A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo, Chatto & Windus (2007)
This is a charming and surprising book, but one that is also very frustrating to read (which is both a compliment and a complaint).
Note: It’s best to read this book in the voice of someone struggring with Engrish. If you do so, it becoming easier adopting the tone and the mindset of the protagonist. (In my immigrant-raised habit of taking what is said and written with entire seriousness and my snobbery about proper grammar and pronunciation, I was initially offended by the author’s choice to write in this broken voice, but then I saw that it couldn’t have been otherwise and, really, would have been false if written correctly.)
Like the best travel writing, this book immerses the protagonist in the culture she’s visiting, not as a tourist but an a true inhabitant. What results are amusing and sometimes quite mournful insights into culture and humanity. Her broken English belies her wisdom and awareness. But it is also about a girl who cannot go far enough from home to escape her insecurities.
In her not quite knowing how much she reveals in her confessions, the book presents an honest and stark portrayal of a girl-woman desperate for love, whether to escape her homeland or to escape her loneliness. I appreciated the stark honesty of her spoken words, as well as her jarring admission she wanted to isolate her lover from all his friends and to have him all for herself (which, to anyone aware of healthy relationships, can identify this as a pattern of a dangerous possessiveness).
My main complaint is that her initial connection to “you,” her English lover, is never convincingly established. They always seem to occupy different worlds, except perhaps when having sex. This is not a tale about meeting the right person at the wrong time or a tale of miscommunication due to language barriers or cultural differences. There is an inherent divide between the two lovers’ needs and goals.
While I was constantly baffled by her asking him if they should be together forever (when he states repeatedly that he’s a loner and can’t make any promises about future), perhaps this was more skillfully done than I’d first perceived. Interestingly, it seems “you” understood this, but “I,” the narrator, did not.
I was left very saddened by the story and I want to reread it one day, to determine which of my problems with the book were intentional choices on the writer’s part and which should simply have been better explained (like her lover’s not minding her moving in with her so suddenly, when he valued his personal space so much). But in the end, these are small complaints. I was very satisfied by this book and look forward to reading her other work. (3.5 out of five stars)
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