A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, by Xiaolu Guo
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
by Xiaolu Guo
283 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Romance
This novel was my version of an impulse buy; I was browsing the new releases shelf in the library and the word "Chinese" caught my eye. I've been trying not to overload with library books, since I have a backlog of borrowed and bought books to work through, but the title was tempting and the author was most definitely a PoC, so I decided to give it a go. And oh, I am so glad that I did.
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is classified, at least by my library, as romance on the spine. But it breaks so many romance tropes, and touches on so much more than the usual of that genre, that I think it is foremost a "literary" novel. It is the story of Zhuang Xiao Qiao, nicknamed 'Z', who travels to England to study English for a year. She meets an older English man who couldn't be more different--living always in the present as opposed to the Chinese obsession with the future, flagrantly liberal (an ex-anarchist) where Z comes from a hardworking peasant family in a conservative society. Her lover--never directly named in the novel, instead being addressed as "you"--is also bisexual, and I loved the openness of the novel overall. At one point, some friends discuss transsexual surgery; there is also a scene where Z reads the instructions on a condom package that is simply hilarious.
The prose is unique, employing several conceits that take skill to pull off. I don't have an aversion to the diary style, though I do object to using it as a conceit for no apparent reason; but here it works extremely well. The words live at a meta level, evolving unnoticeably. The point-of-view is unmistakably first person, and yet Z addresses her lover as "you" so often that I think this novel could be used as an example of how to write second person effectively. The POV trick gives the reader a sense of intimacy that couldn't otherwise be achieved, and Z's voice is absolutely authentic. I love how all her verbs are gerunds at first, unconjugated like in Mandarin: "Chinese, we not having grammar. We saying things simple way. No verb-change usage, no tense differences, no gender changes. We bosses of our language. But, English language is boss of English user." [20] Actual Chinese characters are also used in a non-culturally-appropriating way (admittedly perhaps because Guo herself is from China and this is her first novel written directly in English). For instance, on page 142 is a paragraph of coherent, actual Mandarin because Z is so frustrated with English--with England, with life--that she switches to her native langauge. (The English translation, on the facing page in italics, is excellent. I had to get my mother to read the Chinese to me aloud because my character recognition is just that terrible. Interesting fact: they didn't translate the "curse" at the beginning of the Mandarin section. But I digress.) In the first half especially, there were lovely cultural snippets like cheng2 yu3 (e.g. ben4 niao3 xian1 fei1, "the stupid bird flies first"), four letter phrases like mini-poetry with several layers of meaning.
Finally, before I go briefly under spoiler cut: the ending is quiet, resonant, and realistic.
This is not a romance novel. There is no HEA. However, the ending made sense--in a way, almost the entire novel was building up to this ending--and though I loved Z dearly and wanted her to be happy, I understood the decision she made. Her and her lover are opposites--who attract, after all--but at the end of the day, they could never be together permanently.
I did have one complaint, and that is about Z's lover. He's never named and we never see him except through Z's broken, emotional English. By the end of the novel, I cared much more about Z than I did about him. Just another way that A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is not a romance story; the focus here is clearly on Z, and the major themes of culture clash and freedom.
I would recommend this novel to many, many people; anyone interested in modern Chinese culture, anyone actively seeking literature written by POC (
oyceter and others?), and anyone to whom it appeals from reading this review. (Not formula-romance readers, though.) Go forth and seek it out; I promise, whatever you may think ultimately of the book, it will be worth your time.
ETA: Spoiler cut added.
by Xiaolu Guo
283 pages (hardcover)
Genre: Fiction/Literary/Romance
This novel was my version of an impulse buy; I was browsing the new releases shelf in the library and the word "Chinese" caught my eye. I've been trying not to overload with library books, since I have a backlog of borrowed and bought books to work through, but the title was tempting and the author was most definitely a PoC, so I decided to give it a go. And oh, I am so glad that I did.
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is classified, at least by my library, as romance on the spine. But it breaks so many romance tropes, and touches on so much more than the usual of that genre, that I think it is foremost a "literary" novel. It is the story of Zhuang Xiao Qiao, nicknamed 'Z', who travels to England to study English for a year. She meets an older English man who couldn't be more different--living always in the present as opposed to the Chinese obsession with the future, flagrantly liberal (an ex-anarchist) where Z comes from a hardworking peasant family in a conservative society. Her lover--never directly named in the novel, instead being addressed as "you"--is also bisexual, and I loved the openness of the novel overall. At one point, some friends discuss transsexual surgery; there is also a scene where Z reads the instructions on a condom package that is simply hilarious.
The prose is unique, employing several conceits that take skill to pull off. I don't have an aversion to the diary style, though I do object to using it as a conceit for no apparent reason; but here it works extremely well. The words live at a meta level, evolving unnoticeably. The point-of-view is unmistakably first person, and yet Z addresses her lover as "you" so often that I think this novel could be used as an example of how to write second person effectively. The POV trick gives the reader a sense of intimacy that couldn't otherwise be achieved, and Z's voice is absolutely authentic. I love how all her verbs are gerunds at first, unconjugated like in Mandarin: "Chinese, we not having grammar. We saying things simple way. No verb-change usage, no tense differences, no gender changes. We bosses of our language. But, English language is boss of English user." [20] Actual Chinese characters are also used in a non-culturally-appropriating way (admittedly perhaps because Guo herself is from China and this is her first novel written directly in English). For instance, on page 142 is a paragraph of coherent, actual Mandarin because Z is so frustrated with English--with England, with life--that she switches to her native langauge. (The English translation, on the facing page in italics, is excellent. I had to get my mother to read the Chinese to me aloud because my character recognition is just that terrible. Interesting fact: they didn't translate the "curse" at the beginning of the Mandarin section. But I digress.) In the first half especially, there were lovely cultural snippets like cheng2 yu3 (e.g. ben4 niao3 xian1 fei1, "the stupid bird flies first"), four letter phrases like mini-poetry with several layers of meaning.
Finally, before I go briefly under spoiler cut: the ending is quiet, resonant, and realistic.
This is not a romance novel. There is no HEA. However, the ending made sense--in a way, almost the entire novel was building up to this ending--and though I loved Z dearly and wanted her to be happy, I understood the decision she made. Her and her lover are opposites--who attract, after all--but at the end of the day, they could never be together permanently.
I did have one complaint, and that is about Z's lover. He's never named and we never see him except through Z's broken, emotional English. By the end of the novel, I cared much more about Z than I did about him. Just another way that A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is not a romance story; the focus here is clearly on Z, and the major themes of culture clash and freedom.
I would recommend this novel to many, many people; anyone interested in modern Chinese culture, anyone actively seeking literature written by POC (
oyceter and others?), and anyone to whom it appeals from reading this review. (Not formula-romance readers, though.) Go forth and seek it out; I promise, whatever you may think ultimately of the book, it will be worth your time.
ETA: Spoiler cut added.