can Xue's work doesn't leave much room for figuring anything out).
The slum she writes about is not a definite place, and the entirety of the area remains largely unnamed. Despite the anonymity, however, she creates a world that is tangible while still seeming to exist somewhere in between the fantastic and the physical. The stories are told by a large array of narrators both human and nonhuman as they coexist together, trying to figure out what it means to relate to one another. This isn't a pretty picture though, it is the slum after all, and the existentialist questions (and dread, I suppose) is compounded by graphic descriptions of violence and body horror as well the struggles of hardship and poverty.
Time is also unreliable here, where the buildings and its inhabitants exist in the tension between modernity and tradition. I say this with a caveat, however, my observation of the lack of a definitive time may be more of an affect of Western writing rather than Asian. I cannot speak for Chinese writing in particular as I'm not terribly fluent in the literature, but the themes of slums -- and entire lives, by extension -- being upended to make way for wealthier real estate is something Io'm more familiar with. This is explicitly captured in "Catfish Pit." What I'm saying is...while the stories may not be tied to a specific time, I think trying to situate it in that fashion is futile.
It's not hard to say that there are many contradictions in this book. There is tenderness and love in the muck. The gore and general grossness becomes almost bucolic. The only thing that one can grasp onto is her nebulous world. It's a dizzying yet exciting read that is testament to Can Xue's experimental style and her love of binaries and opposing forces.
The slum she writes about is not a definite place, and the entirety of the area remains largely unnamed. Despite the anonymity, however, she creates a world that is tangible while still seeming to exist somewhere in between the fantastic and the physical. The stories are told by a large array of narrators both human and nonhuman as they coexist together, trying to figure out what it means to relate to one another. This isn't a pretty picture though, it is the slum after all, and the existentialist questions (and dread, I suppose) is compounded by graphic descriptions of violence and body horror as well the struggles of hardship and poverty.
Time is also unreliable here, where the buildings and its inhabitants exist in the tension between modernity and tradition. I say this with a caveat, however, my observation of the lack of a definitive time may be more of an affect of Western writing rather than Asian. I cannot speak for Chinese writing in particular as I'm not terribly fluent in the literature, but the themes of slums -- and entire lives, by extension -- being upended to make way for wealthier real estate is something Io'm more familiar with. This is explicitly captured in "Catfish Pit." What I'm saying is...while the stories may not be tied to a specific time, I think trying to situate it in that fashion is futile.
It's not hard to say that there are many contradictions in this book. There is tenderness and love in the muck. The gore and general grossness becomes almost bucolic. The only thing that one can grasp onto is her nebulous world. It's a dizzying yet exciting read that is testament to Can Xue's experimental style and her love of binaries and opposing forces.