Thursday, March 22, 2012

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers by Xiaolu Guo







  • Paperback: 354 pages
  • Genre: Fiction
  • Publisher: Vintage, Random House Group 2008
  • Source: Oxfam bookshop in UK
  • First Sentences : ‘Now. Beijing time 12 clock midnight. London time 5 clock afternoon. But I at neither time zone. I on airplane. Sitting on 25,000km above to earth and trying to remember all English I learning in school. I not met you yet. you in future.
  • Review Quote : ‘Funny and charming..more than a love story; its psychology is politically acute and things noted lightly in it linger in the mind’ Guardian
  • My Opinion: A sad but believable story about a young girls loss of innocence as East meets West. 





  • When I first started to read this I was put off by the way it has been deliberately written in bad English. However once I got to grips with this and realised it was really a necessary and integral part of the novel I began to enjoy it much more, finding it both witty and charming.


    Zhuang is twenty three years old and her parents have sent her to spend a year in London to learn English to enable her to return to China and help them expand their shoe factory business. The bad English grammar of the writing is essential as at first this is is how she communicates with no understanding of tenses or verbs, just armed with a dictionary. In fact it reminded me of when I first moved to Italy, completely out of my depth with the language.


    It is a very poignant story as Zhuang coming from an Eastern culture to a Western one seems very naive of the ways of the new world she is now inhabiting. Unfortunately the older hippy that she meets, befriends and very quickly ends up living with is far from a perfect partner for her. His attitudes towards her, sex and life in general mean that learning about love is even more confusing for her than learning the language. I should maybe also point out here that are are a few scenes in this novel that are sexually explicit.
    As Zhuang’s grasp of the English language becomes stronger she starts to question the attitude of her lover suspecting that her values are very different to his. The relationship is heading nowhere, although she has a strong desire for this not to be the case.
    A sad but believable story about a young girls loss of innocence as East meets West.



                                       Xiaolu Guo Author Profile


      


    Xiaolu Guo was born in 1973 and is a Chinese novelist and filmmaker, who uses film and literary language to explore themes of alienation, memory, personal journeys, daily tragedies and develops her own vision of China's past and its future in a global environment.



    The biographical information photo and the video used in this post are with thanks to the following websites.
    Xiaolu Guo – Wikipedia, Xiaolu Guo - Official Website


    I have chosen to read this title as the letter C for this challenge which I have decided to attempt to achieve in alphabetical order. I have a good selection of titles to choose from our bookshelves, it will be interesting to see how far I can get before I get stuck. You can follow my progress here.




    12 comments:

    1. I've heard a lot of good things about this book, and it's on my TBR!

      ReplyDelete
      Replies
      1. Talli@ I liked the fact that it was different!

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    2. Well, I shall have to put this one on my To Read list as well, Linda! Like you, when I read the first sentence above, I wondered if that pidgin English would jar with me, but I can see that it would really help in the telling of the story. Glad you enjoyed it. Liked that it was found in a charity shop in the U.K.!!

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      Replies
      1. I will be very curious to know what you think of this one when you have read it, took me awhile to get my head around the way it is written.

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    3. Hi Linda,

      The cover is a beguiling, even if the title had me a litle confused to start with.

      This sounds like an emotional journey of discovery for Zhuang and I have already added it to my reading list.

      I checked out the author's site and there are a couple of her other books that I quite like the look of as well, so thanks for introducing me to her work in this lovely review.

      Have a good weekend.

      Yvonne.

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      Replies
      1. Yvonne, by coincidence it looks as though I found you another author for your new interest.

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    4. I actually really liked the bad English in the first few lines, especially "i not met you yet. you in future." It made me feel sympathetic to her.

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      Replies
      1. The language does make you feel sympathetic to Yuang I agree, I was just unsure at first, if I was going to be able to cope with the whole book written this way.

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    5. I have to remember to get this book. Might be a good book to while traveling to China. Any other suggestions for my trip?

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      Replies
      1. There may be better choices as if you are looking for books set in China this is not. As for other recommendations I cannot think of any books but as for places do hope you are going to Xian.

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      2. I guess you will go to see The Terracotta Army which is truly amazing. A tip we took a guide for the day at a very reasonable price which was so worthwhile, they took us round the TA site backwards which meant you see the best last instead of first, so much more dramatic!

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