(no subject)
A rec post, which I haven't done for long time. Part of it is because I have been slacking off on my reading and watching Chinese opera instead, and the other part of it is that I have been reading mostly meat and potato kind of authors -- reliable and entertaining, but mostly forgettable as well.
留袖 (Liu Xiu), on the other hand, is surely one you'll not easily forget. She maybe not be the most even or consistent, but she is certainly one of the most original and imaginative BL authors writing today. Her characters and plot are outrageous and preposterous, yet deeply human and engaging, and her stories, even the ones which she claims to have labored and sweated over, have an effortless ease and exuberance.
Her first original story is 园长先生 (Mr. Director), which is about a romance between the obsessive-compulsive germ-phobic director of a preschool, and his landlord, who is also the owner of an adult toy emporium. It is a marvel of situational comedy, a story which surely ruined a thousand keyboards.
夜夜壁上鸣 and 鸟人衰事, on the other hand, are a completely departure from the urbane and sophisticated tone of her first story. They are strange tales, featuring weasel spirits, who in reputation are similar to Tanuki in Japan. 鸟人衰事 is the story of the hapless bird seller who injured the grandson of a weasel spirit, and 夜夜壁上鸣 is about the mischievous grandson, who finally get his comeuppance from the blacksmith. Raunchy and earthy, full of enlivening details of local lore and legends, they're written with an authenticity that I never expected to encounter in this genre.
But my favorite of her strange tales is surely her latest, 一嘴鸭毛, a delightful picaresque about a greedy duck-loving fox spirit, the duck farmer with heart of gold, the fox spirit's effete brother, and the effete brother's keeper the bookworm professor. Taking a page from Miyazaki, her version of how spirit and demons survive in the modern age is both hilarious and heart-wrenching.
And lastly, I can't really stop without mentioning one last work, the quite incomparable 欢迎加入巨乌贼同好会, in which a hapless young journalist is sent to film a documentary about Prof, the the leading expert on giant squids and octopus. It's a sly and playful parody. I'm sure I do not need to say about what.
留袖 (Liu Xiu), on the other hand, is surely one you'll not easily forget. She maybe not be the most even or consistent, but she is certainly one of the most original and imaginative BL authors writing today. Her characters and plot are outrageous and preposterous, yet deeply human and engaging, and her stories, even the ones which she claims to have labored and sweated over, have an effortless ease and exuberance.
Her first original story is 园长先生 (Mr. Director), which is about a romance between the obsessive-compulsive germ-phobic director of a preschool, and his landlord, who is also the owner of an adult toy emporium. It is a marvel of situational comedy, a story which surely ruined a thousand keyboards.
夜夜壁上鸣 and 鸟人衰事, on the other hand, are a completely departure from the urbane and sophisticated tone of her first story. They are strange tales, featuring weasel spirits, who in reputation are similar to Tanuki in Japan. 鸟人衰事 is the story of the hapless bird seller who injured the grandson of a weasel spirit, and 夜夜壁上鸣 is about the mischievous grandson, who finally get his comeuppance from the blacksmith. Raunchy and earthy, full of enlivening details of local lore and legends, they're written with an authenticity that I never expected to encounter in this genre.
But my favorite of her strange tales is surely her latest, 一嘴鸭毛, a delightful picaresque about a greedy duck-loving fox spirit, the duck farmer with heart of gold, the fox spirit's effete brother, and the effete brother's keeper the bookworm professor. Taking a page from Miyazaki, her version of how spirit and demons survive in the modern age is both hilarious and heart-wrenching.
And lastly, I can't really stop without mentioning one last work, the quite incomparable 欢迎加入巨乌贼同好会, in which a hapless young journalist is sent to film a documentary about Prof, the the leading expert on giant squids and octopus. It's a sly and playful parody. I'm sure I do not need to say about what.