Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
NYRB Classics (2017), Edition: Main, 256 pages
Description
"Set in the post-martial-law era of 1990s Taipei, Notes of a Crocodile depicts the coming-of-age of a group of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university. Told through the eyes of an anonymous lesbian narrator nicknamed Lazi, Qiu Miaojin's cult classic novel is a postmodern pastiche of diaries, vignettes, mash notes, aphorisms, exegesis, and satire by an incisive prose stylist and countercultural icon. Afflicted by her fatalistic attraction to Shui Ling, an older woman who is alternately hot and cold toward her, Lazi turns for support to a circle of friends that includes the devil-may-care, rich-kid-turned-criminal Meng Sheng and his troubled, self-destructive gay lover Chu Kuang, as well as the bored, mischievous overachiever Tun Tun and her alluring slacker artist girlfriend Zhi Rou. Bursting with the optimism of newfound liberation and romantic idealism despite corroding innocence, Notes of a Crocodile is a poignant and intimate masterpiece of social defiance by a singular voice in contemporary Chinese literature"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member greeniezona
I'd never heard of this book before, but bought it based on NYRB classics, translated fiction, queer misfits, and I don't think I've read any authors from Taiwan before. Plus this cover is just fantastic. Still, I had very little in the way of expectations going in.
Now I am struggling to find a way
Have already acquired her other novel.
Now I am struggling to find a way
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to talk about it. Central to the story is the narrator, known to us only by the nickname Lazi, and her on-again off-again love with Shui Ling. Told from excerpts from ten notebooks Lazi wrote over a period encompassing what seems to be the last few years of high school (except she is no longer living at home?) through what seems to be a prestigious college -- as she struggles to figure out life and love (mostly love) with the help of a few other queer kids who all seem to be cut off from any larger, established LGBTQIA+ community and so are figuring things out in a vacuum with mostly only their self-doubts, fleeting obsessions, and the judgements of society at large to guid them. The fragmented run-on sentence above is somewhat indicative of the fragmented nature of the text, which sometimes shifts backwards and forwards in time and also sideways to a crocodile analogy in a way that is sometimes bewildering but no more so than it would be to live that way. Most of the characters involved seem to be academically gifted, analytical, obscure-reference making types instantly familiar to anyone who's ever been on a college campus. I couldn't help but love them all and fiercely wish for them to be scooped up by queer elders to share with them joy and radical acceptance.Have already acquired her other novel.
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LibraryThing member BrandieC
Those who follow my reviews know that translated fiction is one of my obsessions, so I was delighted to discover NYRB's reissue of the Taiwanese cult classic of queer literature, Notes of a Crocodile. Described by its translator Bonnie Huie as a "survival manual for teenagers, for a certain age
I must confess to being confused by the book's structure for a large chunk of its relatively modest length. Qiu Miaojin moves back and forth between two narratives, with their only connection being thematic. The first story is the one I was expecting from the publisher's description: that of "the coming-of-age of a group of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university." The second story provides the novel's title: a crocodile wearing a human suit, à la the dinosaurs in Eric Garcia's Anonymous Rex series, muses on how people vehemently advocate both for and against crocodiles, despite knowing nothing about them and not even realizing that at least one crocodile lives and works among them. At the risk of stating the obvious, the common theme is separation, isolation, and the tendency of some people to make authoritative statements about a group whose experiences they do not share:
"In the final analysis, our knowledge and understanding of crocodiles is but a microorganism on a fingernail. But in the customary practice of advanced nations, we will safeguard information within the grip of our metal jaws, holding on as if our lives depended on it."
Sound familiar?
Notes of a Crocodile concludes with a message which should be emblazoned on the blackboard in every classroom in the world, from preschool to university:
"The deeper you love, the deeper your compassion grows and the more you realize that the other suffers just as you do. When all is said and done, human civilization is ugly and cruel, and the only thing to do is to raze it to the ground so it becomes visible that kindredness is the one true constant in relationships."
Just imagine the world that might result.
This review was based on a free ARC provided by the publisher.
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when reading the right book can save your life," Notes of a Crocodile nevertheless has much to offer adults, particularly those who are cisgendered.I must confess to being confused by the book's structure for a large chunk of its relatively modest length. Qiu Miaojin moves back and forth between two narratives, with their only connection being thematic. The first story is the one I was expecting from the publisher's description: that of "the coming-of-age of a group of queer misfits discovering love, friendship, and artistic affinity while hardly studying at Taiwan's most prestigious university." The second story provides the novel's title: a crocodile wearing a human suit, à la the dinosaurs in Eric Garcia's Anonymous Rex series, muses on how people vehemently advocate both for and against crocodiles, despite knowing nothing about them and not even realizing that at least one crocodile lives and works among them. At the risk of stating the obvious, the common theme is separation, isolation, and the tendency of some people to make authoritative statements about a group whose experiences they do not share:
"In the final analysis, our knowledge and understanding of crocodiles is but a microorganism on a fingernail. But in the customary practice of advanced nations, we will safeguard information within the grip of our metal jaws, holding on as if our lives depended on it."
Sound familiar?
Notes of a Crocodile concludes with a message which should be emblazoned on the blackboard in every classroom in the world, from preschool to university:
"The deeper you love, the deeper your compassion grows and the more you realize that the other suffers just as you do. When all is said and done, human civilization is ugly and cruel, and the only thing to do is to raze it to the ground so it becomes visible that kindredness is the one true constant in relationships."
Just imagine the world that might result.
This review was based on a free ARC provided by the publisher.
Show Less
LibraryThing member saresmoore
I finally ended up bailing on this one. I tried and tried again, but I think it's just not for me. Perhaps too avant garde for my taste? There were some insightful and beautiful moments, to be sure, but mostly I found it dense with melancholic introspection and weird in an unappealing way.
Awards
Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize (Winner — 2018)
PEN Translation Prize (Longlist — 2018)
ALA Over the Rainbow Book List (Selection — Literature — 2018)
Language
Original language
Chinese
Original publication date
1994
Physical description
256 p.; 7.97 inches
ISBN
168137076X / 9781681370767
Local notes
Taiwan