Elsewhere. Oh baby, this is nowhere. Wish I was somewhere, over you. Those long forgotten lyrics are from Roxy Music's titled album, Flesh + Blood. The lyrics came storming back to me and stayed on REPEAT in my head because I read Yan Ge's Elsewhere. After reading Elswhere, the pun of the album title became apparent too.
If you like your literature content filled with the dark side of humanity and laced with gore and death lurking at every turn, and you want to experience it unfiltered through irritatingly nonchalant and vapid narrators, this book is for you. Elsewhere will make vegans and vegetarians rejoice in their dietary choices. That said, Yan Ge's stories are exquisitely written and each one is carefully crafted with complex themes. Yan Ge's writing is so engaging that the reader will keep turning the page to see what happens next. Elsewhere spans time from the 21st century and goes all the way back to the time of Confucius. Yan Ge delivers a very real, even surreal, experience of the respective time period in each story.
Hai highlights the wary and scheming scholars of Confucianism; Mother Tongue explores Chinese identity through the eyes of young Chinese nationals in the 21st century; How I fell in love with the well documented life of Alex Whelan - the most enjoyable and light-hearted of all the stories - shows how far FB obsession can go in a lonely person and, yes, death shows up there, too; In No time to write, a feckless young man named Cliona declares, I worship randomness and authors a 10-page prose on how his bulimia and his deteriorating mental state are affecting his relationships; Free Wandering is surreal tale of magic realism where a zombie discovers how to live again; Stockholm shows a new mother with constantly lactating breasts who craves adult experiences beyond parenting but takes the time to laugh at a closeted gay man's secret while showing one's nether regions to her best friend; When traveling in summer takes place over several months in China in 1095, when a retired minister who is sentenced to death by the Emperor has to find a way to save himself, those he loves, and his estate; Shooting a elephant is about a wistful Chinese newly wed living in Dublin with her Irish husband who, while bemoaning her lost honeymoon and recovering from a miscarriage, discovers she likes reading George Orwell; and, The little house is a voyeuristic look at amoral Chinese free thinkers who enjoy cannibalism and free love (who knew?). Yet, the underlying theme throughout the book is disappointment and that is why this book is disappointing, especially the characters' names.
If you like your literature content filled with the dark side of humanity and laced with gore and death lurking at every turn, and you want to experience it unfiltered through irritatingly nonchalant and vapid narrators, this book is for you. Elsewhere will make vegans and vegetarians rejoice in their dietary choices. That said, Yan Ge's stories are exquisitely written and each one is carefully crafted with complex themes. Yan Ge's writing is so engaging that the reader will keep turning the page to see what happens next. Elsewhere spans time from the 21st century and goes all the way back to the time of Confucius. Yan Ge delivers a very real, even surreal, experience of the respective time period in each story.
Hai highlights the wary and scheming scholars of Confucianism; Mother Tongue explores Chinese identity through the eyes of young Chinese nationals in the 21st century; How I fell in love with the well documented life of Alex Whelan - the most enjoyable and light-hearted of all the stories - shows how far FB obsession can go in a lonely person and, yes, death shows up there, too; In No time to write, a feckless young man named Cliona declares, I worship randomness and authors a 10-page prose on how his bulimia and his deteriorating mental state are affecting his relationships; Free Wandering is surreal tale of magic realism where a zombie discovers how to live again; Stockholm shows a new mother with constantly lactating breasts who craves adult experiences beyond parenting but takes the time to laugh at a closeted gay man's secret while showing one's nether regions to her best friend; When traveling in summer takes place over several months in China in 1095, when a retired minister who is sentenced to death by the Emperor has to find a way to save himself, those he loves, and his estate; Shooting a elephant is about a wistful Chinese newly wed living in Dublin with her Irish husband who, while bemoaning her lost honeymoon and recovering from a miscarriage, discovers she likes reading George Orwell; and, The little house is a voyeuristic look at amoral Chinese free thinkers who enjoy cannibalism and free love (who knew?). Yet, the underlying theme throughout the book is disappointment and that is why this book is disappointing, especially the characters' names.
