This was a among the many things purchased in fits of enthusiasm which then languish for a bit in the bottomless morass that’s my Kindle—nine months in its case. And this is one the rare ones that I really wish I’d gotten to earlier. All of these stories are good, and they span a dizzying range of styles and approaches.
A couple of favorites, although I felt spoiled for choices:
• <i>Tombstone</i>, Yang Wanqing, translated by Andy Dudak (2021). New Anchorage is kept safe and prosperous by harvesting the energy from departing souls in the giant, tombstone-like Osiris Tower. Xiaofan is a conductor of those departing, but gradually, like cracks at the base of a tombstone, doubt is beginning to creep into his mind about what, exactly, he’s working with. In the shattering of old certainties, he finds a new purpose. This was dystopian, but crackled with vibrant energy.
• <i>The Kite of Jinan</i>, Liang Qinsan, translated by Emily Jin (2018). In the introduction to the volume, Xia Jie calls the story “a factually fictional history of technology.” Written in a non-fiction style, this centers on a fictional amateur historian’s deconstruction of a 1910 explosion at a small gunpowder factory in Shandong province. Done in a style completely unlike the other stories—for once calling this “unique” is not a stretch—it nonetheless tells a fascinating story about a restless inventor at a pivotal, turbulent period in Chinese history.
• <i>The Postman</i>, Liao Shubo, translated by Rebecca Kuang. This was a shortish story about an interstellar postman who gets an unusual, life-changing message from the past. The story deals in universal themes of loneliness and love, as well as the irony that sometimes we never quite see the whole truth about the things which move us. Just lovely work.
I was struck by the historical consciousness of some of the stories. <i>The Kite of Jinan</i> is an obvious example, but a couple of others, e.g. <i>The Bridge</i> and <i>By These Hands</i>, expressed it indirectly in the form of discussing how “the old ways” are being displaced. Change, of course, has been a continuous feature of the last decades of Chinese history, so it would make some sense if that was close to the surface in its popular literature as well.
All in all, an excellent collection.
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