Reviews

Beijing Sprawl by Zechen Xu

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jtisgreen's review

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dark sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

motheo234's review

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dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

An absolutely brilliant collection of short stories, capturing the hopelessness of modern Beijing. But one that anyone who has ever struggled in any big city can relate to

nbeudert's review

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dark emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Beautifully violent, brilliantly executed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to romanticise violence here — what I mean is that ‘violence’ is written so calmly(?) — and yet so raw and intentional without exaggerating anything or understating anything. It was just so brilliantly done; the realism is sublime, almost frightening, yet so ordinary — it’s just the violence of ‘life’. The ordinariness is frightening in this sense because it doesn’t tell us anything particularly ‘new’, it’s more like it’s calling us/readers out for ignoring things that we are so ‘programmed’/habitualised to overlook. Anyway RTC later.

But I also want to quickly add that I am a massive fan of Jeremy Tiang’s work. The first time I read his translation of Yan Ge’s ‘Strange Beasts of China’, I was mad about it (and didn’t love it well) because it felt ‘weird’ to me somehow, and threw a ‘wordy’ tantrum. I know I was so quick to act/feel that way because I’m a multilingual reader (who didn’t reach much (Chinese) ‘fiction’ at that point). But then I went on to read a few books (fiction) in ‘Chinese’ text. And I had to laugh at how silly and cocky I was. I’m still trying to read more books in Chinese, but I always wish there was already an English translation available. I’m reading one at the moment, [b:夜晚的潜水艇|55961551|夜晚的潜水艇|Chen Chuncheng|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1605876040l/55961551._SX50_.jpg|87178924] (literal translation being something like 'The Night's Submarine', 'The Submarine in/of the Night'(?) or a little less literal, 'The Submarine at Night'(?)) which is something of a ‘surrealist’ novel? I’ll elaborate later in my full review (for relevance). Honestly it’s just extra/super ‘trippy’ to read an already ‘trippy’ novel in a language I’m not familiar enough with (or at least in my opinion).