My actual rating would have been 2.5 but Goodreads doesn't have the 'half' function LOL! Anyway, I've tried my best to like it but it is definitely not my cup of tea. The satirical gory plots had it off my book. Thankfully, I liked the last 2 chapters so it kinda made it up for me.

My full review here:
http://www.sholee.net/2020/02/mpov-noodle-maker.html ( )

'I want to transform their lives into a work of art, although I am sure they will never bother to read it'
By sally tarbox on 30 Aug. 2012
Format: Paperback
Two old friends - a professional blood donor (a profit seeker) and a state employed writer (an idealist) - meet up for a regular dinner. The latter compains about his latest assignment: a book about a Communist hero. He yearns to write about other people:
'A young entrepreneur who runs a private crematorium; an illegal migrant who writes letters for the illiterate; a father who spends his life trying to get rid of his retarded daughter...These are people he knows, has read about or sees every day on the streets...But he is fully aware that if he wrote about these sad and feeble characters, his leaders would consider him unfit for the post of professional writer'.
In a series of interlinked short stories, the writer tells the stories of these characters...
An excellent translation by Flora Drew. Interesting read although sometimes I felt the hidden meanings escaped me! ( )

Although this book gives you several glances of the "less pretty" side of the Chinese culture, I must say that I found it dull, boring and awfully pornographic.
The book's main story is one of two guys who meet once in a week to share meat and mead, using this opportunity to discuss a couple of aspects of the world around them. One of the guys is a blood donor by profession, the other is a writer who has absolutely no brilliant ideas for his book about the government. Apparently what give the book its name is the fact that nearby where they meet (the writer's apartment) there is a restaurant that makes fish soup and the smell of it always invades the place. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is the meaning of it and its relevance on the whole story, but the metaphor must be really good because I still haven't thought about any relations between them and, frankly, I don't think I'm even slightly interested in knowing it.
The book is not fixed on the conversation between this two characters: it shifts through the story of several people belonging to lower classes of the Chinese quotidian. The stories aren't completely bad, but I did not enjoy the writing style and the way the stories were told. Even though they are easy to understand, all of them are somewhat chaotic, don't seem to have a purpose or meaning and gosh, I have yet to see that much pornography in a book that is NOT supposed to be focused on people's sexual lives (which are portrayed in a very gruesome manner, by the way). I wish I was joking about it, but the author actually dedicates a whole chapter in the book to talk about women's breasts.
While I do understand that Chinese culture is sexually repressed, I still didn't find any of the sex scenes necessary in the story. Ma Jian also seems to be quite obsessed by the low and grotesque characteristics that humanize people, such as peeing, taking a dump, stinking and stuff like that, which appear very, very frequently.

This is a book that probably portrays China as it really is, from the point of view of poor people with decades of political oppression, which doesn't necessarily make it a good book. At least not one that I would recommend. ( )

Let it be known that I did not read this under the best circumstances: short works give me trouble, short stories even more so, and what with the last few days consisting of the overbearing [War and Peace] competing with my current under the weather state, I in no way gave this introduction to a brand new author the attention it deserved. Ema and Kris do a far better job, and I am planning on coming back to Ma with [Beijing Coma]. But enough excuses.

Despite all that, I know dark satire when I see it, and Ma's constant references to the Open Door Policy and its capitalistic rampage across Communist China clinched the urgency. The problems stem from my own experiences, deluged as they are in hating the lie of the patriarchal 'free market' without having but the slightest awareness of the social, cultural, and historical context Ma is coming from. It was only after finishing the book and subsequently rereading Kris' review that I realized the undercurrent of anger, a truth I couldn't see for all the gratuitous beating and raping and ultimate trivializing of the female form. I will read about the horrors of Communism and Capitalism and appreciate the truth of the stories any day, but not at the expense of myriad female caricatures sacrificed without ado.

As mentioned, the work is short, time was shorter, and I didn't have the tools to engage with the stories enough to distract me from one of my major caveats. However, I did very much enjoy the story of the mother and son and their choreographing crematorium, where bodies are burnt to the sound of their favorite music as calculated by their Party status and other officiated characteristics. And, of course, the noodle maker. I understand that metaphor all too well, and will be coming back for more. ( )

This book is set somewhere in the times that China was coming out of the Mao era, and details the changes in society taking place at that time, through a series of stories of the people at the time.
The stories seem to take place in the background of dinner conversations between two friends, the writer and the blood donor.
The stories are dark, quirky and somewhat eccentric. I would not say that they are terribly clear or interesting or amusing, however. A bit obtuse, and could have been much better and sarcastic
I went in with hope, and came out a bit disappointed. ( )