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thefictionaddictionblog 's review for:
Land of Big Numbers: Stories
by Te-Ping Chen
Land of Big Numbers, by Te-Ping Chen, is a collection of short stories blending moments of everyday Chinese life with magical elements or extreme elements, constantly reflecting on what we owe to each other, in families or communities, with wild personal joys and heavy personal secrets. And all the stories created vivid scenes in just a couple paragraphs.
New Fruit stays with me, my favorite by far in this collection. The qiguo, peculiar fruit, is a new fruit variety suddenly sold by street vendors and the kind of Chinese bodegas that might sell random lots of random surplus. The first summer, the taste of the qiguo brings to life old memories. "“Today I had one that tasted like I had just told a good joke and everyone was laughing,” Lao Sui might say."
This is the mix of realism and fantastical that really works. The constant presence of fruit vendors on the streets makes it so easy to buy fruit for snacks, and I was constantly seeing new fruits sold in wheelbarrows. Sometimes just smaller and sweeter versions of grocery store fruit, but sometimes mangosteens, durian and other new fruit.
Full review is on my book blog
New Fruit stays with me, my favorite by far in this collection. The qiguo, peculiar fruit, is a new fruit variety suddenly sold by street vendors and the kind of Chinese bodegas that might sell random lots of random surplus. The first summer, the taste of the qiguo brings to life old memories. "“Today I had one that tasted like I had just told a good joke and everyone was laughing,” Lao Sui might say."
This is the mix of realism and fantastical that really works. The constant presence of fruit vendors on the streets makes it so easy to buy fruit for snacks, and I was constantly seeing new fruits sold in wheelbarrows. Sometimes just smaller and sweeter versions of grocery store fruit, but sometimes mangosteens, durian and other new fruit.
Full review is on my book blog