Xiaolu Guo — A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers
Since graduating from the Beijing Film School, Xiaolu Guo has directed and produced award-wining documentaries, written six novels in Chinese, which have been short-listed and nominated for various long-titled literature awards, has a screenplay in development with the Sundance Institution and in 2002 won a scholarship from the British Film Council to study at the National Film School. And now, the publication of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers sees her writing for the first time directly into English. In other words, Miss Guo is a busy little bee indeed!
But is she spreading herself a little thin perhaps? I’m still undecided. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is, at times, an enjoyable book, but it can also be frustrating and sometimes outright annoying.
The first thing you will notice is the deliberately broken English. The novel’s protagonist, Zhuang Xiao Qiao, or Z as we come to know her due to us ignorant westerners’ inability to pronounce her real name (though she never seems to explain how to) is on a plane from Beijing to London to learn English. Organised in the style of a diary, Z’s early narration is typically ungrammatical: “I standing in most longly and slowly queue…” and “I scared by cars because they seems coming from any possible directing.” Using a foreign character’s naivety in regard to the English language seems a popular device of late, think Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated or Marina Lewycka’s A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. It is an effective way of creating both comedy, in seeing others misunderstand our sometimes-paradoxical language, and empathy, feeling sympathy for the alienation it might cause the character. But over used, as it sometimes feels here, and inconsistent (such as one minute correctly using ‘your face’ and then a sentence later seeming to forget immediately and use ‘you hair’) it can become annoying and disrupt the reading.
Miss Guo’s real skill is not Z’s barbarous English (is easy to writing bad englishes) but her observations of the alien cities she visits, which would be effective regardless of dialectal tricks. Sometimes humorous “As soon as I arriving London, I look around the sky but no any fogs,” sometimes insightful into the oddities of our culture “When I return from Nuttington House from my tourism visiting, reception lady tell me: “Very cold today, isn’t it?” But why she tell me? I know this information, and now is too late, because I finish my tourism visiting, and I wet and freezing,” it is these observations that afford the novel one of its attractions.
Another example of Miss Guo seeming to overwrite unnecessarily can be found in her use of a number of almost meta-fictional asides. The second page of the novel warns “Nothing in this book is true, except for the love between her and him.” I don’t want to be told this thanks. Nothing in this work of fiction is true or at least if it is, then we need to have a philosophical chat about truth within fiction, and no where in the novel does Miss Guo expand on her views of the truth of fiction. Around 180 pages in, well exactly 180 pages in, there is an ‘Editor’s translation’ of a previous chapter written in Chinese. The decoding of these alien symbols tells of Z’s irritation at having to use this broken English, how she wished she could write in Chinese and explain her feelings properly. Hey, if you want to, why don’t you? Nobody is making you struggle to navigate our language. We have people (your ‘Editor’ for one) who can translate for you. Of course, she has chosen to write in English perhaps to help her learn, perhaps because her author has learnt and is using her knowledge of the language and her understanding of the mistakes made by people learning it to enhance Z as a character for the reader. But the placement of this suspicious ‘Editor’s Translation’ is not needed, it seems a literary flourish for the sake of literary flourishes, it seems a disclaimer and personally I think it is superfluous, causing more ill than illumination.
The ‘him’ referred to earlier is Z’s love interest: a forty-something bisexual drifter. As much as the novel is a story about Z’s learning, it is also a story of her relationship with this strange, unnamed (at least I can’t remember a name?), middle-aged Hackney resident. Through him she learns more about the English language, English culture and what Z assumes, English love. The man though seems to be the embodiment of an English term Z is not familiar with: ultimately I came away with the conclusion that, at heart, he is a bit of a ‘wanker’. I can’t help but think if Z had had the fortune to stumble across, instead, a decent young chap, the novel would be a different story altogether. I extend my sympathies to you Z and hope your author has had better luck.
The guy does however enable Miss Guo to really begin to write, as he sends Z on a mission around Europe to discover what it is like to be alone, to spend time with yourself. And it is from this point that the novel shines. The broken English by now has lessened and Z’s adventures, her whirlwind tour of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Ireland is full of insightful observations, moving set pieces and interesting life-lessons. Returning to England and her ‘lover’ Z is able to end the novel with grace and beauty, and it is this latter half of the novel that begs the reader to persevere, ignoring any earlier reservations and follow the novel to its conclusion.
I haven’t mentioned the sex. There’s a lot of it. Porn mags, peep shows, the loss of Z’s virginity, days and nights spent shagging and nothing more. Europe is littered with perverse encounters and a strange but poignant half-rape. I haven’t mentioned it because I am mildly worried about my own perception of Asian writers. Though I love his work, I came away from Haruki Murakami thinking: to be honest mate you’re a bit of dirty old man really, aren’t you. And I was in danger, throughout Miss Guo’s novel, of thinking the same of her, though obviously she isn’t a dirty old man, a dirty youngish woman, a successful, talented youngish woman, but dirty all the same. I leave it at that, don’t be put off by it but just know I warned you.
A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers is a good book. It could be more concise and it might not be the best guide for people who require a translation of the language between lovers should they find themselves in a Chinese/English relationship. But it is a start. When going to a foreign country it is always best to read around, don’t take the interpretation of just one guide book, it might limit your outlook, but have a read of it anyway because, within any guide, there are always a few bits of good advice, some interesting insights into the local culture and a host of beautiful images. Is my metaphors explaining you right?
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Glenn Fisher was born in Grimsby, in a county that no longer exists, in 1981. After working in local government since leaving college in 1997, he took very early retirement in 2004. He is currently studying on the Professional Writing degree course at the Grimsby Institute.
