Strange Beasts of China
Ratings16
Average rating3.5
A New York Times Editors' Choice From one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature, an uncanny and playful novel that blurs the line between human and beast… In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks. Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self. Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.
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Strange, esoteric sort of book - I'm glad I read it. A bit too magical realism for my tastes, but the writing was good.
I received a copy from Melville House Publishing in exchange for an honest review.
The Strange Beasts Of China is a strange beast in and of itself. It's about a woman writing a bestiary in a town where beasts, sometimes not all too different from humans, live. The book itself is written as a bestiary, with each chapter focusing on a different strange beast, followed by a story relating to that beast. What the woman writes about them is all based on her own experiences with them, and through those stories her story gets told as well, so all short stories are very connected and all happen chronologically.
The way it's written feels very surreal and weird. The dialogue isn't quite right, the way these characters behave and interact with each other doesn't feel realistic, and yet it works as part of its charm. It very much reads like a weird fever dream.
I found the stories of the beasts interesting, but I was also curious to find out what the deal was with some of the recurring characters and the mystery of who exactly they were.
It's not a book I would recommend for everyone, but I think this would be a good read for when you feel like going out of your comfort zone a little.
On the whole I did enjoy this book, it was engaging and heartbreakingly beautiful at times but there seemed to be a lot of plot holes and strange leaps in logic. I think the plot holes and leaps were an intentional aspect of the narrator, to establish the blend of naivety and arrogance that make up her character, but it sometimes clashed with the general tone of the book (which might have been a translation issue, I assume).
