Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2014), 176 pages
Description
"An NYRB Classics Original Last Words from Montmartre is a novel in letters that narrates the gradual dissolution of a relationship between two lovers and, ultimately, the complete unraveling of the narrator. In a voice that veers between extremes, from self-deprecation to hubris, compulsive repetition to sublime reflection, reticence to vulnerability, it can be read as both the author's masterpiece and a labor of love, as well as her own suicide note. Last Words from Montmartre, written just as Internet culture was about to explode, is also a kind of farewell to letters. The opening note urges us to read the letters in any order. Each letter unfolds as a chapter, the narrator writing from Paris to her lover in Taipei and to family and friends in Taiwan and Tokyo. The book opens with the death of a beloved pet rabbit and closes with a portentous expression of the narrator's resolve to kill herself. In between we follow Qiu's protagonist into the streets of Montmartre; into descriptions of affairs with both men and women, French and Taiwanese; into rhapsodic musings on the works of Theodoros Angelopoulos and Andrei Tarkovsky; and into wrenching and clear-eyed outlines of what it means to exist not only between cultures but, to a certain extent, between and among genders. More Confessions of a Mask than Well of Loneliness, the novel marks Qiu as one of the finest experimentalist and modernist Chinese-language writers of our generation"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member DieFledermaus
I probably shouldn’t have finished this book. It didn’t get better and was quite repetitive. At least it was short, but it was a slog even to finish that. The book is a series of letters from the narrator to their ex-lover Xu. Supposedly, a reader should be able to read them in any order –
The letters open with the narrator bemoaning the loss of a relationship and the death of their co-pet rabbit, Bunny. At first, it was okay, if not particularly new. The relationship is described in very vague terms. I suppose this could be deliberate, but it just made me not care at all. The narrator harps on the fact that Xu cheated in the past, but only alludes to their own violent, destructive behavior. Later, they do mention in an offhanded way that they hit Xu during the relationship. There’s a lot of clichéd, high-flown talk about how their spirits are in harmony and how the narrator can never love anyone else. This really felt like teenage-level angst. The letters seem to have been sent to Xu, but she doesn’t respond and her family refuses to pass along messages or let the narrator talk to her. The narrator’s thoughts are extremely condescending and entitled. There is talk about how Xu doesn’t know what she wants and is not mature yet (when she does become mature, obviously she will want the narrator again). Xu is not the “real” Xu, since clearly the real Xu would do whatever the narrator wanted. The narrator claims they would leave Xu alone if that was what she wanted, but since the narrator knows better than Xu what she wants, that will never have to happen. Really, really sounds like stalker logic. Also, there is nonstop quoting, of words that don’t need to be in quotes. It’s like the author just recently discovered that “air quotes” are a “thing”. In the introduction, it is mentioned how raw and ugly the author’s thoughts are. I’m sure plenty of people have all sorts of ugly and overdramatic thoughts with dashes of “stuff learned from a philosophy class” about their “one true love” that they put down on paper, but I don’t need to read them. Of course some of this could be the translation, but I can’t imagine the original is much better.
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which I thought meant there would be some metafictional concept, but instead it meant random stories about the narrator’s life and lots and lots of pseudo-philosophizing and entitled, creepy whining about the relationship. Occasionally the narrator changes sex, but I don’t think this altered how I read the irritating bits – the whining would be creepy if it was coming from a heterosexual man or a lesbian. There are a few glimpses of LGBT life in France in the early 90’s and those provided slight hints of a possibly interesting, non-rambling story but there were too few and they were too short and undeveloped. Also, there was excessive quotation overuse. The letters open with the narrator bemoaning the loss of a relationship and the death of their co-pet rabbit, Bunny. At first, it was okay, if not particularly new. The relationship is described in very vague terms. I suppose this could be deliberate, but it just made me not care at all. The narrator harps on the fact that Xu cheated in the past, but only alludes to their own violent, destructive behavior. Later, they do mention in an offhanded way that they hit Xu during the relationship. There’s a lot of clichéd, high-flown talk about how their spirits are in harmony and how the narrator can never love anyone else. This really felt like teenage-level angst. The letters seem to have been sent to Xu, but she doesn’t respond and her family refuses to pass along messages or let the narrator talk to her. The narrator’s thoughts are extremely condescending and entitled. There is talk about how Xu doesn’t know what she wants and is not mature yet (when she does become mature, obviously she will want the narrator again). Xu is not the “real” Xu, since clearly the real Xu would do whatever the narrator wanted. The narrator claims they would leave Xu alone if that was what she wanted, but since the narrator knows better than Xu what she wants, that will never have to happen. Really, really sounds like stalker logic. Also, there is nonstop quoting, of words that don’t need to be in quotes. It’s like the author just recently discovered that “air quotes” are a “thing”. In the introduction, it is mentioned how raw and ugly the author’s thoughts are. I’m sure plenty of people have all sorts of ugly and overdramatic thoughts with dashes of “stuff learned from a philosophy class” about their “one true love” that they put down on paper, but I don’t need to read them. Of course some of this could be the translation, but I can’t imagine the original is much better.
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LibraryThing member greeniezona
I stumbled on this at the library, and because I liked Notes of a Crocodile so much, I had to check it out. (Especially because it was #witmonth.)
As in Crocodile, Miaojin writes with a kind of heavy mistiness, where you can feel the full weight of all the emotion happening -- even if you can't
I don't know how anyone who remembers what it was like to be young and heartbroken, rationalizing and overthinking, making grandiose statements in their diary, can fail to be moved by this book. It's beautiful and tragic, always so heartfelt. As a Westerner, I can't help wondering what Miaojin would have done/written/become, had she not committed suicide -- the knowledge of which permeates this book -- even as it is complicated by the different cultural meanings of suicide -- both in terms of East/West and the sometimes romanticization of depression and suicide among the creative class -- artists, writers, filmmakers, some of whom are referenced in this book.
Haunting, intimate, amazing.
As in Crocodile, Miaojin writes with a kind of heavy mistiness, where you can feel the full weight of all the emotion happening -- even if you can't
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always make out exactly who is feeling it or about whom. The book claims that the letters can be read in any order, and though I read them in the order in which they were presented, there remained a kind of shiftiness where it wasn't always clear which events happened in what order. These aren't necessarily criticisms, because the feeling is, as always, what seems important here.I don't know how anyone who remembers what it was like to be young and heartbroken, rationalizing and overthinking, making grandiose statements in their diary, can fail to be moved by this book. It's beautiful and tragic, always so heartfelt. As a Westerner, I can't help wondering what Miaojin would have done/written/become, had she not committed suicide -- the knowledge of which permeates this book -- even as it is complicated by the different cultural meanings of suicide -- both in terms of East/West and the sometimes romanticization of depression and suicide among the creative class -- artists, writers, filmmakers, some of whom are referenced in this book.
Haunting, intimate, amazing.
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LibraryThing member encephalical
I feel like I've been through the wringer, which, was possibly the intent.
LibraryThing member stillatim
An astoundingly odd book, and not necessarily in a good way. The translator (and publisher) makes great claims for Qiu's text, and in some ways they're completely justified. This is a novel in a great tradition stretching back at least to Goethe's Werther: an utterly sincere discussion, in
On the other hand, Qiu was only 26 when she killed herself. Gentle reader, consider yourself at 26, and now imagine yourself roughly twice as smart as you were. Do you want to read a book written by that ultra-smart version of yourself? How much stomach do you have for naked emotion disguised as intellectual depth? In order to get to the interesting discussion-with-a-tradition stuff, through how much Hallmark greeting card meets self-help malarkey about true souls and fate and ineradicable connections are you willing to wade?
Well, fear not, because if nothing else this is pretty short, and you can roll your eyes past the truly atrocious bits--or, as I found myself doing, appreciating just how unpleasant it is to be in one's early twenties, intellectual, and have a well-honed sense of the world's injustice (against yourself). Because Qiu captures this exceedingly well. Now my stern aesthetic philosophy voice kicks in with "well yes, but if the author is just *doing* something, rather than *reproducing it ironically*, how much praise can you give?" I have no answer for this. I did not enjoy the "this is how it feels to be 26, single, and aggrieved." I did not enjoy the sensation that, if our letter writer had been male, reviewers would all have pointed out that he was an incredibly creepy, borderline stalker, psychopath. I did not enjoy the boredom and pain induced by a book that harps constantly on some injustice, but never tells us what it is, and leaves me suspecting that there was no more injustice involved here than there is in the life of most young lovers.
And yet I was very happy to read the book. Qiu is exceptionally talented, which becomes obvious in one scene--a scene other reviewers have pointed to. An older woman picks up our letter writer, and they go to the Seine; the description of this scene, plus the eerie calm at the book's conclusion, make it well worth reading. And if nothing else, it's a great book to argue about: how much praise, after all, does someone deserve for doing what everyone does, and writing it down? And would this even be in print if Qiu were still alive?
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epistolary form, of love and one's authentic self. As well as the literary tradition, Qiu's letter-writer is deeply invested in high art film and late twentieth century French theory, and productively brings them both into her story. On the other hand, Qiu was only 26 when she killed herself. Gentle reader, consider yourself at 26, and now imagine yourself roughly twice as smart as you were. Do you want to read a book written by that ultra-smart version of yourself? How much stomach do you have for naked emotion disguised as intellectual depth? In order to get to the interesting discussion-with-a-tradition stuff, through how much Hallmark greeting card meets self-help malarkey about true souls and fate and ineradicable connections are you willing to wade?
Well, fear not, because if nothing else this is pretty short, and you can roll your eyes past the truly atrocious bits--or, as I found myself doing, appreciating just how unpleasant it is to be in one's early twenties, intellectual, and have a well-honed sense of the world's injustice (against yourself). Because Qiu captures this exceedingly well. Now my stern aesthetic philosophy voice kicks in with "well yes, but if the author is just *doing* something, rather than *reproducing it ironically*, how much praise can you give?" I have no answer for this. I did not enjoy the "this is how it feels to be 26, single, and aggrieved." I did not enjoy the sensation that, if our letter writer had been male, reviewers would all have pointed out that he was an incredibly creepy, borderline stalker, psychopath. I did not enjoy the boredom and pain induced by a book that harps constantly on some injustice, but never tells us what it is, and leaves me suspecting that there was no more injustice involved here than there is in the life of most young lovers.
And yet I was very happy to read the book. Qiu is exceptionally talented, which becomes obvious in one scene--a scene other reviewers have pointed to. An older woman picks up our letter writer, and they go to the Seine; the description of this scene, plus the eerie calm at the book's conclusion, make it well worth reading. And if nothing else, it's a great book to argue about: how much praise, after all, does someone deserve for doing what everyone does, and writing it down? And would this even be in print if Qiu were still alive?
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LibraryThing member slplst
Despite the pretension and obtuseness it's beautiful and honest and cutting in many ways I think.
Awards
Lambda Literary Award (Finalist — 2015)
Best Translated Book Award (Longlist — 2015)
Language
Original language
Chinese
Original publication date
1995
Physical description
176 p.; 4.99 inches
ISBN
1590177258 / 9781590177259