I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China (Hardcover)

Living out a dull, bad dream of botched politics, the stunted characters in these novellas exist in a no-man's-land, halfway between the failed utopia of Chairman Mao and the promise of McDonald's, Macintosh and MTV.Gingerly, resentfully, a churlish young writer negotiates the task of helping his girlfriend's ailing father pee into a bottle. It's a humdrum humiliation for all concerned, but one that's finally rewarded with "the poignant tinkle of water on plastic." Of such small things, Zhu Wen, a leading light of the "New Generation" of Chinese writers who came of age in the shadow of Tiananmen Square, crafts bitter, tragicomic, poetic fiction. "A Hospital Night" isn't much, plot-wise: Sick old man rages at smug youth. But the Worker's Hospital where the action's set functions fine as metaphor-nothing works there. Filial piety, the Confucian ideal, is a bankrupt mockery, and socialist camaraderie is a joke. The title story is even bleaker. Another callow writer goes trolling with his father for teenaged whores. Dad's a mildly amiable tippler; the son's an absolute cad, shacking up with a divorced older woman and then cheating on her. A sexaholic, he's materialism run amuck: "If we're not getting any otherwise and it's being sold on the market, why shouldn't we go and buy some?" "Pounds, Ounces, Meat" achieves a kind of Chekhovian surrealism: Yet one more disgruntled youngster, after falling for a girl "carrying a black parasol and a copy of I Love Dollars," embarks on a quest to determine the true value of a pork filet. In the author's China, everything's a mess, from the drifting Yangtze River steamer in "A Boat Crossing" to the fouled-up factory in "Ah, Xiao Xie."A jaundiced view of post-communist chaos. No heroism, no transcendence, just all-too-human desperation. (Kirkus Reviews)

In five richly imaginative novellas and a short story, Zhu Wen depicts the violence, chaos, and dark comedy of China in the post-Mao era. A frank reflection of the seamier side of his nation's increasingly capitalist society, Zhu Wen's fiction offers an audaciously plainspoken account of the often hedonistic individualism that is feverishly taking root.

Set against the mundane landscapes of contemporary China-a worn Yangtze River vessel, cheap diners, a failing factory, a for-profit hospital operating by dated socialist norms-Zhu Wen's stories zoom in on the often tragicomic minutiae of everyday life in this fast-changing country. With subjects ranging from provincial mafiosi to nightmarish families and oppressed factory workers, his claustrophobic narratives depict a spiritually bankrupt society, periodically rocked by spasms of uncontrolled violence.

For example, "I Love Dollars," a story about casual sex in a provincial city whose caustic portrayal of numb disillusionment and cynicism, caused an immediate sensation in the Chinese literary establishment when it was first published. The novella's loose, colloquial voice and sharp focus on the indignity and iniquity of a society trapped between communism and capitalism showcase Zhu Wen's exceptional ability to make literary sense of the bizarre, ideologically confused amalgam that is contemporary China.

Julia Lovell's fluent translation deftly reproduces Zhu Wen's wry sense of humor and powerful command of detail and atmosphere. The first book-length publication of Zhu Wen's fiction in English, I Love Dollars "and Other Stories of China" offers readers access to a trailblazing author and marks a major contribution to Chinese literature in English.

General

Imprint:	Columbia University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Weatherhead Books on Asia
Release date:	2007
First published:	2007
Authors:	Wen Zhu
Translators:	Julia Lovell
Dimensions:	210 x 140 x 23mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover - Trade binding
Pages:	256
ISBN-13:	978-0-231-13694-5
Languages:	English
Subtitles:	Chinese
Categories:	Books > Fiction > Special features > Short stories
LSN:	0-231-13694-3
Barcode:	9780231136945

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