I honestly thought that I had first read this in grad school, around the time when I was first being introduced to the idea of uneven development and clashing belief systems (ie, an ostensibly “obsolete” or “primitive” belief that resurfaces, or persists, in a “modern” context) and to the translatability of tropes from westerns into other contexts (such as the West of Ireland). But it seems that this book wasn’t published until 2014, and I graduated in 2011. Huh. I guess I was just still excited to see those ideas and themes get played out in a different context (maybe I will always be excited by that?) — here, contemporary China, and the ritual of the corpse bride. The way the book plays with your expectations around time and setting is great — it’s genuinely hard to place, at first, and more than once there’s a feeling of discord, either the surprising intrusion of something that seems far too contemporary, or something that seems much older. The language, in the dialogue, is actually the most interesting aspect of this — it has the stilted quality of words that don’t fit together, but it works, because you sort of apprehend it as an awkward translation.
A big part of my appreciation for this book is really the artwork — gorgeous watercolors, with wonderful full-page landscapes. The novel takes its time, or at least it does for the first 3/4. The ending, as my students complained, does feel a bit rushed, and also overly tidy, especially now that we as a culture have grown rather more suspicious of how romance plots serve as cover for various kinds of bad behavior. And I get all that, but at the same time, it’s just such a winsome, charming story, and it does the western/romance thing so well, and the art is so cool. It’s got its problems, sure, but it’s a fun book, and great to teach.
Kasia Reads 