Notes of a Desolate ManWinner of the coveted China Times Novel Prize, this postmodern, first-person tale of a contemporary Taiwanese gay man reflecting on his life, loves, and intellectual influences is among the most important recent novels in Taiwan. The narrator, Xiao Shao, recollects a series of friends and lovers, as he watches his childhood friend, Ah Yao, succumb to complications from AIDS. The brute fact of Ah Yao's death focuses Shao's simultaneously erudite and erotic reflections magnetically on the core theme of mortality. By turns humorous and despondent, the narrator struggles to come to terms with Ah Yao's risky lifestyle, radical political activism, and eventual death; the fragility of romantic love; the awesome power of eros; the solace of writing; the cold ennui of a younger generation enthralled only by video games; and life on the edge of mainstream Taiwanese society. His feverish journey through forests of metaphor and allusion--from Fellini and Lévi-Strauss to classical Chinese poetry--serves as a litany protecting him from the ravages of time and finitude. Impressive in scope and detail, Notes of a Desolate Man employs the motif of its characters' marginalized sexuality to highlight Taiwan's vivid and fragile existence on the periphery of mainland China. Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin's masterful translation brings Chu T'ien-wen's lyrical and inventive pastiche of political, poetic, and sexual desire to the English-speaking world. |
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Common terms and phrases
Ah Yao Amaterasu asked banana republic became began Beibei blue body bowl called Chinese Chiyou color dancer dark dead death disappeared door everything eyes face Fairy Slave feeling Fellini Fellini Satyricon felt Fido film fish flowers friends front Fussa gazed girl Giulietta Masina green hair hand heart Huang Chao human jade Japanese Jay's kids kiss knew Ksitigarbha leave Legislative Yuan Lévi-Strauss light living loneliness looked lover Luis Buñuel Mama Momo mother mountain movie never night Ozu Yasujiro peach Peter's Basilica play returned river Sakyamuni sexual silent sister smell someone song stop street suddenly Taipei Taiwan talk tatami tell thousand tion Tiresias took turned vermilion waiting walked wanted watched wind window words Yao's yellow Yongjie Yongjie's young