Linda Rui Feng
Autor von Swimming Back to Trout River
Werke von Linda Rui Feng
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The Reincarnated Giant: An Anthology of Twenty-First-Century Chinese Science Fiction (2018) — Übersetzer — 42 Exemplare
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Wissenswertes
- Geschlecht
- female
- Nationalität
- Canada
China (birth) - Geburtsort
- Shanghai, China
- Wohnorte
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
San Francisco, California, USA - Ausbildung
- Harvard University (BA|Earth and Planetary Sciences)
Columbia University (MA and PhD|East Asian Languages & Cultures) - Berufe
- professor (University of Toronto)
- Preise und Auszeichnungen
- MacDowell Fellowship
Toronto Arts Council Grant
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- Werke
- 2
- Auch von
- 1
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- 136
- Beliebtheit
- #149,926
- Bewertung
- 4.2
- Rezensionen
- 11
- ISBNs
- 14
At the center of this story is Junie, she is the daughter of Momo and Cassia, born without legs below the knee and left in the care of her paternal grandparents when her parents head to America. Insulated by her loving grandparents Junie has a happy childhood until she comes to see the world a little more clearly with age. (The sixth person covered is Dawn, a person in Momo's life before Cassia. One thing about the Cultural Revolution is that is severely limited people's options, and it paired or pried apart people who if left to fate would have never connected or would have been together forever. This is true of Momo and Dawn, Momo and Cassia, Junie and her parents and then her grandparents, and later Cassia and the people she connects with in San Francisco. These relationships are all fostered or destroyed by the external force of the Chinese State which eliminates both meaningful choice and kismet. Junie notes there is a word for this in Chinese, but when you try to translate it to English you just come up with "fate" when in fact this is the opposite of fate. It is a cool passage, and I should note that there is a focus here on the effect of language on life. The thought is that if a language does not have a word or phrase for something people can't experience it -- without language to represent it a thing does not exist. All very metaphysical and, for me, a really interesting thought path to go down.
These characters all have compelling stories, but while I enjoyed the characters I was somewhat more interested in their relationship to the State and the complications of living in that time and place and the impact of geography and language on perception. The combination of creating a portrait of a past time as one expects from historical fiction and of also writing a character based story in the fashion of literary fiction is, though not unheard of, quite uncommon. Most commercial historical fiction plays pretty fast and loose with historical fact. (See eg, Philippa Gregory, Lauren Wilig, and books like Gone with the Wind and Shogun.) Literary historical fiction is expected to hew closer to the facts, and perhaps that is why it is so rare. It takes a lot of research, but also it is hard to write a compelling character arc that is still historically accurate. I think Linda Rui Feng. did that, so kudos! I do think she pared this down too much (I usually love pared down, but this paring took too much from the story being pared.) The book leaves a lot of things uncovered, as it should, but for me I needed to know more about Momo as an adult, the choices he made, his life in Council Bluffs. I also wanted to know more about Cassia and her choices. I found her very confusing and still do not fully understand why she came to America. Her character becomes much clearer in the last 20 pages or so of the book, but I still think there should have been more and earlier coverage of her choices and drivers.
All in all an interesting read set during a fascinating time. I am here for more by this author, and more by other novelists who set their stories during the Cultural Revolution.… (mehr)