Reviews with content warning for Grief - Braised Pork

Braised Pork is a novel written in English by a Chinese author that is set in contemporary China. The plot is kicked off with the main character finding her husband drowned in their bathroom next to a picture that he drew of a fish man. Obviously the main character, Jia Jia, becomes obsessed with the fish man and has spiritual experiences about/with him. She journeys through China and Tibet to discover more about the fish man and his connection to her and to her husband’s death. There are emotional and situational resolutions for Jia Jia and other characters that bring them a lot of peace, but the narrative resolutions for the reader are secondary, I suppose—not absent because I didn’t find the ending lacking in anything at all. The narrative is resolved in a way that still leaves the reader with questions, which is something I really enjoyed about the book. In the grand tradition of magical realism, sometimes things just happen: Sometimes there’s a water dimension connected to our own that both takes from and gives to the people who encounter it.

While reading the book, I enjoyed and respected the writing style and narrative techniques overall, but I was occasionally bored and ready for the plot to move on. However, in the weeks since I finished it, I’ve thought about this book pretty regularly. The atmosphere and “locations” Yu created have sort of woven their way into my brain and come to the surface a lot. I don’t know why! It may be the way she explores grief, reality, food, intergenerational experiences, complex partner relationships, and, of course, water.

(I wrote this for a job application, but may as well preserve my thoughts here too)

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