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While I was reading 'A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers' I thought I’d have lots to talk about in my review.The novel uses the sentence constructions of a Chinese protagonist (Zhuang or Z as she asks to be called for simplicity’s sake), who is learning English while staying in England on a student visa, so there’s the use of language to comment on. Xiaolu Guo uses the idea of someone coming from outside English culture to humorously critique what seems ordinary to those who are native to England, so I could talk about whether the humour is, or isn’t effective. At times Guo uses Z’s confusion over the way English people talk to expose deeper cultural differences and to make jabbing points about England’s inward focus. I found some of these comments exact and rather painful to look at, so I could talk a little about how effective/not effective the novel is at suggesting new ways of looking at English culture. Much of Z’s story revolves around her insecurity and her saddening encounters with men who are often disastrous for her, which could be interesting to pick at from a feminist point of view. And yet, to be honest I really can’t get up the interest to stir my hand and fully explore any of these issues.
I keep comparing Z’s narrative voice to that of Charlie in Chris Cleave’s ‘Little Bee’, because it drove me nuts for much the same reason. Like Charlie, Z’s narrative voice is deliberately naïve; the voice of an ingénue, who appears unaware of the way much of what she says will strike the reader, or the people around her. However, Z’s comments often double as profound cultural commentary, because ‘A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers’ is a novel that wants to achieve several artistic objectives, including awakening the British reader’s conscious to the contradictory nature of cultural commonplace. The wise nature of what Z is saying is concealed from her, by her own lack of understanding and is only fully accessible to the reader. This means the book sometimes feels self-consciously manicured in its break from regular spoken language. Z is manoeuvred into specific misunderstandings that teach the reader something about their unquestioning acceptance of cultural norms, rather than being allowed the freedom to have random misunderstandings that reflect no lesson back to the reader. While this isn’t a fault of the novel (many novels set up specific plot situations to explain particular cultural, or political points to readers) Z’s comments sometimes have a twee, cutesy feel to them as a result of this textual management.
Z’s lack of understanding of British culture is realistic, because she’s written as a Chinese peasant girl who has little knowledge of the world outside her village. Guo said in an interview that the book is based on diaries she kept when she first arrived in England and I’m not questioning her novel’s sense of realism. I’m just not a fan of innocent characters who keep delivering pearls of wisdom unknowingly. I much prefer characters that start off with limited knowledge, or access to expression, but then begin to puzzle out things in their own consciousness (I’m especially thinking of D J Schwenk, from ‘Dairy Queen’).
In the end Z’s naïve way of speaking, which is necessarily manipulated to give Z’s narrative wider significance, left me feeling estranged from her story and her character. I think the technique of a novel can be interesting to examine, even if I don’t really enjoy the experience of reading that novel. However, without feeling some kind of connection to Z’s character I find that my current mood keeps me from being really interested in such an undertaking. Instead I’ll link you to a couple of reviews that I found very interesting, where the reviewers get on with the work I'm too lazy to do:
Eve’s Alexandria
Torque Control
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