By Larissa Page
I was first intrigued by this book when it made it onto the longlist for Canada Reads in 2021. With its incredibly unique title, it’s a book I’ve wanted to pick up for the past several months. I am so glad I got to read it before the end of 2021.
This book is a quick read—it isn’t too long and by the end I wasn’t quite ready for it to be over. It follows the narrator through some experiences he had with a lover over the course of three years within their home in Toronto, through Hong Kong and Macau, and in Prague. The lover, who remains unnamed, is Japanese and our narrator is Chinese. Within their experiences together and with the narrator alone, there is much dialogue on the Western take on “Orientalism” as well as on the dynamic their relationship takes on.
Perhaps my favourite parts of this novel were the folk tales the couple tells each other throughout the story. The tales were unique and meaningful themselves, but because the characters were telling the tales to each other, there was also simultaneous commentary on them. Often in novels where additional stories or tales are told, they are set apart from the narrative. I really liked how in this case the lover would interrupt the narrator in the midst of the story to comment or ask a question.
The characters of the narrator and his lover were well described, though not always likeable. Personally, I sometimes struggle when characters aren’t likeable, but not everyone we meet in life is likeable and this book reflects that reality. When characters are more real there is also a chance for redemption in the eyes of the reader, which I also appreciated here.
I believe this novel was meant to be a peek into the world, lives, and feelings of the characters for a finite amount of time and for that reason I am both sad and okay with the fact that it ended before I got the closure I wished for. I wish I knew what happened next, but in this case we get to decide for ourselves how the story progresses once we are finished reading it.
Thank you to Book*hug Press for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.