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Strange Beasts of China
From one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Chinese literature, an uncanny and playful novel that blurs the line between human and beast …
In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks.
Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self.
Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.
In the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an, an amateur cryptozoologist is commissioned to uncover the stories of its fabled beasts. These creatures live alongside humans in near-inconspicuousness—save their greenish skin, serrated earlobes, and strange birthmarks.
Aided by her elusive former professor and his enigmatic assistant, our narrator sets off to document each beast, and is slowly drawn deeper into a mystery that threatens her very sense of self.
Part detective story, part metaphysical enquiry, Strange Beasts of China engages existential questions of identity, humanity, love and morality with whimsy and stylistic verve.
232 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2006
About the author
Yan Ge
58 books195 followersYan Ge (Chinese: 颜歌; born 1984) is the pen name of Chinese writer Dai Yuexing (戴月行).
Yan Ge was born Dai Yuexing in 1984 in Sichuan, China. She began publishing in 1994. She completed a PhD in comparative literature at Sichuan University and is the Chair of the China Young Writers Association. Her writing uses a lot of Sichuanese, rather than Standard Chinese (Mandarin).[1] People’s Literature (Renmin Wenxue 人民文学) magazine recently chose her – in a list reminiscent of The New Yorker's ‘20 under 40’ – as one of China's twenty future literary masters. In 2012 she was chosen as Best New Writer by the prestigious Chinese Literature Media Prize (华语文学传媒大奖 最佳新人奖).
Yan Ge was born Dai Yuexing in 1984 in Sichuan, China. She began publishing in 1994. She completed a PhD in comparative literature at Sichuan University and is the Chair of the China Young Writers Association. Her writing uses a lot of Sichuanese, rather than Standard Chinese (Mandarin).[1] People’s Literature (Renmin Wenxue 人民文学) magazine recently chose her – in a list reminiscent of The New Yorker's ‘20 under 40’ – as one of China's twenty future literary masters. In 2012 she was chosen as Best New Writer by the prestigious Chinese Literature Media Prize (华语文学传媒大奖 最佳新人奖).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,024 reviews
January 25, 2021
Set in the fictional city of Yong’an a nameless writer hangs out in the dark, smoky Dolphin Bar swapping tales of beasts she and her acquaintances have encountered, her past as a student of cryptids brings her into contact with an array of bizarre creatures whose existence in Yong’an dates back to ancient times. And as she becomes more intrigued by these exotic, beleaguered beings, she starts to compile a chronicle of sorts of their lives and mythology. Yan Ge’s book has a hazy, fable-like quality, often as cryptic and enigmatic as its subject matter, the repetition of words and phrases lending it an oddly timeless air like a story that’s been told and retold for many years. Yet the curious features and fraught everyday encounters of Yong’an’s strange beasts caught up in the workings of Yong’an’s powerful administration also form a critique of China in the early 21st century: a place rife with social inequalities, where environmental concerns are overridden by an emphasis on largescale building works and cities are alienating, eerie spaces crowding out the natural world; while Yong'an’s composition with its rundown, isolated industrial districts, deserted factories and the beasts who populate them reference Mao’s third-front construction project (san xian) and the worker communities left behind when it was abruptly abandoned; and a violent, viral outbreak is a unique twist on the Sars era.
Although the English translation’s relatively recent this is actually an early work by Yan Ge from 2005, originally produced in serial form for a Chinese journal aimed at a student readership. In line with its conception each chapter’s comparatively self-contained introducing a particular strange beast, taken together they form a compendium that echoes Yan Ge’s immersion in classical Chinese literature, a legacy of her childhood in a family obsessed with China's literary history, and marked in the Chinese edition by prose that intermingles classical and modern language forms. So, there are shades here of the bestiary of the Shan Hai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Seas) as well as a play on the tradition of the strange tale popularised by writers like Pu Songling.
I found the deliberately obscure, elliptical approach that Yan Ge adopts in the early stages of her narrative made it difficult for me to immediately engage with her material. But as her underlying themes emerged, I was increasingly impressed by the novel’s contemplative tone, its downbeat, noirish atmosphere. I admired Yan Ge’s skilful blending of realism with fantasy to explore complex ideas about identity, gender, and the damaging impact on people’s psyche of modern urban living. The beasts themselves are wonderfully inventive creations: some clearly represent abstract aspects of the human; others, like the flourishing beast based on Yan Ge’s recently-deceased mother, are drawn from the author’s own experiences. The lyrical English-language version was produced by author and translator Jeremy Tiang.
Rating: 3.5
Although the English translation’s relatively recent this is actually an early work by Yan Ge from 2005, originally produced in serial form for a Chinese journal aimed at a student readership. In line with its conception each chapter’s comparatively self-contained introducing a particular strange beast, taken together they form a compendium that echoes Yan Ge’s immersion in classical Chinese literature, a legacy of her childhood in a family obsessed with China's literary history, and marked in the Chinese edition by prose that intermingles classical and modern language forms. So, there are shades here of the bestiary of the Shan Hai Jing (The Classic of Mountains and Seas) as well as a play on the tradition of the strange tale popularised by writers like Pu Songling.
I found the deliberately obscure, elliptical approach that Yan Ge adopts in the early stages of her narrative made it difficult for me to immediately engage with her material. But as her underlying themes emerged, I was increasingly impressed by the novel’s contemplative tone, its downbeat, noirish atmosphere. I admired Yan Ge’s skilful blending of realism with fantasy to explore complex ideas about identity, gender, and the damaging impact on people’s psyche of modern urban living. The beasts themselves are wonderfully inventive creations: some clearly represent abstract aspects of the human; others, like the flourishing beast based on Yan Ge’s recently-deceased mother, are drawn from the author’s own experiences. The lyrical English-language version was produced by author and translator Jeremy Tiang.
Rating: 3.5
June 28, 2021
This book stayed at precisely the same level of "mildly engaging'" from beginning to end. It was just-delightful enough for me to keep reading, and yet to wonder, as I read: 'why am I reading this?' and 'what the heck is the matter with me?' and: "Why can't I just enjoy this mildly engaging book instead of asking something more from it?
As far as I can tell, the story has no point. It entertained me. That should be enough, but it wasn't.
As far as I can tell, the story has no point. It entertained me. That should be enough, but it wasn't.
February 1, 2022
Gorgeous writing, cool creatures, but boring.
In Y'ongan, China live mystical beasts that are almost human. A novelist, in between wanting a relationship with her professor, meets one of each kind.
Each creature gets a separate chapter. I was really into this for the first two but then it became tedious. They could almost all be the same. It felt pointless.
And the stupid melodrama of unrequited love and longing? Ruined the book for me.
I became so bored, I skimmed the last half of the book.
In Y'ongan, China live mystical beasts that are almost human. A novelist, in between wanting a relationship with her professor, meets one of each kind.
Each creature gets a separate chapter. I was really into this for the first two but then it became tedious. They could almost all be the same. It felt pointless.
And the stupid melodrama of unrequited love and longing? Ruined the book for me.
I became so bored, I skimmed the last half of the book.
February 20, 2023
I’m in love.
•
Kiedy sięgnęłam po „Kroniki dziwnych bestii” od pierwszych stron poczułam w tym zbiorze opowiadań ogromną melancholię. Z każdym kolejnym byłam oczarowana ich uniwersalnością oraz wrażeniem przywiązania do tych historii i refleksji, jakie wywołują. Tak jakbym czytała o czymś, o czym kiedyś zapomniałam, a teraz na nowo skrada moje serce i przenika myśli. Ale zachwycił mnie także, a może przede wszystkim wyjątkowo trafny, osobliwy i barwny styl autorki, która przeprowadza czytelnika przez opowiadania, raz za razem odkrywając ich smutek i nieprzeciętny charakter. Lektura „Kronik dziwnych bestii” przypomniała mi jak bardzo podziwiam krótkie formy i jak bardzo kocham piękno, które w tych formach urzeka najbardziej.
•
Kiedy sięgnęłam po „Kroniki dziwnych bestii” od pierwszych stron poczułam w tym zbiorze opowiadań ogromną melancholię. Z każdym kolejnym byłam oczarowana ich uniwersalnością oraz wrażeniem przywiązania do tych historii i refleksji, jakie wywołują. Tak jakbym czytała o czymś, o czym kiedyś zapomniałam, a teraz na nowo skrada moje serce i przenika myśli. Ale zachwycił mnie także, a może przede wszystkim wyjątkowo trafny, osobliwy i barwny styl autorki, która przeprowadza czytelnika przez opowiadania, raz za razem odkrywając ich smutek i nieprzeciętny charakter. Lektura „Kronik dziwnych bestii” przypomniała mi jak bardzo podziwiam krótkie formy i jak bardzo kocham piękno, które w tych formach urzeka najbardziej.
August 16, 2021
There may be some profound meaning to these connected short stories, but it went completely over my head. Maybe it’s necessary to be familiar with Chinese myths or its traditional treatment of magic. The book had a tone that was both whimsical and melancholy. Although I found the book puzzling, I didn’t hate it. The unnamed protagonist is a writer who studied science with a professor with whom she still has a complicated relationship. She now writes fiction based on the various beasts who live in China. Each chapter introduces a different beast, first by describing their mythical and strange characteristics, and then stating that “other than that, they were just like human beings”. The story proceeds to describe some human/beast interaction, which usually ends sadly. The story concludes with a summation of the more realistic traits of the beasts. I would probably read more by this author and the narration by Emily Woo Zeller of the audiobook was very good. 3.5 stars
I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher.
I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher.
September 4, 2022
Unfortunately I didn’t vibe with this book. The premise of encountering different beasts throughout the fictional Chinese city of Yong’an was interesting, though I felt like the plot’s slow pacing bored me. I also never got a full grasp of the protagonist’s character or the character of her love interest, the professor. Thus, all their interactions made me feel kind of “eh” and unamused throughout the book. Magical realism/science fiction has to be executed in a certain way (e.g., centering character development) for me to enjoy it and Strange Beasts of China and I didn’t fit well together.
June 17, 2024
On the whole I did enjoy this book, it was engaging and heartbreakingly beautiful at times but there seemed to be a lot of plot holes and strange leaps in logic. I think the plot holes and leaps were an intentional aspect of the narrator, to establish the blend of naivety and arrogance that make up her character, but it sometimes clashed with the general tone of the book (which might have been a translation issue, I assume).
January 26, 2023
Pierwszy chiński tytuł w Tajfunach i myślę, że wyszedł naprawdę mega sztos 🔥 świetne tłumaczenie Joanny Karmasz i równie świetna opowieść Yan Ge.
March 4, 2023
Świetnie się czytało, chociaż przez cały czas trwania książki nie byłem w stanie stwierdzić, w jakim kierunku zmierza. Trochę realizm magiczny, trochę urban fantasy, a trochę komentarz społeczny dotyczący traktowania mniejszości- wykorzystanie lokalnych wierzeń i legend w takim miksie gatunkowym sprawdza się wyśmienicie, chociaż nie mogłem pozbyć się wrażenia, że już to gdzieś widziałem.
May 10, 2023
Nie mogłam ocenić jej inaczej. Bardzo piękne, melancholijne historie, niezwykle kreatywne, misternie poprowadzone. Kocham jej szkatułkowość, język, pomysł, rozwój fabuły. Jestem zachwycona 🥹
May 27, 2022
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Strange Beasts of China certainly delivers on the ‘strange’ suggested by its very title and premise. This novel consists of 9 interconnected chapters, each one presenting us with a self-contained story about a certain type of ‘beast’. Strange Beasts of China reads like a contemporary and unique bestiary in which, through the eyes of our nameless narrator who is a cryptozoologist, we learn the origins, appearances and habits of different types of beasts. While Strange Beasts of China will certainly appeal to fans of surrealists authors such as Helen Oyeyemi, Yukiko Motoya, and Hiromi Kawakami, if you are the type of reader who prefers character-driven stories, well, you might be better off skipping this one.
Strange Beasts of China takes place in China in the fictive Yong’an City where humans and beasts cohabit alongside one another. Relations between the two groups are far from amicable and many humans harbour stigma against beasts, who are treated as second-class citizens and have limited rights and freedoms. Our narrator, who studies and attempts to classify beasts, is more open-minded than most and, if anything, is drawn to beasts. Over the course of the novel, she comes into contact with different types of beasts, including sorrowful beasts, joyous beasts, sacrificial beasts, impasse beats, flourishing beasts, thousand league beats, heartsick beasts, prime beasts, and returning beasts. Time and again our narrator has to confront how non-human beasts are, despite their often human-like appearance (some have green bellies or ears shaped differently from humans but more often than not they physically resemble us).
Beasts are exploited, oppressed, feared, and or hated. For some beasts it is in their nature to lead parasitic lifestyles, for example, to ‘feed’ a human’s emotions. Others are doomed to die in a sacrificial fashion.
Over the course of these chapters, the author interrogates her narrator’s notion of humanity which will in turn make us question our ideas of what makes someone a human. I was intrigued by the beasts the author had imagined and I found her matter-of-fact weirdness to make Yong’an all the more believable. I wish the narrator had been more engaging as I found her voice strangely removed, and in those moments where she does experience heightened emotions, she verged on being hysterical. So, I either found her too passive or too melodramatic. There seemed to be no in-between. The men in her life, such as her professor and a peer of hers, well, they too acted in a rather overdramatic fashion, the professor especially. The way they spoke to each other or some of their responses were simply off-key, and perhaps I would have preferred if their interactions had been dialled back a little.
I also wish that Strange Beasts of China could have had more tonal variety as I found most of the chapters to be little other than depressing.
Still, this was an undoubtedly creative novel and I appreciated its dreamlike ambience and general strangeness.
Strange Beasts of China certainly delivers on the ‘strange’ suggested by its very title and premise. This novel consists of 9 interconnected chapters, each one presenting us with a self-contained story about a certain type of ‘beast’. Strange Beasts of China reads like a contemporary and unique bestiary in which, through the eyes of our nameless narrator who is a cryptozoologist, we learn the origins, appearances and habits of different types of beasts. While Strange Beasts of China will certainly appeal to fans of surrealists authors such as Helen Oyeyemi, Yukiko Motoya, and Hiromi Kawakami, if you are the type of reader who prefers character-driven stories, well, you might be better off skipping this one.
Strange Beasts of China takes place in China in the fictive Yong’an City where humans and beasts cohabit alongside one another. Relations between the two groups are far from amicable and many humans harbour stigma against beasts, who are treated as second-class citizens and have limited rights and freedoms. Our narrator, who studies and attempts to classify beasts, is more open-minded than most and, if anything, is drawn to beasts. Over the course of the novel, she comes into contact with different types of beasts, including sorrowful beasts, joyous beasts, sacrificial beasts, impasse beats, flourishing beasts, thousand league beats, heartsick beasts, prime beasts, and returning beasts. Time and again our narrator has to confront how non-human beasts are, despite their often human-like appearance (some have green bellies or ears shaped differently from humans but more often than not they physically resemble us).
Beasts are exploited, oppressed, feared, and or hated. For some beasts it is in their nature to lead parasitic lifestyles, for example, to ‘feed’ a human’s emotions. Others are doomed to die in a sacrificial fashion.
Over the course of these chapters, the author interrogates her narrator’s notion of humanity which will in turn make us question our ideas of what makes someone a human. I was intrigued by the beasts the author had imagined and I found her matter-of-fact weirdness to make Yong’an all the more believable. I wish the narrator had been more engaging as I found her voice strangely removed, and in those moments where she does experience heightened emotions, she verged on being hysterical. So, I either found her too passive or too melodramatic. There seemed to be no in-between. The men in her life, such as her professor and a peer of hers, well, they too acted in a rather overdramatic fashion, the professor especially. The way they spoke to each other or some of their responses were simply off-key, and perhaps I would have preferred if their interactions had been dialled back a little.
I also wish that Strange Beasts of China could have had more tonal variety as I found most of the chapters to be little other than depressing.
Still, this was an undoubtedly creative novel and I appreciated its dreamlike ambience and general strangeness.
December 19, 2021
This was really good. It reminded me a lot of a Murakami novel, with an atmosphere of dreaminess and characters who were both somehow aimless and decisive. Each beast story was interesting both in terms of the actual mystery of the beasts (and their metaphorical significance) but also because of the increasing hints to the larger backstory and history of the narrator and the main characters. And while the moody fantasy noir made that theme seem much more significant, interesting, and entertaining.
July 28, 2023
“The same clouded blood flows through our veins. All we have are stories.”
Like a wonderful box of mixed doughnuts. I felt a bit drowsy and mentally-achy from finishing the second half in one go. The book is structured in a collective of sequential chunks (serialised novel like Dickens’) as it was first written for/published in a literary magazine. A moderately easy read, but I recommend taking your time with it as reading it all in a go may cause a bit of a mental indigestion/heartburn. On the surface, it feels and looks like an easy-going, action-packed novel, but here and there you get a few brutal surprises, and a bittersweet sprinkle of ‘existentialist’ thoughts folded in between each chapter. I’d say it’s a stunning alternative to the Harry Potter series, and a strong contender to Philip Pullman’s world-famous trilogies. Unlike Rowling’s and Pullman’s books, I’m not sure if children/young adults are the target audience for this book. It feels a lot more explicit (violence), and arguably having much darker themes (or at least they were more ‘in-your-face’).
“Some young people set up a sacrificial beast society to mimic the deaths. Parents were terrified. In January, a bunch of kids jumped from tall buildings, while February saw a spike in hangings, slit throats in March, and knives through the heart in April. Which brought us to the present moment, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out that this month would see a rise in disembowelments.”
“Children are like that. They think life is as beautiful as a flower. But Lucia would grow up, and come to understand that sometimes living feels like chewing on wax. And so you let go. The more resilient life is, the more you want to destroy it, raze it to the ground, put on a show, all guns blazing, what joy.”
The novel is a multi-layered building of satirical stories. The ‘beasts’ in the book are given human traits, and they behaved like humans except with a lot less privilege. They become ‘beasts’ when/because a human identifies/claims them as so – marking them as outcasts/outsiders. In the book, the human-children are more sympathetic to the ‘beasts’ compared to the human-adults which reminds me of Lulu Wang’s short film, Nian released earlier in the year.
“I had no interest in her love story, so I plunged ahead to the main point.
‘I thought joyous beasts never stopped looking like children, and had no gender,’ I muttered.
She chuckled. ‘People know far too little about joyous beasts.’
She was right. We have barely any knowledge but are conceited enough to fill books with our ignorance anyway. Countless people make a living in this way, bluffing their way into wealth and respectability. Yet no one understands the life of a beast: how they’re born, how they die, how they think of humans, how they survive.”
“Underground, humans live with no material worries, and a hierarchy of their own. From time to time, though, there is an escape; but these fugitives are always caught, without a single exception. As punishment, they then have to live in caves, where they are whipped, and forced to exist on salt and water, torments too numerous to count. ”
“I sat down to write the story of the flourishing beasts, imagining the narrator as one of them. ‘I died before I was born,’ I had her say. ‘I was hacked into pieces and turned into a chair. My limbs were ripped apart, my entrails mutilated. One day, a man bought me for a lot of money. Because he wanted me. He placed me by his bed but couldn’t bear to sit on me, so instead he gazed at me and talked, touching my face and kissing me. My heart was still tender.”
My favourite beast in the book has got to be the Flourishing Beasts because of their horticultural and agricultural characteristics/way of life (and death); I vibe, and stan without a doubt. The chapter about them in the book is clearly very ‘gothic’; surely the most ‘gothic’ one when judged under Western/American ‘gothic’ standards. I also think that the chapter written about them was the most well-written chapter in the book. If you only have time for one, let this be the one.
“They are domesticated and are pure of heart – loyal and loving. Their flesh is designed to be poisonous, but only to their owners, who go mad if they taste it. The ruling class peddled heartsick beasts to common people, and after they matured at the age of five, slaughtered them for food. A portion of the flesh was tinned and delivered back to their owners who, upon eating the beast meat, lost their wits. These mindless beings were unswervingly loyal, putting their king before all else, demonstrating an unquestioning devotion that would never be overturned.”
I love the Heartsick beasts because they remind me of ‘Sea Monkeys’ – and of how I cried and threw an ungodly tantrum as a child when someone spilled and killed mine. And/but it made me question why I was so emotionally attached to those lab-bred shrimps. The whole idea is pretty freaky – regardless if it’s through the lenses of a consumerist society/animal ethics. In the book, Heartsick Beasts are not just ‘shrimps’, but weak blobs that grow into beasts that look and act like humans in every way. This was probably the most disturbing story in the book. It’s rather ‘haunting’, but in a beautiful way which again reminds me of the Gothic genre. But does an Asian Gothic genre exist? I’ve wondered about that after reading Marrow by Yan Lianke, but I’m still as confused as ever. In any case, I enjoyed this very much, and will definitely re-read it again at a later date.
“Go to the kitchen and cook me fifteen dumplings. Five peanut, five brown sugar, and five sesame. Not one less!”
January 8, 2022
I read this book as part of SFFBC's A Dozen Roses challenge.
Strange Beasts of China is told in the form of a series of short stories. The point of view is an unnamed young woman who started off as a zoology undergrad, then moved on to write serials for a newspaper in the city of Yong'an. There's a fair amount of metafiction going on here, since the series of stories our protagonist is writing has the same subject as the series of stories that are this book: the beasts of the city. Each story focuses on a particular beast, which has a species name that evokes its role in relation to humans: Sorrowful, Impasse, Flourishing, etc., and has a human shape with a couple of beast-like characteristics: gills, spurs, scales, and so on.
My investment in the book rose and fell, almost like a sine wave. The initial two or three stories felt repetitive and over-structured, then I enjoyed a couple of the ones in the middle of the book. One toward the end of the book lost me--or I'd gotten tired of ferreting out the twists that happened every single story--and I almost skipped to the epilogue. The last story was quite good, though, and I found myself wishing that the whole book had been like it.
The setting and characters grew on me as things went along. Yong'an is urban, with a mysterious set of authorities that sweep through and do things. There's an underground city underneath it, and a university where our protagonist's previous zoology mentor works. She hangs out in the Dolphin bar a lot over the course of the book--one could say too much, considering how frequently she drinks to excess. There she meets her friend Charley, the guy with all the connections, or Liang, her underclassman who replaced her as the professor's protégée. Liang's parents, and the protagonist's cousin and niece, are recurring characters whose lives also inevitably intersect with those of the beasts.
The stories are on the literary side, or feel that way to me, but my reading is usually far more casual than this, so who knows. It at least gives the impression of wanting to be something greater than the cheesy romances that our protagonist wrote before she started on beast stories. Some stories have scenarios where humans deal with animals or "the other" by , often to deadly effect for one or the other. Identity is a malleable thing, dependent on one's situation, or life changes that happen to themselves or others.
This was an interesting book, but not one that ever fully drew me in. My distance from it made the protagonist's frequent emotional outbursts feel flighty or unmoored, and some of the stories were rather boring or impenetrable. It got better as it went along, so I'd consider reading more from the author.
Strange Beasts of China is told in the form of a series of short stories. The point of view is an unnamed young woman who started off as a zoology undergrad, then moved on to write serials for a newspaper in the city of Yong'an. There's a fair amount of metafiction going on here, since the series of stories our protagonist is writing has the same subject as the series of stories that are this book: the beasts of the city. Each story focuses on a particular beast, which has a species name that evokes its role in relation to humans: Sorrowful, Impasse, Flourishing, etc., and has a human shape with a couple of beast-like characteristics: gills, spurs, scales, and so on.
My investment in the book rose and fell, almost like a sine wave. The initial two or three stories felt repetitive and over-structured, then I enjoyed a couple of the ones in the middle of the book. One toward the end of the book lost me--or I'd gotten tired of ferreting out the twists that happened every single story--and I almost skipped to the epilogue. The last story was quite good, though, and I found myself wishing that the whole book had been like it.
The setting and characters grew on me as things went along. Yong'an is urban, with a mysterious set of authorities that sweep through and do things. There's an underground city underneath it, and a university where our protagonist's previous zoology mentor works. She hangs out in the Dolphin bar a lot over the course of the book--one could say too much, considering how frequently she drinks to excess. There she meets her friend Charley, the guy with all the connections, or Liang, her underclassman who replaced her as the professor's protégée. Liang's parents, and the protagonist's cousin and niece, are recurring characters whose lives also inevitably intersect with those of the beasts.
The stories are on the literary side, or feel that way to me, but my reading is usually far more casual than this, so who knows. It at least gives the impression of wanting to be something greater than the cheesy romances that our protagonist wrote before she started on beast stories. Some stories have scenarios where humans deal with animals or "the other" by , often to deadly effect for one or the other. Identity is a malleable thing, dependent on one's situation, or life changes that happen to themselves or others.
This was an interesting book, but not one that ever fully drew me in. My distance from it made the protagonist's frequent emotional outbursts feel flighty or unmoored, and some of the stories were rather boring or impenetrable. It got better as it went along, so I'd consider reading more from the author.
April 17, 2023
A strange beast of a book indeed, Strange Beasts of China is structured like a series of short stories, each on a different kind of beast in the city of Yong’an, though they also follow on chronologically from one another and reveal a larger story about the narrator, a one-time cryptozoologist who now writes romances about beasts.
I like magical things and I don’t like much modern fantasy, so I was really engaged with the blasé, straightforward presentation of the beasts, the deadpan description of their stranger characteristics, always followed by “other than that, they were just like human beings.” All the stories followed the same twisty logic: presenting facts about a particular kind of beast, an interaction with one, a moment of epiphany, a brief epilogue in which the narrator reiterates the facts but we see them in a new light.
It felt like genre writing but not really like fantasy – for me the tone was reminiscent of classic Hollywood noir films, with a protagonist who drinks too much and falls in and out of bars and gets personally invested in the work… but in this case it is a female protagonist, which I enjoyed.
The structure was less successful, requiring some of the investment effort of short stories (having to remember a whole new set of facts every time), without really delivering either distinctive mini-experiences or on a larger scale as a novel. And there were moments where either the book or the translation became impenetrable, logical epiphanies that for me never epiphanied, leaving me rereading the last two pages and trying to work out who was the “he” we were learning something new and extraordinary about.
But overall I’m glad I read this. I haven’t read much Chinese literature, much less fantasy/allegory/whatever is going on here, but this book was a different experience and seemed to have a lot to say about society, difference, monstrosity, none of it heavy-handed.
I like magical things and I don’t like much modern fantasy, so I was really engaged with the blasé, straightforward presentation of the beasts, the deadpan description of their stranger characteristics, always followed by “other than that, they were just like human beings.” All the stories followed the same twisty logic: presenting facts about a particular kind of beast, an interaction with one, a moment of epiphany, a brief epilogue in which the narrator reiterates the facts but we see them in a new light.
It felt like genre writing but not really like fantasy – for me the tone was reminiscent of classic Hollywood noir films, with a protagonist who drinks too much and falls in and out of bars and gets personally invested in the work… but in this case it is a female protagonist, which I enjoyed.
The structure was less successful, requiring some of the investment effort of short stories (having to remember a whole new set of facts every time), without really delivering either distinctive mini-experiences or on a larger scale as a novel. And there were moments where either the book or the translation became impenetrable, logical epiphanies that for me never epiphanied, leaving me rereading the last two pages and trying to work out who was the “he” we were learning something new and extraordinary about.
But overall I’m glad I read this. I haven’t read much Chinese literature, much less fantasy/allegory/whatever is going on here, but this book was a different experience and seemed to have a lot to say about society, difference, monstrosity, none of it heavy-handed.
November 3, 2021
"There is a city in the south that is full of beasts— beasts who rage and love, gather and leave, just as humans do."
That's the last line of this book, but not really a spoiler. A fantastical creation of beasts in a Chinese city through the eyes of a writer working with a scientist. The beasts blend in with humans and come in a variety of types.
I read two sections of this book through Two Lines Press and I'm so glad the entire work has been translated. They were intriguing as standalone but the through thread of the narrator adds another angle I enjoyed.
That's the last line of this book, but not really a spoiler. A fantastical creation of beasts in a Chinese city through the eyes of a writer working with a scientist. The beasts blend in with humans and come in a variety of types.
I read two sections of this book through Two Lines Press and I'm so glad the entire work has been translated. They were intriguing as standalone but the through thread of the narrator adds another angle I enjoyed.
February 21, 2024
#azjatyckimiesiąc
Znakomita. Przemyślana, poukładana, ciekawa fabularnie i na wysokim poziomie językowym
Podobała mi się do tego stopnia, że kupiłam sobie własny egzemplarz (z myślą że kiedyś do niej wrócę) i będę śledzić i czytać twórczość tej pisarki w polskim przekładzie
Znakomita. Przemyślana, poukładana, ciekawa fabularnie i na wysokim poziomie językowym
Podobała mi się do tego stopnia, że kupiłam sobie własny egzemplarz (z myślą że kiedyś do niej wrócę) i będę śledzić i czytać twórczość tej pisarki w polskim przekładzie
December 7, 2021
3.75/5stars
I saw another review that said that this book was "mildly engaging" throughout the whole thing which I agree with. At the very beginning I was completely hooked but in the middle I kind of started wondering what the point of this book even was. But there was something about it that made me keep wanting to go on. I also wish that more books would just be upfront about the fact that they are not novels and that they're short story collections. The blurb says that this is written as a bestiary which isn't entirely true - this is a short story collection where the stories vaguely connect. I actually found it very awkward how every story is about a new beast yet they never reference each other. I also found the pacing of this to being incredibly awkward and still did and I had no idea how much time had passed in any of the stories or in the book as a whole. I thought the ideas were really interesting but the story as a whole novel didn't make much sense. I liked the social commentary but I'm beginning to think there are some novels that just don't need to be entire books they could just be a single short story or even an essay. I don't know why it's a sudden trend for people to create entire fantasy worlds just to make a couple of stabs at society. But overall this was very well written and I did enjoy several of the stories but it wasn't what I was expecting it to be.
I saw another review that said that this book was "mildly engaging" throughout the whole thing which I agree with. At the very beginning I was completely hooked but in the middle I kind of started wondering what the point of this book even was. But there was something about it that made me keep wanting to go on. I also wish that more books would just be upfront about the fact that they are not novels and that they're short story collections. The blurb says that this is written as a bestiary which isn't entirely true - this is a short story collection where the stories vaguely connect. I actually found it very awkward how every story is about a new beast yet they never reference each other. I also found the pacing of this to being incredibly awkward and still did and I had no idea how much time had passed in any of the stories or in the book as a whole. I thought the ideas were really interesting but the story as a whole novel didn't make much sense. I liked the social commentary but I'm beginning to think there are some novels that just don't need to be entire books they could just be a single short story or even an essay. I don't know why it's a sudden trend for people to create entire fantasy worlds just to make a couple of stabs at society. But overall this was very well written and I did enjoy several of the stories but it wasn't what I was expecting it to be.
December 10, 2021
Runner-up for the 2021 Warwick Prize for Women In Translation
Yong’an is a city in which spirits, beasts and humans mingle, brushing shoulders in the street, falling in love, even having children. No one dies a good death.
Strange Beasts is Jeremy Tiang's translation of Yan Ge's original novel 异兽志, and published by Tilted Axis Press who have blazed a trial in translations of Asian literature and for cultural diversity generally. Yan Ge, who now lives in Norfolk, has switched to writing in English in the last few years, but this work dates back to 2006.
One of Tilted Axis's novel's signature features is a brief introduction explaining the meaning of a key word in the original text, and here the original word behind "beasts" we are told was "originally used to describe the act of hunting [..but..] shifted over time to the object of the hunt, the prey" and now "denotes the absence of humanity, and carries the connotations of savagery and wildness."
The novel is set in the fictional city of Yong’an, and takes the form of a bestiary, with 9 chapters each introducing us to one of the beasts that lives in the city. There is a certain irony in the choice of the term used in the original, since in many respects the beasts are like humans, and even in their stark differences represent stylised aspects of our urban society. The first breed of beast introduced is the 'sorrowful beasts' and the following is typical of the way this is done in the novel, with the colourful descriptions and anthropology ("other than that, they’re just like regular people" something of a regular refrain).
Sorrowful beasts are gentle by nature, and prefer the cold and dark. They love cauliflower and mung beans, vanilla ice cream and tangerine pudding. They fear trains, bitter gourd and satellite TV.
The males of the species are tall, with large mouths and small hands, scales on the insides of their left calves and fins attached to their right ears. The skin around their belly buttons is dark green. Other than that, they’re just like regular people.
The females are beautiful—slender figures with reddish skin, long, narrow eyes, ears a little larger than normal. For three days at the full moon, they lose the ability of human speech and squawk like birds instead. Otherwise, they’re just like regular people.
Sorrowful beasts never smile. If they do, they can’t stop—not until they die. Hence their name ... Legend has it that a sorrowful beast’s smile is so beautiful, no one who sees it could ever forget it. But no matter how many jokes you tell them, they never laugh, let alone smile.
This makes the loveliness of the female beasts all the more to be prized and pitied, and the tycoons of Yong’an City take pride in marrying them—the females can mate with people and produce human offspring. The males can’t do this, and so Leye Estate is filled with desolate bachelors, while the ladies end up in the wealthy district to the south, having fled so fast their feet barely touched the ground, their faces like ice.
At one point, the city’s zoologists raised an outcry in the newspapers: if things went on like this, these rare creatures would surely go extinct. And so the government passed a law: sorrowful beasts could only marry their own kind. If they wished to couple with a human, special permission would be required, and could only be balloted for once every five years.
As a result, having a beast-wife became an even greater status symbol, and the extra demand from the elite greatly increased the government’s revenue.
Typically in each story, it transpires that the accepted zoology as set out at the start of each chapter, particularly the behavioural aspects, is misleading and the truth is very different.
The different chapters can rather read as "rinse and repeat" variations on the a theme and indeed I understand these were originally serialised as separate, albeit related, pieces.
To the extent they come together, it is largely in the narrator's own life and what she discovers about origins as she encounters the beasts. She is a former, and failed, zoology student who then made a successful career writing (somewhat trashy) romance novels. She also writes a newspaper column about food and drink. But recently has decided to combine her novelistic career and former studies to write the stories of the various beasts.
The novel's style, I think deliberately parodies cheap romance novels, so that her own life is rather tangled, with other key characters including her former zoology professor, the leading expert on beasts (who, mysteriously she never actually physically meets in the novel, Zhang Liang, son of a rich businessman and a current student of the professor who acts as his intermediary, and who is somewhat in love with the narrator, and her friendly Charley, a socialite and gossip merchant (I was at University where I first met Charley. I’d bump into him in the zoology department. He was neither a student nor a teacher, just a weirdo who always sat in the back row of the lab, looking like he wanted to laugh as he watched me carrying out my experiments.). All four, including the narrator, prove to have deeper connections with the beasts than the reader, and in some cases they, might have suspected.
It all makes for a fun if not, at surface level, terribly profound read, although Alywnne's insightful review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - brings out links with Chinese literature, and this is certainly a novel that feels very different to typical Anglophone literature.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
Yong’an is a city in which spirits, beasts and humans mingle, brushing shoulders in the street, falling in love, even having children. No one dies a good death.
Strange Beasts is Jeremy Tiang's translation of Yan Ge's original novel 异兽志, and published by Tilted Axis Press who have blazed a trial in translations of Asian literature and for cultural diversity generally. Yan Ge, who now lives in Norfolk, has switched to writing in English in the last few years, but this work dates back to 2006.
One of Tilted Axis's novel's signature features is a brief introduction explaining the meaning of a key word in the original text, and here the original word behind "beasts" we are told was "originally used to describe the act of hunting [..but..] shifted over time to the object of the hunt, the prey" and now "denotes the absence of humanity, and carries the connotations of savagery and wildness."
The novel is set in the fictional city of Yong’an, and takes the form of a bestiary, with 9 chapters each introducing us to one of the beasts that lives in the city. There is a certain irony in the choice of the term used in the original, since in many respects the beasts are like humans, and even in their stark differences represent stylised aspects of our urban society. The first breed of beast introduced is the 'sorrowful beasts' and the following is typical of the way this is done in the novel, with the colourful descriptions and anthropology ("other than that, they’re just like regular people" something of a regular refrain).
Sorrowful beasts are gentle by nature, and prefer the cold and dark. They love cauliflower and mung beans, vanilla ice cream and tangerine pudding. They fear trains, bitter gourd and satellite TV.
The males of the species are tall, with large mouths and small hands, scales on the insides of their left calves and fins attached to their right ears. The skin around their belly buttons is dark green. Other than that, they’re just like regular people.
The females are beautiful—slender figures with reddish skin, long, narrow eyes, ears a little larger than normal. For three days at the full moon, they lose the ability of human speech and squawk like birds instead. Otherwise, they’re just like regular people.
Sorrowful beasts never smile. If they do, they can’t stop—not until they die. Hence their name ... Legend has it that a sorrowful beast’s smile is so beautiful, no one who sees it could ever forget it. But no matter how many jokes you tell them, they never laugh, let alone smile.
This makes the loveliness of the female beasts all the more to be prized and pitied, and the tycoons of Yong’an City take pride in marrying them—the females can mate with people and produce human offspring. The males can’t do this, and so Leye Estate is filled with desolate bachelors, while the ladies end up in the wealthy district to the south, having fled so fast their feet barely touched the ground, their faces like ice.
At one point, the city’s zoologists raised an outcry in the newspapers: if things went on like this, these rare creatures would surely go extinct. And so the government passed a law: sorrowful beasts could only marry their own kind. If they wished to couple with a human, special permission would be required, and could only be balloted for once every five years.
As a result, having a beast-wife became an even greater status symbol, and the extra demand from the elite greatly increased the government’s revenue.
Typically in each story, it transpires that the accepted zoology as set out at the start of each chapter, particularly the behavioural aspects, is misleading and the truth is very different.
The different chapters can rather read as "rinse and repeat" variations on the a theme and indeed I understand these were originally serialised as separate, albeit related, pieces.
To the extent they come together, it is largely in the narrator's own life and what she discovers about origins as she encounters the beasts. She is a former, and failed, zoology student who then made a successful career writing (somewhat trashy) romance novels. She also writes a newspaper column about food and drink. But recently has decided to combine her novelistic career and former studies to write the stories of the various beasts.
The novel's style, I think deliberately parodies cheap romance novels, so that her own life is rather tangled, with other key characters including her former zoology professor, the leading expert on beasts (who, mysteriously she never actually physically meets in the novel, Zhang Liang, son of a rich businessman and a current student of the professor who acts as his intermediary, and who is somewhat in love with the narrator, and her friendly Charley, a socialite and gossip merchant (I was at University where I first met Charley. I’d bump into him in the zoology department. He was neither a student nor a teacher, just a weirdo who always sat in the back row of the lab, looking like he wanted to laugh as he watched me carrying out my experiments.). All four, including the narrator, prove to have deeper connections with the beasts than the reader, and in some cases they, might have suspected.
It all makes for a fun if not, at surface level, terribly profound read, although Alywnne's insightful review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - brings out links with Chinese literature, and this is certainly a novel that feels very different to typical Anglophone literature.
3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
February 28, 2023
mocne 4.5! ✨ „kroniki dziwnych bestii” dzięki swojej oryginalności i lekkości zostają jednym z moich ulubionych tajfunów.
March 4, 2022
I’m not sure how long have I had this on my TBR. But I have long enjoyed books that are off the beaten track, and this fit my type to a T. Strange, certainly, and melancholic, and unsettling and beautiful, I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fresh and surreal read.
Although each chapter opens and closes the same way and each follows a different beast, they are all connected by the story of the unnamed writer researching them and writing their stories. And, perhaps, discovering a few secrets about herself and her family in the process. It’s a wonderfully layered structure for a story and I adored it.
As with most literary SFF, it’s heavy on vibes, relatively light on plot. One thing I wasn’t a huge fan of how poorly everyone treated the narrator, especially in the first few chapters, but in the end, it was not a dealbreaker.
Highly recommended to fellow enjoyers of weird stories.
Enjoyment: 4/5
Execution: 5/5
Recommended to: anyone looking for something surreal and unsettling
Not recommended to: those who don’t like books that are light on plot
Content warnings: body horror, suicide
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
Although each chapter opens and closes the same way and each follows a different beast, they are all connected by the story of the unnamed writer researching them and writing their stories. And, perhaps, discovering a few secrets about herself and her family in the process. It’s a wonderfully layered structure for a story and I adored it.
Death began sprouting in every baby’s body, and took a human lifetime to reach maturity. By the time it flowered, all its energy was spent.The beasts themselves are eerie in the way of “almost human-looking but not really human” and a lot of them turn out to be quite dangerous. I’m not entirely sure I’d categorise the book as horror, but at some points it at least approached it. There’s certainly more than one body horror scene. Still, it was interesting, and I eagerly awaited the twist of each chapter.
As with most literary SFF, it’s heavy on vibes, relatively light on plot. One thing I wasn’t a huge fan of how poorly everyone treated the narrator, especially in the first few chapters, but in the end, it was not a dealbreaker.
Highly recommended to fellow enjoyers of weird stories.
Enjoyment: 4/5
Execution: 5/5
Recommended to: anyone looking for something surreal and unsettling
Not recommended to: those who don’t like books that are light on plot
Content warnings: body horror, suicide
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
February 28, 2024
Too beautiful, from the very first page I couldn't believe I was reading something so magical. I can't express into words how I felt while reading this, but my imagination was running wild, and I felt like I never read anything like this before. fantasy, sci-fi, horror, romance...? All in one? And so imaginative and poetic... amazing <3
September 30, 2021
DNF @ 40%
The premise is interesting and I sort of liked the first story, but it's been downhill from there. Sub-par writing/translation, incomplete world-building and seriously depressing characters. I was trying to stick it out since it's such a short book but it's just not enjoyable.
The premise is interesting and I sort of liked the first story, but it's been downhill from there. Sub-par writing/translation, incomplete world-building and seriously depressing characters. I was trying to stick it out since it's such a short book but it's just not enjoyable.
Read
January 23, 2022I can't do a proper review here, because I didn't understand the book. I don't know if the translation wasn't very good, or if it was so reliant on cultural references and wordplay that it would be tremendously difficult to translate well, but whichever it was, what I got from this was the story of a poor journalist/novelist with an abusive and invasive professor and a drinking problem who was writing what I'm sure were metaphors for real life struggles, but mostly seemed to end in suicide.
Indeed, the focus on suicide and self mutilation was what seemed to me the central theme--a sort of rending or rendering of the adolescent Chinese mindset where it seemed everyone saw themselves as wrong in some way. That, and of course the somewhat aggressive allegory for what it might mean to be "civilized" and how governments may enforce civility.
I'd love to have someone who is fluent in Chinese language and customs to read this and share their thoughts!
CONTENT WARNING:
Indeed, the focus on suicide and self mutilation was what seemed to me the central theme--a sort of rending or rendering of the adolescent Chinese mindset where it seemed everyone saw themselves as wrong in some way. That, and of course the somewhat aggressive allegory for what it might mean to be "civilized" and how governments may enforce civility.
I'd love to have someone who is fluent in Chinese language and customs to read this and share their thoughts!
CONTENT WARNING:
August 2, 2023
Czyszczę czytane książki.
Przykro mi bardzo, ale DNF w połowie. Jeśli nie jestem w stanie się zmusić do powrotu do tego od trzech miesięcy, to znak, że to nie dla mnie.
Przykro mi bardzo, ale DNF w połowie. Jeśli nie jestem w stanie się zmusić do powrotu do tego od trzech miesięcy, to znak, że to nie dla mnie.
Read
April 3, 2021I think it's probably all a very clever metaphor for something. Not my sort of thing.
April 24, 2023
Może się wydawać, że bestię są tajemnicą do odkrycia, ale ta historia kryje ciekawsze i mroczniejsze tajemnice.
Przeciekawa historia, świat i postacie są całkiem dobrze zbudowane, dałam się wchłonąć. Tylko dialogi chwilami były dla mnie dziwaczne.
Dla mnie to coś kompletnie innego od reszty Tajfunów, które czytałam.
Przeciekawa historia, świat i postacie są całkiem dobrze zbudowane, dałam się wchłonąć. Tylko dialogi chwilami były dla mnie dziwaczne.
Dla mnie to coś kompletnie innego od reszty Tajfunów, które czytałam.
March 16, 2023
Wahałam się czy dać 3⭐️ czy 4⭐️, bo choć motyw z bestiami bardzo mi się podobał (a moje przypuszczenia co do tego, czego bestie są metaforą, się sprawdziły), zwłaszcza w pierwszych rozdziałach, tak reszta powieści, a zwłaszcza zachowanie bohaterów - nie do końca. Ta agresja bohaterów względem siebie była dla mnie dziwna. Ale po przeczytaniu posłowia uświadomiłam sobie, że ta książka nie zasługuje na zaniżenie oceny. W ogóle bardzo polecam czytać posłowia/wstępy w książkach Tajfunów, bo pozwalają zupełnie inaczej spojrzeć na (prze)czytany tytuł.
December 15, 2022
Book Discussion - https://youtu.be/5LT-bOx1BbM
Actual Rating: 4.5/5
This book is tailor made for me and my tastes but I don't think I realized that until I read it. I think episodic stories are a narrative form that I am really attracted to and that's what is in this story. Each chapter is about a different monster and how the narrator interacted with/learned more about that species. And like an episodic tv season there is an overarching meta plot that picks up in importance by the end of the story. I read a chapter of this a day up until the end and loved slowly consuming this work that way. Even though there are a lot of heavy/somber themes it had a cozy quality to me where I got to check in with the same characters and learn a new part of the world each chapter, that formula was extremely comfortable and something I could look forward to each day. That all said I totally get why this book wouldn't work for everyone. Its a bit confusing at time, figuring out "the point" of the work might stop people from just getting lost in the world and if you found this boring I think that's a valid experience. But for me I loved its project and how it approached the theme of "what makes us human and what makes us a beast". So if anything I said is one of your buzz words you have to try it out!
Actual Rating: 4.5/5
This book is tailor made for me and my tastes but I don't think I realized that until I read it. I think episodic stories are a narrative form that I am really attracted to and that's what is in this story. Each chapter is about a different monster and how the narrator interacted with/learned more about that species. And like an episodic tv season there is an overarching meta plot that picks up in importance by the end of the story. I read a chapter of this a day up until the end and loved slowly consuming this work that way. Even though there are a lot of heavy/somber themes it had a cozy quality to me where I got to check in with the same characters and learn a new part of the world each chapter, that formula was extremely comfortable and something I could look forward to each day. That all said I totally get why this book wouldn't work for everyone. Its a bit confusing at time, figuring out "the point" of the work might stop people from just getting lost in the world and if you found this boring I think that's a valid experience. But for me I loved its project and how it approached the theme of "what makes us human and what makes us a beast". So if anything I said is one of your buzz words you have to try it out!
September 6, 2021
This wasn't bad by any means, but not what I had wanted it to be, making this a book that I had to drag myself through, constantly weighted down by its melancholy tone and its depressing characters.
Strange Beasts of China is a story of a cryptozoologist who is in the process of writing stories about Beasts. Not a big deal in the Chinese town in which the story is set, where monsters and hybrids live amongst humans. Each chapter focusses on a different type of beast, which gives this the structure of short stories that are loosely connected by characters and an overarching sense of plot.
The beasts themselves were mythical, fantastical and odd creatures. Yan Ge presents us a set of interesting ideas in forms of these beasts: there are those who are shape-shift, others who die when they smile. I liked some concepts better than others – maybe I'm too sceptical for this sort of magical realism, but for a novel that presents itself as grounded in reality, the existence of some of these beasts felt so nonsensical, though I assume that they were to represent different parts of the human psyche and other human experiences.
There's some commentary on urban life in here that felt quite staggering. The tone itself is so melancholic, everyone so miserable and angry with each other. I interpreted the decision to tell a story like this as criticism on how industrial cities overrode the natural world and created a space more alienating. However, what at first appeared whimsical and gave everything a hint of surrealism soon became a drag to read.
The structure was a nice idea, but lead to immense pacing problems. Forgive me for the comparison, but this honestly reminded me of early Pokémon episodes I watched as a kid, where the main character Ash just wouldn't learn and each episode felt like his entire brain had been reset. Similarly in here, where pretty much each chapter starts out with the protagonist visiting her favourite bar in order to meet new beasts. What would have worked as a single story becomes clumsy and repetitive in a novel, making several of these stories feel oddly same-y.
I appreciated the concept and I think if you're able to connect to the language and the general tone, you'll come to appreciate the ideas and the symbolism shared through this novel. I personally didn't manage to do that to the degree I would have liked to.
Strange Beasts of China is a story of a cryptozoologist who is in the process of writing stories about Beasts. Not a big deal in the Chinese town in which the story is set, where monsters and hybrids live amongst humans. Each chapter focusses on a different type of beast, which gives this the structure of short stories that are loosely connected by characters and an overarching sense of plot.
The beasts themselves were mythical, fantastical and odd creatures. Yan Ge presents us a set of interesting ideas in forms of these beasts: there are those who are shape-shift, others who die when they smile. I liked some concepts better than others – maybe I'm too sceptical for this sort of magical realism, but for a novel that presents itself as grounded in reality, the existence of some of these beasts felt so nonsensical, though I assume that they were to represent different parts of the human psyche and other human experiences.
There's some commentary on urban life in here that felt quite staggering. The tone itself is so melancholic, everyone so miserable and angry with each other. I interpreted the decision to tell a story like this as criticism on how industrial cities overrode the natural world and created a space more alienating. However, what at first appeared whimsical and gave everything a hint of surrealism soon became a drag to read.
The structure was a nice idea, but lead to immense pacing problems. Forgive me for the comparison, but this honestly reminded me of early Pokémon episodes I watched as a kid, where the main character Ash just wouldn't learn and each episode felt like his entire brain had been reset. Similarly in here, where pretty much each chapter starts out with the protagonist visiting her favourite bar in order to meet new beasts. What would have worked as a single story becomes clumsy and repetitive in a novel, making several of these stories feel oddly same-y.
I appreciated the concept and I think if you're able to connect to the language and the general tone, you'll come to appreciate the ideas and the symbolism shared through this novel. I personally didn't manage to do that to the degree I would have liked to.
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