Customer Reviews

I Love Dollars: And Other Stories of China

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There are six stories in this book, each roughly tied to the others. They are I Love Dollars; A Hospital Night; A Boat Crossing; Wheels; Ah, Xiao Xie; Pounds, Ounces, Meat.

I read quite a bit of Chinese fiction, from classic to very modern. I like most of what I read. I read quite a bit of post-modern and like most of it as well. This book, though, is nearly impossible to review. Usually such a book has a few good stories, a few stinkers and the rest so-so. To me, each of these had moments of all three.

Some were clever in concept but way overworked - the fallacy that if some is good then more is necessarily better. Some were a mixture of noirish post-modernism (and just quirky) that just didn't work. All had humorous moments; all had interesting characters; but none were great from beginning to end.

Unless you are determined to sample untried authors, I'd give this one a pass. There were enough interesting moments to give this three stars - but had this been a novel, I'm not sure I would have finished it.