Notes of a Desolate Man
Winner of the coveted China Times Novel Prize, this postmodern, firstperson 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 Yaos death focuses Shaos 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 Yaos 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 allusionfrom Fellini and LviStrauss to classical Chinese poetryserves 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 Taiwans vivid and fragile existence on the periphery of mainland China. Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Lichun Lins masterful translation brings Chu Tienwens lyrical and inventive pastiche of political, poetic, and sexual desire to the Englishspeaking world.
Description
Winner of the coveted China Times Novel Prize, this postmodern, firstperson 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 Yaos death focuses Shaos 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 Yaos 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 allusionfrom Fellini and LviStrauss to classical Chinese poetryserves 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 Taiwans vivid and fragile existence on the periphery of mainland China. Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Lichun Lins masterful translation brings Chu Tienwens lyrical and inventive pastiche of political, poetic, and sexual desire to the Englishspeaking world.
