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A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo

7 reviews

mmqin's review

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emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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messymimms's review

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informative reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

This book is a pretty original idea, it uses words in a fun way by writing in English through the lens of a Chinese speaker still grappling with the language.

When I picked it up off the shelf of a charity shop I had little to no interest in the story but was curious about how it would read, and thought it might be a fun way to spend an evening. Turns out, reading a book whose subject you’re not that interested in, just because it might be linguistically interesting is maybe not a vibe. I should have known this after all the years I fucked heavily with the Oulipo in French high school.

I trudged through it at a snail’s pace but knew it didn’t deserve to be DNF. It’s a fine book, it has some beautiful and lyrical moments, times where the clunky English is poetic. Like when describing a lighthouse, the narrator says: “It is totally alone, and solitude.” Yes! It is solitude! What a cool accidental-not-actually-accidental metaphor.

As someone who moved to another country when I was 8, then to another when I was 18, and as someone multilingual with multilingual friends, I enjoyed the representation of mistakes and messy language in the book. I enjoyed the narrator’s confusion: “Why the hell do you bother with tenses?!” And her mismatched phrasings. It felt oddly familiar, despite me having no knowledge of Chinese.

I also enjoyed learning bits about Chinese and China, that was fun. All of the little linguistic fun-facts sprinkled throughout the book really did it for me. And flipping through the book, you convincingly see the narrator’s language change, become more refined and at times more contrived, as she might say, “more noble.” You can hear her accent in your head, and almost hear her losing it throughout the novel as she talks “proper” english.

What I did not like: The man. The love interest. Useless! Unfortunate! I take back my previous review about not wanting to box myself into reading only queer stories! I take it back!

Not once did I find this man charming, sexy or appealing in any way. Not once did I understand the depths of Zhuang’s affections for him. Not once.

And that left a love-shaped hole in the book. A pretty big one. For that, I don’t think I can give it more than 3 stars.

My advice (exclusively to my self): read more sapphic books. Stay in your lane.

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