Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The most ambitious work of fiction by a writer widely considered the most important novelist working in China today
In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flower beds and false reports fly. Conspiracies abound in a community that normalizes paranoia and suspicion. Some try to flee--whether to a mysterious gambling bordello or to ancestral homes that can be reached only underground through muddy caves, sewers, and tunnels. Others seek out the refuge of Nest County, where traditional Chinese herbal medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self. Each life is circumscribed by buried secrets and transcendent delusions.
Can Xue's masterful love stories for the new millennium trace love's many guises--satirical, tragic, transient, lasting, nebulous, and fulfilling--against a kaleidoscopic backdrop of commerce and industry, fraud and exploitation, and sex and romance drawn from the East and the West.
Synopsis
The most ambitious work of fiction by a writer widely considered the most important novelist working in China today "In this dreamlike novel . . . amid increasingly bizarre scenarios, appearances give way to hidden, otherworldly layers."--New Yorker
In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flower beds and false reports fly. Conspiracies abound in a community that normalizes paranoia and suspicion. Some try to flee--whether to a mysterious gambling bordello or to ancestral homes that can be reached only underground through muddy caves, sewers, and tunnels. Others seek out the refuge of Nest County, where traditional Chinese herbal medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self. Each life is circumscribed by buried secrets and transcendent delusions.
Can Xue's masterful love stories for the new millennium trace love's many guises--satirical, tragic, transient, lasting, nebulous, and fulfilling--against a kaleidoscopic backdrop of commerce and industry, fraud and exploitation, and sex and romance drawn from the East and the West.
Synopsis
Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019 The most ambitious work of fiction by one of the world's greatest writers
"In this dreamlike novel . . . amid increasingly bizarre scenarios, appearances give way to hidden, otherworldly layers."--New Yorker
In this darkly comic novel, a group of women inhabits a world of constant surveillance, where informants lurk in the flower beds and conspiracies abound. Some try to flee--whether to a mysterious gambling bordello, underground ancestral homes, or Nest County, where traditional medicines can reshape or psychologically transport the self.
Can Xue's mesmerizing storytelling traces love's many guises--satirical, tragic, transient, lasting, nebulous, and fulfilling--against a kaleidoscopic backdrop of commerce and industry, fraud and exploitation, and sex and romance drawn from the East and the West.