Playing for Thrills [Paperback]

Shuo Wang (Author), Howard Goldblatt (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1998

Wang Shuo emerged as a literary force in China in the late 1980s, pioneering a movement known as pizi wenxue, or hooligan literature. Instead of ascribing to the Communist Party's goal of "spiritual civilization," he shunned the heroic models common in Chinese literature. Playing for Thrills is the first book published in English from the man whom Newsweek calls "China's literary bad boy" and The Washington Post acclaims as "the irreverent voice of a disillusioned generation." With shades of Chandler and Kerouac, Playing for Thrills is a dark, disembodied, yet compelling story of an antihero's search for the truth about a mysterious murder. As the narrator drifts through the seamy underside of Beijing and its environs, he meets a handful of incredibly varied characters as jaded and enigmatic as himself.

* Banned by the Chinese Government for "pander[ing] to low tastes," Wang Shuo's work is increasingly popular in China and worldwide
* In China, his more than twenty bestsellers have sold nearly ten million copies and a dozen of his books have been turned into TV soap operas and films

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Here's a book that succeeds on several different levels: as a gripping (if slightly eccentric) thriller, as a political statement, and as a social document about the way people can lead colorful and dangerously exciting underground lives even in a repressive country. Wang Shuo is a pioneer in what China has labeled "hooligan literature," writing novels, movie scripts, television series, and songs about people and subjects deemed so unfit for public consumption that his work is officially banned (although widely popular). Playing for Thrills, the first of his books to appear in English, is narrated by a former soldier and current wise guy named Fang Yan, who spends his time gambling, eating, drinking, trying to have sex, and wondering if he was indeed involved in the murder of a former army buddy 10 years ago, as the police seem to think. In Howard Goldblatt's lively translation, the author's dialogue has the snap of enhanced reality: "Not so fast," says a character called Fat Man Wu as he describes the small, exclusive "party" that he and Fang Yan belong to. "With us it's instinct. Sooner or later every member of our party cools his heels in jail--that's how we keep things jumping politically." --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

Reading this Chinese mystery is not unlike running with one foot glued to the ground. Perhaps it's the translation, but more likely it's the subversive quirkiness of the author, a popular Chinese novelist who has clearly devoured his hardboiled American crime novels and seen more than a few European films loaded with angst and noirisms. Maybe there was a murder 10 years ago. Dissolute narrator Fang Yan, a rebel without a cause in Beijing, does recall a woman, a job, a table full of friends and one figure sitting close by whom he can't quite identify. The authorities have picked Yan as their best suspect. He moves in panic through his beloved Beijing, always meeting people he knows, and even some who think he's someone else. Is he that someone else? Did he actually kill once? Is the man really dead? And who is the sitting figure on the far edges of his memory? The humor is dry yet clearly intentional. The cultural references are slight enough that these could be whoring, gambling, shiftless young men pretty much anywhere. Yan is a slovenly immoral drifter living on his charm and his wits-and clearly running low on both. Even if he's not guilty in this particular instance, he deserves at least some of the mental torture the narrative creates for him in a series of plot lurches drawn in equal parts from crime lore, existentialism and pure moral farce.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Translated By Howard Goldblatt edition (April 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140269711
• ISBN-13: 978-0140269710
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,704,490 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Impressive translation by Goldblatt., February 17, 2001

By 

"yingchen" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Playing for Thrills (Paperback)

I first read this book in chinese when I was 14. Like most 14 year-old, I read it only as a book that my parents wouldn't allow me to read. (By the way, it is never really banned in China, only criticized heavily by the authorities.) At that time, I found the book to be quite humorous, but nothing special. It wasn't the funniest book from Wang Shuo by all means. Twelve years later, I came across its english translation accidentally on a dusty library shelf. I was curious, picked it up, and started reading. Goldblatt's translation is very impressive, in fact, it doesn't have any of the awkard moments or sentences most of the translated works have here and there. He may have missed a few very subtle innuendos, but overall, the translation gave the book an even dreamier environment, and curiously, more fluent language than the original. I had to get the chinese edition and read it all over again, and after that, I have to admit for the first time that a translated work is actually better than the original. As for Wang Shuo's novel itself, this is probably the most structually complex one, and he did show off his enormous writing skills. But as the plot and character development goes, it's not the top of his work. It's about a generation (if you divide each generation by 10 years) that has robbed of its older ideology, the one they've been brought up with, so they become cynical; and yet, they could not adopt to the newer money-oriented philosophy of the younger generation, so they are still sincere and innocent in their own mind. To have spent their childhood and youth in the Culture Revolution, this is a story about a generation that's alienated from the society that has become, and yet desperately wants to join in the fun that they definitely know they won't enjoy. I actually liked his later works better. His latest work (also on Fang Yan and Gao Yang and the entire gang) is interestly set in kindergarden, and is the two thirds of the book that "Playing for thrills" had implied at the very end.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wang Shuo plays the reader for thrills, August 7, 2001

By 

Elisabeth W. Movius (Shanghai China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Playing for Thrills (Paperback)

In Playing for Thrills, Wang Shuo weaves a complex, compelling, and utterly confusing web in which the reader is quickly trapped. The book is neither noir nor surreal, as it is often labelled, but filtered through the hazy lens of alientation and indifference, the reader quickly becomes as defracted as the characters.

I hated this book, but found it totally addictive. Wang Shuo is a master storyteller, and like a good film director, cleverly manipulates his audience, and we are always exactly where he wants us to be.

The plot is pretty petty and pointless, but the rambling narrative presents the best literary portrait there is of Beijing in the 1980s. It is especially amusing in its scathing portrait of the new semi-rich wheeler-dealer class, in all their tastelessness and self-importance.

Wang Shuo is arguably the most critically and commercially successful writer in modern China, and is also an acclaimed screen writer. This book may not provide a sense of his importance, but it will introduce readers to his expertly maneuvered prose.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One mistake in the editorial review, December 30, 2000

By 

Wu Yuan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Playing for Thrills (Paperback)

In the editiorial review, Mr. Alder states that wang shuo's works are banned in China,("so unfit for public consumption that his work is officially banned (although widely popular). "), which is untrue I am afraid. Non of Wang Shuo's works has ever been offically banned in China. Recently Wang Shuo's collection has been published (4 volumes), which include almost all Wang Shuo's novels dating back to 1970's. Another two of his books that comment on some of the status of Chinese literature and reveal of his personal views have just been published in last two years.

I personally just can't help clearifying that there are not so many banned books in China as some of the westen readers might expect. No harm is meant here.