Customer Reviews

Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather: Stories

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Reading the six short stories in Gao Xing Jian's BUYING A FISHING ROD FOR MY GRANDFATHER is like wandering into a small gallery containing six Impressionist paintings. Each story paints a quiet verbal picture of loss and gain, of change, of solitary existence and the consolations of love and family. Gao's works seem nearly plotless, vignettes which create scenes and atmosphere more than story lines. Then again, life consists of such brief moments and experiences; stories are the fictions we create to connect and give personal meaning to these separate moments.

Gao's technique varies from story to story. His opening work, "The Temple," describes the spontaneous actions of a honeymooning couple as they disembark from a train to explore a decaying hillside temple. The story, written in standard prose form, speaks achingly of history and loss, of life moving forward in spite of past tragedies. The second story, "In the Park," switches almost completely to dialog between two nameless acquaintances who meet by coincidence in a park and reclaim their childhood memories as another young woman sits crying on a nearby park bench.

The third story, "The Cramp," gives a harrowing account of a casual swimmer who nearly dies alone within sight of the shore, only to discover when he makes it ashore that no one has noticed. The next story, "The Accident," tells nearly the same story in a moment by moment account of a fatal traffic accident on a Beijing street. The police arrive and take care of the situation, street cleaners come to remove the broken bicycle and wipe the blood from the streets, and life continues on anonymously, as if the death never occurred.

The title story follows, offering a powerful account of a neighborhood no longer recognizable to its main character who had lived there as a boy. The story conveys a sense of loss and disorienting change, of a simple way of life no longer to be found.

The stories in this collection were written between 1983 and 1990, about the same time Gao was completing his novel SOUL MOUNTAIN. The writing is simple and direct, yet it creates memorable images and a strong sense of atmosphere. Despite being written by China's first Nobelist in Literature, these are not stories about China or Chinese culture. Several of these stories offer no sense of place or culture - they could be taking place anywhere in the world. Perhaps this is a reflection of Gao's status as an expatriate in Paris.

For those who enjoy modern Chinese and Chinese-American literature by the likes of Mo Yan, Su Tong, Ha Jin, and Liu Heng, Gao Xing Jian's BUYING A FISHING ROD FOR MY GRANDFATHER stands out for its daring style and its sublimation of Chinese culture to more universal settings and themes. In that respect, Gao is stylistically closer to Japanese writers like Kenzaburo Oe and Haruki Murakami than any Chinese writer I have yet encountered. Anyone who reads this book will likely be motivated to pick up a copy of SOUL MOUNTAIN or ONE MAN'S BIBLE.

Gao Xingjian uses small events occurring in daily life such as the visit of a decaying temple by a young couple, a road accident involving a father and a his young child, a swimmer suffering from a sudden pain or conversation in a park to deal with topics which he cherishes: the lost innocence of youth, the quest for an environment ruined by modern architecture or the nostalgia for a lost tenderness that only a father or grandfather could provide. Often there is no plot in those short stories, but a simple succession of images, impressions, dreams and thoughts. An author well worth discovering.

I'm not usually a fan of short stories and this collection of translated stories by the Nobel Prize winning author Gao Xingjian reminded me of why that is.

The thing is, I just don't get drawn into short story collections. As soon as I start to get interested, it ends and I'm left trying to get to know a whole new set of characters or to care about an entirely new set of circumstances.

Those issues in this book were only exacerbated, for one main reason.

These stories, by design, are not plot driven in the slightest. In fact, an afterword contains the following information :

"Gao warns readers that his fiction does not set out to tell a story. There is no plot, as found in most fiction, and anything of interest to be found in it is inherent in the language itself."

As a reader who is more interested in the way a story is told than the actual story, this isn't necessarily a problem.

But. It was translated! If the whole point of the work is the use of language, and I can't see that language in the way the author intended, what's the point? I simply don't understand why you'd translate a work that was completely about the writing and not the plot.

That said, a few of the stories were interesting. In the Park in particular struck me. It was the story of a couple spending a lazy day together. Nothing exciting happened, there was no passion, no twists. But it sort of gave you a glimpse into these people's lives in a way that felt very intimate and beautiful.

Overall though, I can't say that I'd recommend it, considering that I'm not really reading Xingjian's work, but that of his translator.

This book contains six beautifully crafted short stories built on ordinary events. Crafted more to evoke emotions than tell a tale, these stories range in style from sparse dialogue to rich description of detail.

The dream-like imagery in the last two stories, "Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather" and "In an Instant", carries you along in a hypnotic stream. "The Temple" starts as a charming journey into the country with newlyweds and slowly turns melancholy. "In the Park" takes place almost entirely in dialogue that is surprisingly effective at conveying nervous regret. "The Cramp" skillfully turns danger into triumph into insignificance. "The Accident" is a masterful demonstration of how a tragic death is a mosaic of different events based on point-of-view.

The stories are different in style, but the same themes can be seen running through each: memory, change, loss, and family. These short stories are not going to be everyone's cup of tea - if you need a plot, this isn't for you. But if you appreciate beautiful use of language to paint a picture, you'll probably savor this small collection. The translation seems very unobtrusive - you never get jarring feelings of disconnect from the language.

A book for those who know China, and those who still have that pleasure to come. "The Accident" takes us onto a pulsing but anonymous Beijing street for one small moment of death and life. Gao puts us in the crowd of curious onlookers, and then magically into their minds and lives. "The Temple" takes us by the hand through rural small town China as a young married couple enjoy their one week of honeymoon. Gao writes sparingly but with a precise and human touch, much as China's landscape painters misted their scenes onto canvas. Serene and raucous, immense and private, like China itself Gao's writing gives great, simple pleasure. After these Chekhov-like short stories, you will immediately want his Nobel winning novel "Soul Mountain", if you haven't yet encountered that great work.

it is hard to comment on Gao Xingjian's works because while he is a master artist, he works from a perspective in his medium that can be beyond the grasp of a reader. He, as a master, creates art for arts sake. However, as a reader, i can only evaluate based on my own aesthetic inclinations. thus, if you find yourself similarly inclined as a reader, you may find the following helpful.

Gao Xingjian's works are known for their lyrical intensity and lack of plot. they are, in a definite sense, post-modern. Aside from the final story "In an Instant" most of the stories in this collection are some of Gao's more accessible works. certainly more so than his tome _Soul Mountain_. Gao wrestles with the use and abuse of memory througout the work, as well as highlighting the anxieties inherent in the generation that survived the Cultural Revolution. One can also catch glimpses of the turmoil brought about by his personal struggles, as feelings of loss and hopelessness weave in and out of the works.

now, if you like this more artistic foray into the possibilities of literature, do enjoy. i think stories should actually be stories. at least some of the time.

A short book, with stylized Chinese fish on its cover, Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather was an intriguing foray into foreign short stories for me. The author is a Nobel prize winner, so I knew at the outset that this wouldn't be light reading. But the stories are truly fascinating. In the first tale I feel like a fly on the wall, listening to someone speak; is he remembering the past? Is he talking to his family, or to his wife, or to the pictures in his mind? The stories each left me slightly off-balance, not quite sure what I was reading. But the title story, Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather, suddenly centered me as the narrator looks into memories of his past and finds himself lost in change.

The final story, In an Instant, fills most of the second half of the book. It is a beautiful piece, reminding me of a Chinese plate my grandmother had. I don't remember much about the plate, except that there were blue pictures, a temple and a bridge, trees, and a feeling that the closer I looked at one image the more likely I was to find myself in another. The writing flows in the same way between scenes, adding imagination to each and drawing the reader on with the movement of the prose. There's no story as such, but there's reflection and change; it's oddly mesmerizing, like that moment of falling asleep or of waking up, when objects take on meanings that really belong to something else. It takes much more than an instant to read, and stays longer than an instant in the mind, but it's beautiful in the same way as that plate.

So now I'll go back and reread them all, in light of the mysteries of memory and time, and in appreciation of something truly different and impressive.

A great book that carries six great stories. Each story has it's own character and charm. Gao Xingjian style is simple and reflects some of the Chinese proud culture...Gao Xingjian is able to make you live the detail of each story, make you wonder on the events and worry about the situation of some of the characters.

The book (even being 120 pages) has so much to offer, a very entertaining book, and the stories are so different and so amazing, it all adds up to being a great product of a Noble prize winner...

Easy, great reading.

I read Gao Xingjian's "One Man's Bible" and came away ready to read more of his prose. The problem is; he hasn't written that much (at least that's been translated into English). My next step was either the epic "Soul Mountain" or the series of snapshots that comprise "Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather". I came across "Fishing Rod" first and it didn't take me or anyone else much time to stroll though it.

"Buying a Fishing Rod for My Grandfather" is a small collection of six short snapshots; scenes that convey an image or emotion that, presumeably, warrents the story's inclusion in this book. There's a story about an accident that says as much about the bystanders as the people involved. I read this shortly after driving past the site of a serious accident in Atlanta. The way everyone had to slow down to see what they could see came to mind as I read the story titled "The Accident". Others were good in their own way. The last story, "In an Instant", was one I had given up on as a chaotic rambling. However, I kept with it and it wrapped up quite impressively at the end.

I don't know that I benefited greatly by having read this book but it didn't hurt any and it only took a brief sitting to read through it.